$2000 gamer.

[maverick1989]

I had posted a very similar topic earlier but it was moved to the Sager area because I had mentioned a Sager I had in mind. I did not mean to say that is the one I wanted. I simply want suggestions. I have no dislikes (other than the preferences mentioned below). Anything that fits the bill will do.


What is your budget?
$2000 (WITH 3 year parts and labor)

What country will you be buying this in?
United States

What size notebook do you prefer?
Desktop Replacement (17-inch + screen)

Would you consider a refurbished laptop?
No

What are the primary tasks you need this notebook for?
Graphic Intense 3D Gaming

What games will you be playing?
FPS/3PS and some RTS.

Where will you be using this laptop?
Will stay on desk

How many hours of battery life do you need?
2

Will you be buying online or in store?
online

Which OS do you prefer?
Windows 7

List the screen resolutions that interest you:
Max Resolution (1920 x 1080)

Do you prefer a glossy or matte screen?
Glossy or Matte is fine

Is the laptops design important to you?
No

Approximately what date will you be buying this laptop?
Around 06/15/2012

How long do you want this laptop to last?
4 years

How much storage capacity do you need?
160 GB

Are you interested in SSD for storage?
Yes

Do you want a built-in optical drive, what type?
Blu-Ray

A couple of details I'd like to add as a footnote. I would appreciate it, if you guys can give reasons for your choices that are technical in nature. For example, the 3610qm is good enough, don't get the 3720 upgrade. Why? However, if you cannot or don't have the time, that is ok.

If I get the 120 or 180 SSD, do I really need another conventional to increase storage? I have a 1TB external that supports USB 3.0. I will not be having multiple games on there at once. I generally play a game, finish it, remove it and install the next. I might have two or three, no more.

Thank you.

[knight427]

I assume if you are looking at Sager/Clevo, you have also considered MSI and Alienware? Those would be the big gaming laptops. At certain price points, HP and Asus typically have some very competitive systems, but with Ivy Bridge currently released on paper only, it's pretty tough to shop around for options.

You probably aren't the right fit for it, but a Dell Precision M6600 with Firepro graphics would be a respectable gamer. What you lose in pure gaming power you gain in build quality and warrenty (3yr NBD on-site). But that's really a better solution for someone who wants to do both gaming and business. Also, you have to settle for Sandy Bridge since the M6700 isn't even announced yet.

To address your SSD question, I think you can answer your own question by looking at your current HDD. I think 120GB would be tight even if you don't take HD videos. But you might consider buying a HDD from the reseller and getting your own SSD. There are some great deals every week. On Friday, the Crucial M4 256GB was on sale at multiple retailers for $199!

About the CPU. Common wisdom says your CPU isn't terribly important on a gaming system. Most value gamers will go for an i5 or maybe the bottom rung quad-core. On a $2k build, I think you should have room for the 3720 in your budget. Also, when you go quad core, you usually get 4 ram slots on most 17" gamers. This means upgrading the RAM is much cheaper since you get to 8GB with 2GB sticks. Since you intend to keep this a while, you might see the day when you actually need more than 8GB to game, at which point you can get to 16GB on the cheap, or even up to 32GB (which by then shouldn't be too bad in price).

[maverick1989]

On a $2k build, I think you should have room for the 3720 in your budget.

LOL ironically, that is my problem. I configured a Sager and a Malibal and both went over 2k with the 3720 upgrade. I thought the 3720 would be a significant upgrade since the differences in clock speed are pretty big over the 3610. I wouldn't get the 3820 because you barely get an increase although there is a 2 MB jump on the L3. So you don't think the 3720 is necessary? I am planning to have it for four years at least and I do not want to go down on settings until the end of 2014.

[s2odin]

3610 is completely fine. Gaming is 90% GPU, no reason to spend money on a CPU upgrade when it can be spent on a 7970M.

[GearsPowered]

LOL ironically, that is my problem. I configured a Sager and a Malibal and both went over 2k with the 3720 upgrade. I thought the 3720 would be a significant upgrade since the differences in clock speed are pretty big over the 3610. I wouldn't get the 3820 because you barely get an increase although there is a 2 MB jump on the L3. So you don't think the 3720 is necessary? I am planning to have it for four years at least and I do not want to go down on settings until the end of 2014.

The 3610 still has a turbo frequency of 3.1ghz with all cores active.
That's pretty overkill to begin with.

[maverick1989]

The 3610 still has a turbo frequency of 3.1ghz with all cores active.
That's pretty overkill to begin with.

Okay thanks. Can anyone tell me, just for curiosity, where the higher clock speeds matter? For the same number of cores, of course.

Also, back to the topic, suggestions on laptops besides the ones mentioned by knight427? Those are a lot of options but I'm just trying to increase my options amap.

Also, I have heard some pretty poor things about Alienware's quality and the support you get from Dell. All this was on the internet so it could have very well been untrue. Does anyone have any experience with their customer support/build quality?

[misterhobbs]

The new Samsung Series 7 gaming laptop might fit your needs, though the ones I've seen don't come with SSD's. It probably wouldn't be super hard to buy one off newegg and toss it in. They are supposed to be selling with both the 675m and 7970m.

[maverick1989]

The new Samsung Series 7 gaming laptop might fit your needs, though the ones I've seen don't come with SSD's. It probably wouldn't be super hard to buy one off newegg and toss it in. They are supposed to be selling with both the 675m and 7970m.

Okay thank you. In my other post, people said that Sager warranties aren't void when you open the case. Is this true with all? Or only certain ones? I would assume that Samsung wouldn't want to touch the laptop if I opened it. Or is that not correct?

[Curs3]

Yes you cannot possibly meddle with the laptop in most of the brands except brands like Sager/Clevo where you do not void the warranty by just opening the laptop. The build of an Alienware is really good. There are exceptions in all brands but overall the Alienware are really good laptops. They are just over priced for the performance they offer in comparison to the other brands.

[Curs3]

Also if you can mention the specific games you are planning to play we may be better able to suggest you the GPU that you would require. You should be just fine with the 3610QM. No point in upgrading it unless you are gonna be performing benchmarking or are gonna run highly stressful applications that would make your CPU sweat.