Good 17" Gaming/Development Laptop

[martay72]

Hi,

I'm looking to buy a new laptop to replace my several-years-old 17" Dell and was aiming for something around the £800 mark, for a 17" machine suitable for games (FSX, Skyrim, Rome Total War 2 & Sims 3) as well as development (Eclipse & Visual Studio) - presuming something that can handle those will be more than capable of general web surfing!

With the spec below I've gone plenty over my initial budget, so I'm wondering if I've over-specced or under-budgeted

Any feedback or suggestions would be gratefully received


Chassis & Display
Optimus Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
12GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (3 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M - 2.0GB DDR5, 640 CUDA Cores - DirectX® 11
1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Wireless/Wired Networking
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD + BT 3.0 (AW-NB057H)
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Cable
1 x UK Power Lead & 120W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 8.1 (64-bit) Professional DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language
OPTIMUS SERIES UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days

 

[mantadog]

I would say under budgeted rather than over specced. if anything I would say it is still a little underpowered in the GPU department.

If I were you I would ditch the 240GB SSD (as nice as it is) and think about spending that cash on a scorpio black + whatever you can afford into the GPU.

If you could do that I think you would have a better overall experience. Although the SSD will help with loading times etc, with such a low budget it is perhaps a bit extravagant.

 

[A314159]

Silver warranty

 

[martay72]

Thanks for the replies.

A314159 - something I'd overlooked, and for a couple of extra £ definitely worth it, thanks


mantadog - thanks for your advice; I had a feeling I was expecting a bit too much for my money.
I've had a look at tweaking my spec as you suggest and the Optimus doesn't offer any other graphics cards so it looks like I'd need to go with the Skyfire (NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 870M - 3.0GB DDR5).
With everything else as near as possible to equal, the chassis/GPU change adds £200ish to the cost, which seems like quite a large bump in price.

Bearing in mind that my current laptop (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 card, 4GB RAM and dual-core i3 processor) runs the games I want to play (albeit with the settings turned down a bit), I'm wondering if I'd notice the difference enough to justify the extra cost.

 

[A314159]

If you can push to £1k, get the vortex gt in the review section, then phone pcs to upgrade warranty.

 

[mantadog]

Hmm well, if that is the case then the 860m is about 6 times faster than the 5650 so your original spec will be just fine.

The 860m wont be making the latest titles, but it will play them just fine. By the sounds of it you are playing slightly older games so the 860m will be ample.

 

[martay72]

A314159 - unless I'm looking in the wrong place, the vortex gt is a 15" laptop? I really want to be getting a 17", as I find the full keyboard & numpad much easier to use (particularly for development). Thanks for the suggestion though.

mantadog - thanks again for your advice, and I think I'll go with what I had as it'll easily handle the games I have now and from the sound of it will be able to cope with newer titles even if I can't max-out the graphics settings for them.