sglee
asked on
Gaming Laptop
My son wants to buy a gaming laptop. I gave him a business grade Toshiba Laptop with i7 CPU, 12GB RAM, 1TB SATA HD, but whenever he runs these games such as League of Legends, counter strike, global offensive , h1z1 and dayz, my Toshiba laptops locks up, turn itself off (rarely), screen (video) updates slowly ... etc.
Then I learned that there are laptops specially designed for gamers and they are very expensive.
While looking thru different brands - DELL Alienware, MSI, ASUS, ACER and my favorite Toshiba.
I am comparing Toshiba Satellite S50-CST3GX2 Laptop against Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592G-71ZL.
They both have i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, SSD HD plus 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 with ACER, 4GB DDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950M with Toshiba.
Toshiba is $999 and ACER is $1,300
I am not familiar with gaming machines, but when comparing business grade laptops against gaming laptops, they are pretty much the same - CPU is CPU, HD is HD and RAM is RAM.
However it seems to be that these gaming laptops have additional part which is dedicated (embedded?) graphics card with 2GB - 4 GB.
I have been dealing with laptops Toshiba, HP, Dell, Lenovo laptops in the past for business use.
I can compare between them easily.
I just don't trust ACER or MSI or ASUS brands YET simply because they are new kids on the block "so to speak" in comparison to Toshiba, HP or DELL. But then Toshiba does not make a lot of gaming laptops either as much as I trust their quality and ability to support their products.
When I read reviews of these ACER, MSI or ASUS, buyers regret after seeing poor customer service or quality of materials or over heating issues ... etc.
What is your opinion?
Then I learned that there are laptops specially designed for gamers and they are very expensive.
While looking thru different brands - DELL Alienware, MSI, ASUS, ACER and my favorite Toshiba.
I am comparing Toshiba Satellite S50-CST3GX2 Laptop against Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Black Edition VN7-592G-71ZL.
They both have i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, SSD HD plus 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4 GB GDDR5 with ACER, 4GB DDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 950M with Toshiba.
Toshiba is $999 and ACER is $1,300
I am not familiar with gaming machines, but when comparing business grade laptops against gaming laptops, they are pretty much the same - CPU is CPU, HD is HD and RAM is RAM.
However it seems to be that these gaming laptops have additional part which is dedicated (embedded?) graphics card with 2GB - 4 GB.
I have been dealing with laptops Toshiba, HP, Dell, Lenovo laptops in the past for business use.
I can compare between them easily.
I just don't trust ACER or MSI or ASUS brands YET simply because they are new kids on the block "so to speak" in comparison to Toshiba, HP or DELL. But then Toshiba does not make a lot of gaming laptops either as much as I trust their quality and ability to support their products.
When I read reviews of these ACER, MSI or ASUS, buyers regret after seeing poor customer service or quality of materials or over heating issues ... etc.
What is your opinion?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Bradley Dorrance
Sure, gaming on a custom desktop rig is much better, but since the OP was specifically about gaming laptops, let's stay on topic.
ASKER
I know desktop is the best option from $$ standpoint except my son wants a mobility unfortunately.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
It seems to be that I can get a laptop that comes with 4GB or 2GB on the graphics card. Do they make that much of difference (4GB or 2GB) in playing games like: leagues of legends, counter strike, global offensive h1z1 and dayz .. etc?
Also as far as CPU goes, i7 runs that much faster than i5?
Of course I don't play games at tall and in business world, I have not seen much the difference between i3/5/7 CPUs when I run IE, Word/Excel ... I think SSD HD makes the most noticeable difference.
If i5 is just as good as i7 and 2GB ram on graphics card is just as good as 4GB ram, it saves $400.
Also as far as CPU goes, i7 runs that much faster than i5?
Of course I don't play games at tall and in business world, I have not seen much the difference between i3/5/7 CPUs when I run IE, Word/Excel ... I think SSD HD makes the most noticeable difference.
If i5 is just as good as i7 and 2GB ram on graphics card is just as good as 4GB ram, it saves $400.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
It appears, as MASQ put it, one can spend infinite amount of money on gaming laptops only to see 1 year later, what you bought became obsolete due to new GPU, CPU, SSD, so on and so forth.
What I am going to do is visit BESTBUY and have my son just pick on on a low end gaming laptop like this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-15-6-laptop-amd-fx-series-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/4577800.p?id=1219774252427&skuId=4577800
and try his games to find out how they run on this laptop. If he likes it, we will keep it. if not, we will try another one with higher price ... until he finds what satisfy his gaming needs.
What I am going to do is visit BESTBUY and have my son just pick on on a low end gaming laptop like this:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-15-6-laptop-amd-fx-series-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/4577800.p?id=1219774252427&skuId=4577800
and try his games to find out how they run on this laptop. If he likes it, we will keep it. if not, we will try another one with higher price ... until he finds what satisfy his gaming needs.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
To experts, thanks for your advise and I appreciate it.