Sherdog Official Gaming Laptop Discussion Thread (New Desktop-class NVIDIA 10 Series GPUs Available)

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sang12345

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Acer Aspire AS5755G-6823 Notebook Intel Core i5 2430M(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M

how are these specs?

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MADMICK'S EDIT:

Hey guys, another poster started a new thread asking for gaming laptop advice, so I finally decided to create this mega-thread by merging about a dozen and a half threads with the exact same question: starting with this one from 2012. Ergo, a lot of the information in here with be dated, but much of the fundamentals of these discussions will still apply to searches for the newest hardware, and you'll also be able to spot the posters who are highly experienced with high-end gaming laptops who can advise you (ex. Blayt7hh). This just makes all this information easier to reference. I'd merge this into the PC thread, but laptops are truly a separate beast.

Skip to the end to jump right into the most recent discussion about current laptops.
 
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It's pretty decent I'd say. The 540m is better than 90% of the laptop GPU's out there that aren't in actual gaming laptops. It's nothing blazing fast, but it should play most games fine with mediumish-high settings. You'd have to turn some settings down in a game like BF3, but most games should be fine.

I have an Alienware M17x that's a couple of years old with dual 4870m's. That GPU is about 2/3's of a 4870m, and I would think you'd be pretty happy with performance like that from a non-gaming laptop.
 
lmao dont get a acer man. Those are shit computers
 
Yeah that's a pretty decent laptop, should be able to play just about anything.
 
you'd prolly get more bang for your buck with a desktop, do u need to game on the go?

If not then go desktop so u can get better performance
 
McGillicutty said:
It's pretty decent I'd say. The 540m is better than 90% of the laptop GPU's out there that aren't in actual gaming laptops. It's nothing blazing fast, but it should play most games fine with mediumish-high settings. You'd have to turn some settings down in a game like BF3, but most games should be fine.

I have an Alienware M17x that's a couple of years old with dual 4870m's. That GPU is about 2/3's of a 4870m, and I would think you'd be pretty happy with performance like that from a non-gaming laptop.
Click to expand...

thats the old model right?
 
GhostZ06 said:
thats the old model right?
Click to expand...

My M17x? Yeah, mine is an R1, its a couple of generations old now, still runs everything pretty well though. BF3 is the first game that's made it feel old, i have to use a mix of medium/high settings. Skyrim runs well maxed out though, I was pretty happy about that.
 
How much are they looking for it, and what is your budget?
 
McGillicutty said:
My M17x? Yeah, mine is an R1, its a couple of generations old now, still runs everything pretty well though. BF3 is the first game that's made it feel old, i have to use a mix of medium/high settings. Skyrim runs well maxed out though, I was pretty happy about that.
Click to expand...

Since its brought up, I've been looking at an M17x for eons, how does a single 6990M stack up?

Its just the mobile thing thats throwing me off, they are a step down from the equivalent desktop model right?
Would a single 6990m be maxing out Old Republic and Diablo? Witcher 2 on like medium?

I'm bouncing back and forth between desktop and laptop. But I dont want to end up with a laptop with 1 video card that will be struggling in 2 years or whatever, when I could be getting a desktop with dual 6950's or whatever that would crush.

*bonus question along the same lines*
What are peoples opinions of modified versions of cards, like the HIS IceQ X, or MSI Twin Frozr III, etc.
Worth the little bit extra, waste of money, somewhere in between? Especially for dual cards.
 
Wand4Life said:
Since its brought up, I've been looking at an M17x for eons, how does a single 6990M stack up?

Its just the mobile thing thats throwing me off, they are a step down from the equivalent desktop model right?
Would a single 6990m be maxing out Old Republic and Diablo? Witcher 2 on like medium?

I'm bouncing back and forth between desktop and laptop. But I dont want to end up with a laptop with 1 video card that will be struggling in 2 years or whatever, when I could be getting a desktop with dual 6950's or whatever that would crush.

*bonus question along the same lines*
What are peoples opinions of modified versions of cards, like the HIS IceQ X, or MSI Twin Frozr III, etc.
Worth the little bit extra, waste of money, somewhere in between? Especially for dual cards.
Click to expand...

The 6990m is essentially an underclocked desktop 6870 GPU. It's probably roughly the same as a 6850 in speed. From what I've read, it can be overclocked a bit though without getting too hot in the M17x, as they have excellent cooling. My 4870's are overclocked and overvolted and stay in the mid-70's during gaming, which is absolutely ridiculous. A stock desktop card won't run much cooler than that.

A desktop is always going to be more cost effective, but if you need/like the portability, the m17x is a great product, just don't expect it to be something you're going to really want in your lap for very long, especially if you're playing a game.

As for modified video cards, they offer different benefits depending on what you're looking for. Typically they offer either:

A. improved cooling, allowing for higher overclocks vs stock cooler.
B. Nearly silent while cooling as well as a reference cooler.
C. combination of the 2.

The Twin Frozr III falls into the first category. Cards like this are best for crossfire configs or heavy overclocking. The stock cards can get pretty toasty in crossfire, but this one will stay pretty cool.

XFX makes a dual fan 6950 also, but instead of running extremely cool, it runs extremely quiet while cooling slightly better than the stock AMD cooler design. I have one of these in my HTPC, you can't even hear the damn thing at 100% fan speed. I don't know if you've ever heard the fans on most of these high-end cards, but they can get LOUD. The cooler design uses a large heatsink and small fans, instead of the otherway around like most other cards. This makes them less than ideal for crossfire, though they still don't run any hotter than a stock card would.
 
Wand4Life said:
*bonus question along the same lines*
What are peoples opinions of modified versions of cards, like the HIS IceQ X, or MSI Twin Frozr III, etc.
Worth the little bit extra, waste of money, somewhere in between? Especially for dual cards.
Click to expand...

I just built a 570 SLI build and considered the same question. What I found was that the custom coolers on those cards are generally better-performing than stock, however might change the direction air flows vs a reference design, which is something to keep in mind in a dual card setup.

For example, I had expected to get the reference design 570s that vented air directly out the back of the case, but ended up getting updated reference designs that now blow air off the card in a downward fashion. Obviously if there is no space between two of those cards in SLI, you're in for some major heat issues as you're essentially passing heat from one card to the other.

Luckily, my motherboard had 1 slot open in between the two cards, and my case has a ventilation cover over that slot. So the extra slot in between allows room for the upper card's heat to pass around in, while the intake air blows it out of the vented back of the case. Had there been no space between the cards I likely would have had to RMA the motherboard. The heat would just be too much.

So back to your original question, yes, the custom coolers are usually better performing than the reference cards (check a few benchmarks for more details), however in a dual card setup, make sure you leave room between the cards for air to pass through, since the Twin Frozr and many other custom coolers blow air downward instead of directly out of the card's back.

For reference, my hottest card usually goes no higher than 75-80C after hours of BF3 on Ultra. The other usually no higher than 67C. Idles near 47C and 30C respectively.
 
If you've got about $4000 you can build your own alienware 18x on the Dell website and put dual 6990Ms in it.

I ended up getting a basic Toshiba Qosmio 17" from futureshop. It's not top of the line graphics, but I think I'll be ok for a few years.
 
Thanks for the info peeps, that helps out a bunch.
Hopefully I'm getting my new comp in the next few weeks, I'll make a thread here and detail it all out, put up some pics and stuff for you guys. Havent done any benchmarking ever, but if you can walk me through it I can throw up some of that stuff too.

I goddam hate the marketing choices for Alienware Laptops, they force you to either get less than you want, or pay more to get extra.
Like for certain builds, they will only allow 2 graphic cards, not just 1. Or 2 great ones or only 1 shittier one, so if you don't have $1,000 to throw at GPU's, you stuck with 1 shitty card.
Other builds only have certain hard drive's available, or Ram options, hell one of them doesnt even offer a headset adder, like what the fuck... pisses me off.

And its even more retarded because if they wouldn't force these nickle-and-dime limitations on me, I probably would have already bought one like 6 goddam months ago. But instead because they are forcing these shortcuts, I'll probably go custom desktop.
 
Have you tried talking with the alienware reps? I called them with a few questions and they seemed like they'd be willing to accomodate some of my requests. I wanted SSDs and a blu-ray writer and from my talks with them it sounded like they could make it work.

In the end, I decided that I don't do enough high-end gaming to justify the purchase at this time. Maybe when my kids are older I'll have more free time and I'll invest in a great gaming rig. The thing I found interesting during my research was that it seemed like I could get an awesome laptop for less than a comparable tower from alienware.
 
You can also usually get them discounted significantly from the sticker price if you try and haggle with them. There are often promotional codes floating around that can give you discounts as well. I'm talking like 20%+
 
I talked to one rep, he said the builds are chosen by the marketing team and that theres nothing he can do. But he did seem like a bit of a dick, so I dont doubt he was just being lazy.

I'm a bit fubar'd because I'm in Canada, so I'm stuck with shitty canadian dell.ca and not your american site (and the tons of discounts you have). Hell we can't even get the custom bottom nameplate.
 
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