Looking for help on pc/laptop purchase

Kohl2

Honorable
Dec 29, 2013
10
0
10,510
Hey guys, I've posted a few threads asking for help or opinions on pc builds but now I'm looking into laptops.

I wanted a PC to play games such as DayZ Standalone and Skyrim along with a few realism mods. Rather than building one, because I kept getting out of budget ($500-700), I found this pre-build on Newegg that I feel is a great deal. Here it is: Desktop Pre-build

Anyway, I'll need a laptop for school at some point and since I'm mainly concerned with those two games, DayZ Standalone and Skyrim, I feel getting a laptop would be a better choice. Because the laptop would be partially for school, I can increase the budget because of willing parents. For the laptop, the budget stands anywhere from $500-1000. I've searched through the BestBuy website for good PCs but mostly I'm coming up with 2-core builds that I feel won't cut it.
These are a few that seem ok:
Dell XPS
Acer Aspire M5
HP Envy M6
A few opinions or suggestions as to what laptop I should look into and what not would be nice.
P.S. I'd be much more comfortable staying in the $500-700 range.
P.P.S. If someone can build an amazing desktop build with windows 7 or 8 OS and a wireless card (and hopefully with keyboard+mouse) for around the $500-700 price range, I'd be grateful.
 
Solution
It's not a bad prebuilt- but you could definitely get a better build for $770-ish. Here's something that's a really good "bang for your buck" at the price range of the prebuilt- if you need to cut costs, get a Radeon 7850.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($92.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($68.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX...

Sylvanriv

Honorable
Dec 1, 2013
225
0
10,860
It's not a bad prebuilt- but you could definitely get a better build for $770-ish. Here's something that's a really good "bang for your buck" at the price range of the prebuilt- if you need to cut costs, get a Radeon 7850.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($92.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($68.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: PNY GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN822N 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($18.96 @ OutletPC)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($81.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $760.86
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-03 21:30 EST-0500)
 
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