Building a gaming laptop?

There is not a selection of 'generic' parts for laptops as there is for desktops.

For example, in desktops, an ATX case will take any ATX compatible PSU or motherboard. Same mount spacing, same size, same port locations.
That concept does not exist with laptops.

You are right, there is a way, but it will cost you a lot more than $1000. I've seen websites that build custom laptops and will change pretty much every part, but there cheapest model is like $2000 and thats just with okay specs.

Also there are very few which you can pay a lot of money for that have a GPU connector, socketed CPU, multiple HDD slots but the motherboard is not changeable. Also the type of graphics chips it takes are uncommon and very expensive, and the ones I have seen are usually really thick.

Long story short, its best not to look at laptops like that. Find a good laptop with good display and graphics chip that you want as well as ports. A lot of Intel's laptops seem to be socketed anymore so get a good CPU if you can, but if not that is upgrade-able. Get a better HDD or SSD, or two even if it has multiple ports for it. DOn't even think about the amount of RAM since that is extremely easy to upgrade.

I started with a Samsung laptop with a 620M graphics card and an i5-3210 CPU in it. Normally this laptop would be priced I would say at least around $600, and its a Turkish model not available in the USA so it was more expensive there I am sure too. I have upgraded the RAM, HDD, Battery, and am later going to get a faster CPU for it. I'm only about $460 into it, and later I will upgrade CPU when it gets a little cheaper and only be $600 into it. Graphics might hold me back but it will be a powerful lite-gaming system. If you want to upgrade and customize a laptop I advise you go along the same ideas.

A group theorised it would be possible to build your own on the mini-ATX or micro-ATX motherboards. You'd have to DIY yourself a case to fit the mobo, but everything you'll need should be covered here.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/65602-35-notorious-laptop

Heat would also be a problem.

Interesting concept, but with all the issues you would encounter getting it together, keeping it powered and cool, and having it still be light enough to carry I think would suggest you are best to still get a normal laptop, but if you are board have fun trying. Maybe you will come with something cool.

I think there is a gap in the market for easily upgrade able laptops. It seems sacrificing on weight and thickness it would be pretty easy to have a nice customizable unit. Too bad no companies are going for it.

Easily upgradeable? The easiest you'd find is a Clevo. However, they only sell their chassises to boutique builders.

Down the drain? Hah! Nice pun.

Huh well thats interesting.

Well no I personally wouldn't go for it. Farthest I would go for laptop cooling is to put really good thermal past on the CPU and GPU. Like the Colabratories liquid metal stuff I plan to get at some point, but if its exciting to you and you want to try water cooling it go for it.

Also looks like there goes a lot of your mobility. If you can't carry it around everywhere what good is a laptop?
And if you don't want to carry it everywhere, then why not go desktop and have more power for cheaper?

If they had a water cooling system that was completely portable and housed inside the system in place of the regular cooling system that would be really good, but if you take away a laptops portability there isn't any point to it anymore.

Exactly. The only real reason for a laptop is the portability. Take that away, and....

Maybe at this stage, water cooled laptops are an experiment; just showing that yes, this is a concept that is possible.

Yea and once you do away with the mobility a laptop isn't as helpful. The best laptop is only mid range for PCs. Also since most you cannot overclock, there isn't a huge plus to it.

If you want to play with something fairly new and fun I would go desktop, get a new Intel CPU and "delid" it and build a nice water cooling system. The new Intel CPUs perform a lot better after you delid them.

Thanks for looking at my rig I've actually changed the motherboard since then but its a good system. I think you would do really well if you went after something like that but you could easy fix the short comings in my build as well.

Here is what I would suggest to you:
CPU: Intel i7-3770k
Motherboard: A decently good Z77 system, there are several.
RAM: At least 8GB. I don't think my system gets much boost from having 16GB but wanted to fill it to the max, and 32GB is crazy.
GPU: At this point I would say at a minimum get a AMD Radeon 7850. I have two and they have worked really well for me. I haven't been so impressed with the crossfire performance, but whenever I got the single card it has done really amazing for the price. I would say get an AMD Radeon 7970 GHz Edition or a R9 290 if possible, little pricy.
SSD: You are a lot better off to go for at least a 120GB SSD. I got mine free with the ASrock motherboard, but its barely enough to hold my OS and some minor programs. I have to use a second HDD around 200GB for all the games and stuff. But if you have a 120GB SSD theres software to move games on and off it without installing them each time so you can just keep the game your playing on it.

Then probably get the water cooling later cause all this is a bit expensive. I think at current I have around $1400 in my build and I need a better cooler. But a lot of that is in just storage.

Haha yea I do have a lot. I honestly just bought a controller card cause I needed more SATA ports. I want to add another 2TB so I can setup a RAID 5. I have about 3TB of files, but I keep two copies of everythign encase drive failure so its like having no space at all it seem.s

This is starting to sound like Blade Runner.

Hang on, maybe the robot's blood in that movie is just liquid cooling?

MIND FREAK

Yea unfortunately it would. Unless you want to find a way to make one fully housed in your laptop. Like if you have a mini pump with coolant and all the tubing running into the laptops fan and radiator without busting out of the case then that would be awesome but since most use liquid filled copper pipes without moving to a larger radiator I'm not sure how much it would help.

Thanks It and my laptop are my favorite play things so I've spent lots of time working on them.

In terms of to go for the 4th Gen or 3rd Gen is a bit of a toss up. Based solely on Haswell and Ivy Bridge, I would say get the 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge any day. Here are the reasons.
1. Consumes less power
2. Produces less heat. Haswell added a voltage regulator on the CPU which produces a lot of heat.
3. Higher chance of a high quality unit. Haswell as a result of the voltage regulator again vary greatly between each other. One chip might only overclock to 4.Ghz while another overclocks to 4.5Ghz. Ivy does this a little, but no where near as much.
4. Sandy Bridge and by extension Ivy Bridge was built to be the highest performance processor possible on desktop. Ivy Bridge lowered power consumption and heat greatly with minor improvements to performance. Haswell on the other hand is designed much more for laptops and mobility and saw the biggest change in laptops. On the desktop Haswell only averages about 3% faster while at the same clock speed. However, Ivy Bridge easily overclocks to 4.5Ghz in most cases, a little harder but not so hard it goes to 4.7Ghz and has been seen at speeds over 5Ghz. Haswell struggles to maintain stability above 4.5ghz. So once Ivy Bridge has a higher clock speed it performs better in all situations except built in graphics, and thats not really so important.

The only real reason I see for going for a 4th gen processor is so you will have an LGA 1150 motherboard. The 5th Gen processors might fix things and have a good performance boost, but as it sits I personally think Ivy Bridge on desktops are really superior to Haswell. Haswell is trying some new things that just aren't going quite right but probably will be better in the 5th Gen but its not really sure what will happen.

I would advise against the ASrock Z77 Extreme4-M motherboard. ASrock has terrible terrible customer support and lies about features. It doesn't overclock well and you would be better with a different motherboard. Try ASUS or Gygabyte for the best. Or MSI is also excellent. Biostar I have now actually and its good too. I like it so far cause the great price let me get a sound card and other stuff.

Yea its all about the development purpose. Haswell is great for mobile but Ivy was just designed amazing for desktop. I don't plan for an upgrade for at least 4 or 5 years.

The 5th Gens should be better. They are scheduled originally around the end of this year, but I've heard a lot about them getting set backs.

Excellent The R9 290 should do great for you. You could also consider the R9 290X but I am not sure the performance boost is worth the cost, and its a bit over kill. I haven't read up on it heavily though so not my strongest point.

Yea SSDs boot great! Good choice

Sorry water cooling isn't my specialty. I have a friend who has done it though I could ask to hop on this forum. I would definitely say build the computer first and get cooling after for better overclocking.

I have an Apevia Dreamer X4 case. In green. Its pretty nice. I liked the larger one cause I needed more space to attach PCI and SATA devices. Though a lot of it is a matter of tastes and looks. Any half decent case can keep a PC cool so looks really seems to be the best thing to decide on after that.