College student gaming laptop

[Zeshaanb6]

1.What is your Budget?
$800-1000

2.What is the size of the laptop that you are considering?
15.6

3.What screen resolution do you want?
1366x768 or higher

4.Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
replacement but doesn't matter

5.How much battery life do you need?
2 hr

6.Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, SWTOR, Ultra settings

7.What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop?
watching movies, surf the web

8.How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
at least 500gb

9.If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
na

10.How long do you want to keep your laptop?
probably over 4 years

11.What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD RW

12.Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Asus(had one for 3 years and worked great)

13.What country do you live in?
USA

14.Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Id like a laptop that plays cool(no overheat) on ultra settings for lengthy periods of time

thanks

 

[slicedtoad]

I just bought a laptop from Xoticpc and i love it. I'd say a 560m would be the gpu appropriate to your budget.

Oh and 4-5 hours battery life is impossible on a gaming laptop. Actually gaming without being plugged in is impossible.

 

[nbelote]

Yeah, you can't game for 4-5 hours on a battery... more like 1-2, given the best battery in the world and non-optimal (for gaming) power saving settings. I have a laptop with a 9-hour rated battery, which it does perform like that.... when I'm just browsing the web. Gaming? 2 hours, max.

 

[Zeshaanb6]

well im just needing it for school and starcraft 2 lol so the above questions might be a little off but i found this laptop its cheap but good ratings would it run sc2 and diablo 3 on regular settings if not more?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230132

 

[slicedtoad]

yeah, it will run them. Not the best deal though. A mobile i5 is a dual core. It's also deactivated.

look at these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246326
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246324
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246221

I'd say take one of the i7s. If you don't take the ssd one, buy an ssd online and use it as your boot drive. SSDs are essential, really.

 

[whyso]

yeah, it will run them. Not the best deal though. A mobile i5 is a dual core. It's also deactivated.

look at these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246326
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246324
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246221

I'd say take one of the i7s. If you don't take the ssd one, buy an ssd online and use it as your boot drive. SSDs are essential, really.

Lenovo laptops are nice.

However, the 555m that they use is not really a 555m.

regular
540m - 96 cores @ 672 mhz
550m - 96 cores @ 740 mhz

 

[whyso]

yeah, it will run them. Not the best deal though. A mobile i5 is a dual core. It's also deactivated.

look at these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246326
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246324
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246221

I'd say take one of the i7s. If you don't take the ssd one, buy an ssd online and use it as your boot drive. SSDs are essential, really.

Lenovo laptops are nice.

However, the 555m that they use is not really a 555m.

regular 525m - 96 corse @ 600 mhz
540m - 96 cores @ 672 mhz
550m - 96 cores @ 740 mhz
Note that a 525m can easily be over clocked to 700 mhz

555m is different, there exists a variaty of models that should be looked at
From best to worst
144 cores 709MHz (GF106), 128Bit GDDR5, e.g. MSI GX780
144 cores 590MHz (GF106), 192Bit DDR3, e.g. Dell XPS 17, Alienware M14x
144 cores 590MHz (GF106), 128Bit DDR3, e.g. Schenker XMG A501 / A701 (Clevo W150HRM / W170HN)
96 cores 753MHz (GF108), 128Bit GDDR5, e.g. Lenovo Y570p / Y560p
144 cores 525 MHz (GF116), 128 Bit DDR3, e.g. Medion Akoya P6812
(This is from notebookcheck and yes they do say from worst to best but this is a typo)

The lenovo is really a 550m clocked 13 mhz higher (but using GDDR5).

Edit: sorry, posted by accident somehow (tab and space bar?) before i was finished

 

[slicedtoad]

^good info. very helpful.

I gotta do a full read through of notebookcheck someday.

 

[Avro Arrow]

The only laptop I can think of that can game for over 2 hours on a single battery charge is one that uses the AMD Llano platform. The A8-35xxM series would be my recommendation. Here is a link to such a laptop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215258
It's very similar in spec (a bit superior even) to my own A8-3500M laptop which I can personally say is able to play Skyrim smoothly. Here is the review of the platform itself:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/a8-3500m-llano-apu,2959.html

 

[slicedtoad]

^lano does offer great power usage, but it's lacking performance. Skyrim will run only on low settings.

 

[chudddds]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834200403

lenovo i7 2.2ghz, gt555m 1gb ddr5 , 64gb SSD and a 500 gb hdd , $950