Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Decent laptop for a college student...

lost_soul

By lost_soul
in Off-Topic

 Share

Recommended Posts

lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
Posted (edited)

My brother is about to go to college, so I was looking for a laptop that my family can order for him. I was at first considering a new Trinity based system because they sounded efficiant and portable, but since AMD has f***ed up again in my opinion by dropping driver support for HD4xxx hardware that is still available (http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813153179), I'm leaning towards an I5 and a GT630 based system. That way, it will still be supported with drivers when he is a junior...

 

How does this look? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246327

 

He isn't a big gamer, but he does play occasionally. He doesn't know what he wants to major in yet, but I figure he should have a laptop with a decent GPU just in case he does anything graphics related or OpenCL related down the road. You can't upgrade the graphics in a laptop after all.

 

Thoughts?

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bikerdude

Bikerdude

Posted
Posted

Ok 2 things whats your budget (is it the price of that laptop on newegg?) and what online sites do you normally buy computer stuff from (newegg and ewhat others?) and i will spec you something up.

 

Regarding that laptop its not bad but the GT630 is a piece of crap, its nothing more than a re-named 8600>9600>GT230>GT430>GT630>etc it only has 96 cores. In a word it wont be much cop for TDM - shoudl u wish to get him in on your hobbie

 

Lastly if he dosent need any gaming capability at then you should be able to get a laptop with similar specs for $500 with integrated graphics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Yes, that is about the price they're willing to spend. We can use Amazon, Newegg, TigerDirect, Best Buy.com, etc. That's pretty sleezy though about making an old piece of HW sound like a Kepler-series chip.

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
jay pettitt

jay pettitt

Posted
Posted (edited)

--edit-- actually, I don't really have any advice, but...

 

I'd have thought that a console would be better for an occasional games machine than trying to get a laptop that does it all. Laptops that do it all tend to fail by being big and clumsy and more trouble to carry than they're worth and thus are no good as laptops.

Edited by jay pettitt
Link to comment
Share on other sites
lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Yeah, he mostly plays Urban Terror. It won't be long until you can play that game on a calculator (game has such low requirements). I'm sure high-end phoens could handle it now.

 

One annoying thing about budget laptops is that they all seem to come with 5400RPM drives, even though it would cost the OEM almost nothing to throw in a full-speed drive. I'm not sure how much that cripples performance.

 

maybe I'll look up some performance comparisons...

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
RPGista

RPGista

Posted
Posted (edited)

What about this one guys, what do you think? For months now my laptop is making an extremely high pitch sound, you can barely hear it but it is driving me insane. I dont have spare money right now but I guess I have to make an effort (or risk damaging my hearing! :) ), this HP one seems like the complete package, 400£, looks very nice (the gray one) and has decent specs for the price. Is it as good as it gets in the price range?

 

http://www.currys.co...puting~14272580

Edited by RPGista
Link to comment
Share on other sites
RPGista

RPGista

Posted
Posted

Its a constant iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii sound, its low but you can notice it, I think it comes from either the fan or the disk, you can hear it stopping a second after the computer shuts down and something stops spinning. It actually might have started after I cleaned it like a year ago, I couldnt really afford a new laptop but this is just not working anymore, my ears are buzzing everyday because of it, its that bad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mortem Desino

Mortem Desino

Posted
Posted

If it's almost a "squealing" sound, it may be that the bearings are starting to go on a fan. I had an ancient compaq laptop that I rescued from a dumpster -- took it apart and got the fan to stop squealing with a tiny spray of lithium grease (from a car mechanic shop).

 

If something mechanical is going wrong with the disk, you'd probably notice your computer acting wonky.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

Link to comment
Share on other sites
RPGista

RPGista

Posted
Posted (edited)

Oh, ok, but you probably mean opening up the fan itself, right? It's not something I can just do by accessing the fan inside the laptop and spraying somewhere, is it? Thanks for the tip.

Edited by RPGista
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mortem Desino

Mortem Desino

Posted
Posted

It just so happened that my ancient laptop's fan was easily accessible (and removeable!). To prevent any shortcircuits, at least power down the laptop (and remove the battery etc.) before trying to spray lithium grease or another non-parrafin oil (WD-40 is an electronics no-no) into the fan motor. I doubt you would have to disassemble the fan.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Which GPU is better?

GT630M 2 GB, or

GT555M 1 GB?

http://www.tigerdire...2555&CatId=4938

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834215417

 

Obviously the GT630M *sounds* better with its 2 GB of VRAM, but since some GPU makers try to screw the user by hyping cards with large memory BUT pathetic memory busses, or cut down rendering pipelines, it isn't so clear.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bikerdude

Bikerdude

Posted
Posted
What about this one guys, what do you think? For months now my laptop is making an extremely high pitch sound, you can barely hear it but it is driving me insane. I dont have spare money right now

Where in the Uk are you RP, I can probably fix that fan for you!

 

Which GPU is better?

GT630M 2 GB, or

GT555M 1 GB?

 

Looking on notebook check GT630 and GT555, the GT555 will smoke the 630. The 555 has 144 cores while the 630 only has 96, if you can find a laptop with a GT635 (144 cores) not only will it match or beat the 555 but as its newer tech it will run cooler.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Thanks, Bikerdude. Sadly though the GT635M-based units are at least twice as expensive. That Acer unit I linked above on Newegg looks like a really killer deal for $600. $600 for a quad-core laptop with discrete graphics that aren't bottom of the line!

 

Since I have that GT440 I got a wile ago with 96 cores, I have a ballpark estimate of the performance I will get.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Thor

Thor

Posted
Posted

Regarding that laptop its not bad but the GT630 is a piece of crap, its nothing more than a re-named 8600>9600>GT230>GT430>GT630>etc it only has 96 cores. In a word it wont be much cop for TDM - shoudl u wish to get him in on your hobbie

Ah yes I have a laptop with a fancy processor but a GT540M card. It's the only reason I won't be playing Dishonored in the following few years, but it does run Dark Mod decently with its 96 cores (maybe not on all highest settings (though I honestly haven't checked it that carefully) but it does run smoothly on "toned down" settings which make no actual difference in looks, unless you look really hard (maybe). So yeah I think DarkMod runs fine on those cards.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Bikerdude

Bikerdude

Posted
Posted
I think this is also a good model for a good price:

The CPU isn't to shaby being an i5, but by jiminy the GPU has some poke for a mobile part! It will play Metro2033 @1366*768 and 4xAA on High at 40+fps, that's bloody going some for a laptop. The only thing that lets it down in my book is screen res, I would have expected at least 1440*900 or better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Ended up going with a Lenovo Ideapad Y580 for myself. A bit overkill, but I reasoned that I will be stuck with the system for a long LONG time and I better make sure I will be happy with the GPU inside. (gtx660m).

 

Other specs: I7, 8 GB, 7200 RPM HD.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
lost_soul

lost_soul

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

Yep, you're right. That "standard" resolution is kind of crap by today's standards, but I don't really mind. My goal with a laptop is to have a mobile machine that I can use on the go, but hook it up and use it as a desktop when I go places.

 

I would gladly trade screen resolution for more battery life. The machine was $849.

 

One thing to watch out for is this: Newegg had the Y580 for the same price, but it only listed 6 GB of memory and a 5400 RPM hard drive. I then contacted Lenovo directly and they had the better model. This is why doing research is important! http://www.newegg.co...N82E16834246628

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recent Status Updates

    • The Black Arrow

      The Black Arrow

      Hey @nbohr1morehow come the zombies in The Dark Mod don't have a "resurrection" mechanic to it, similar to how Thief has it?
      They're quite a weak creature as of right now, it's merely a walking corpse that slashes you, making attacking them to kill them an actual strategy.
      Would be better if they had some cool mechanism to it that truly makes them a danger, such as the resurrection idea itself.
      · 2 replies
    • Ansome

      Ansome

      Query: when was the last time a zombie in a video game was unnerving or scary to you? I'm chipping away at my anniversary submission and I've been trying to gather opinions on the subject. I'm perfectly capable of lighting them well, changing their sfx, and creating effective ambience, but I'm worried that zombies at their core are just too overdone to be an effective payoff to the tension I'm creating.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      nbohr1more

      The Lieutenant 3 is out! Congrats Frost_Salamander! ( raising awareness )
      · 2 replies
    • OrbWeaver

      OrbWeaver

      Has anyone had any luck with textures from Polyhaven? Their OpenEXR normal maps seem too washed out and give incorrect shading in the engine.
      · 5 replies
    • datiswous

      datiswous

      I tried to upscale the TDM logo video. First try:

      briefing_video.mp4 You can test it ingame by making a copy of the core tdm_gui.mtr and place it in your-tdm-root/materials/ , then edit line 249 of that file into the location where you placed the new briefing.mp4 file.
      What I did was I extracted all the image files, then used Upscayl to upscale the images using General photo (Real-Esrgan) upscale setting and then turn it back into a video.
      I might have to crop it a bit, the logo looks smaller on screen (or maybe it's actually better this way?). My video editor turned it into a 16:9 video, which I think overal looks better than 1:1 video of original.
      · 1 reply
×
×
  • Create New...