Gaming/School/3D Rendering/ anything else Laptop?

[SirSlaughter]

I can't believe I am asking this time, But like the title says, I am looking for a laptop. I already have a desktop. A damn fine desktop at that. But I am on the hunt for a Laptop to do everything I can do with my desktop and be portable. I want something that can do some good 3D rendering, coding, e-mail, gaming, schoolwork, processing, so on so forth. I want a gaming laptop first off. I am a gamer through and through so nothing is gonna sway me otherwise. Now I want a high end piece that can do some rendering for 3d stuff for future college stuff. I plan on doing it all, 3d rendering and modelling, coding, gameplay. I am just torn at what to get. I know I get a student discount or a free xbox with certain offers and all that so I am a little torn. So far I have been leaning the most towards this beauty: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/mss ... /list.true

A friend of mine has it and so far he has told me all about how it performs. I have seen the specs and I have also seen game play of what it can do. I am very very impressed and This has my eyes big time. The only other things I have looked at (for brief moments due to price and performance) were an alienware and the Razer laptop. But I dug in and checked the specs on all of them and I am not impressed. I would only go for them based on the looks and the position of the mouse pad for the razer one. So other than that I saw a Samsung but that was way too pricey.

So what I am asking is: TLDR Is this the best choice?Or is there another beast on the market that can trade blows with this beast and not destroy what is left of my wallet?

[Tygron]

Well you can always go for an overpriced Razer Blade...

But yea an Asus gaming laptop should do good i'd say. It's not the best, but as far as laptops go it's pretty decent. I have an old G50. It can supposedly run Crysis on high, and it did the demo decently. But you have to keep it clear of dust in the heatsink or it just suffers even on the lowest of settings. Not sure about their newer laptops though, i'm sure they've improved the heatsink design. But there's no 100% way of keeping anything clear of dust, it's just less obvious in a desktop because of the space you have in a decent case.

[XanderK9]

By experience, the Asus notebook is a good choice. Personally, I don't like the shiny stuff that Alienware and Razer offer. I just want a laptop, damnit!

I don't know how heavy will be your use, but based on the specs of that notebook, it's should be suitable for most tasks. Quite frankly, I don't see the use to have a notebook as powerful or even more than your desktop computer when you are mostly using the desktop anyway (it may not be the case, but just saying).

[SirSlaughter]

Well you can always go for an overpriced Razer Blade...

GENIUS!

So then that new Asus G75VW is my best bet. Ok time to start saving.

[Tygron]

By experience, the Asus notebook is a good choice. Personally, I don't like the shiny stuff that Alienware and Razer offer. I just want a laptop, damnit!

I don't know how heavy will be your use, but based on the specs of that notebook, it's should be suitable for most tasks. Quite frankly, I don't see the use to have a notebook as powerful or even more than your desktop computer when you are mostly using the desktop anyway (it may not be the case, but just saying).

Razer's alright, but they aren't the cream of the crop everyone makes them out to be. And Alienware is just crap from what i've heard. Also owned by Dell so I won't ever bother with them.

I'd say build your own laptop, but they don't make the parts for that (as relatively easy as it would be to do) so you can't do that.
But yea i'd say the Asus is a good bet. There's other laptops out there, but i'm terrible at comparing specs of individual parts let alone whole systems.

As far as having a laptop be as good as your desktop, eh. It'd be nice, especially if you're not going to be around your desktop for a while. But you're right it's not needed. I personally don't have a reason for more than one computer right now other than I use my laptop at "my other house" and it just stays there.

[XanderK9]

I'd say build your own laptop, but they don't make the parts for that (as relatively easy as it would be to do) so you can't do that.

Well, barebone laptops did existed before, but that was a bad idea.
Eurocom gives you the ability to configure your laptop entirely (even more than Dell/Alienware are offering), but that ends up being stupidly expensive.

There's other laptops out there, but i'm terrible at comparing specs of individual parts let alone whole systems.

Indeed, but while being working at 2 different computer shops, I do not really trust Acer (also, dealing with them on professional level is a god damn pain as well) and MSI (for similar reason). Samsung, Lenovo and Toshiba are fine this far. HP as well, but I get a recent increase of returns of the latest models due to defects. Hopefully it's just a bad batch.

[SirSlaughter]

The reason I want a laptop this powerful is for schoolwork and I do make trips every now and then when visiting family and stuff. During that time I go into tech and graphical withdrawal. I know, I 'm terrible. I know that I have a desktop that is stupidly strong and even then I am still looking into upgrades for it. Again, I am terrible, but it's my insatiable urge for tech that I keep doing this. Anyway...I wish I could build my own laptop (actually putting the parts together not that thing alienware and ibuypower does) but I obviously can't.

Oh well I will keep this top on my list for now and keep looking around until I have the money saved up for one.

[Tygron]

As far as Eurocom goes, I like their idea. But I don't like the idea of having to get special parts for it. I just wanna buy a 680 or something and slam it in a laptop.
As the idea goes in my head, I see it being very possible to use desktop hardware in a laptop form factor easily. It might be a little heavier than a normal laptop, and definitely bigger. It wouldn't be for everybody, but for those that want it I can't see why it would be a big deal. The only thing that doesn't exist right now are cases, motherboards, and a cooling solution for it. Otherwise it could easily be done I think. Might have to do something special with the power supply, and you might not be able to run it on battery power. Which for me is fine since I almost never run my laptop on battery. And the battery is dead now I think anyway.

Not to derail the thread but lets look at this a second. What do you have in a computer? a case, a motherboard, cpu, ram, powersupply, and a storage device such as an ssd or an hdd. As basic as it gets. To play games, all you really need is a power supply that can run the graphics card, a graphics card powerful enough to run the games, and a cpu that won't hold it all back. And plenty of ram, but if you have less than 4 GB you're doing it wrong imo. Now. Build your own laptop: take the mobo, move some things around. 90 degree the PCI-e 16x slot, take away all other expansion slots like that because they aren't needed. (you shouldn't expect SLI or Crossfire in a laptop, that's going too far) and in the case have plenty of support for the graphics card. Then for the cpu cooler, that needs to be worked out... I got nothing on that. Power supply would be handled by power cables running to either one big plug for a special power supply or to slots that allow you to connect an ATX power supply to the laptop. It's all a little less portable and you end up with a 3 inch thick laptop. But if you're someone who wants this in your laptop, are you going to care? Probably not. If you do, then cry me a river build a bridge and jump off of it.

[XanderK9]

Well, that is not as simple as that. That is why "desktop replacements" exist as it gives power of a desktop while still being categorized as a notebook. However, push it further will no longer make it considered as a notebook but an All-in-One desktop computer.

[Tygron]

Those aren't quite as portable though, and aren't most of those nowadays basically laptops made into a more "desktop friendly" design?

[XanderK9]

Well, not really. It is designed for having full capabilities of a desktop while remaining mobile, so of course it's going to be bulkier. The advantage here is to be able to add more stuff inside with less restrictions. However, I guess such kind of laptop will eventually be obsolete with laptop parts getting smaller.

Besides, I don't see how laptops are less "desktop friendly" than a desktop replacement. It's just a big, powerful laptop, after all.

[Tygron]

Ta's why I put it in quotes. I used my laptop as a desktop for quite some time. I've just seen these all in ones that are basically a flat panel monitor that has a computer in them, I know there's others but that's generally it. And then there's Mac's.

But I think we're derailing the thread too much so...

[XanderK9]

Well, the point of the thread is basically about powerful notebooks, so why not?

Anyway, I still prefer having an mid-performance laptop for my everyday stuff and gaming. At least, we are now able to get more powerful stuff for cheaper (as long the quality of the parts are not getting worse).

[Tygron]

True true alright. It makes sense really. I mean most people probably don't have much reason to have a massive high end laptop. Then again it depends on what you use more and how you use it I guess. I mean for a while I had a basic desktop and my gaming laptop. At the time I only used the desktop for the internet since we didn't have wifi or anything, I think we still had dialup actually. And my laptop could play some games my desktop couldn't. But I was mostly a console guy. Honestly I only built this desktop because I wanted something powerful enough that I could enjoy games on and just be an overall stable system, where my laptop was getting old and clogged with dust and being crippled by the lowest settings on even the simplest modern games. Just gotta keep it clean of dust and it's fine, but it still doesn't perform in the likes of Tribes or Blacklight. Even at lower settings. I wanted that smoother experience so I could enjoy playing the game and not fight my computer the entire game.

Slaughter's Asus choice should do more than well enough, being it has more up to date hardware.

[SirSlaughter]

I think this would be harder to pull of that first thought. You have to find a suitable cooling solution for the items. Otherwise you may as well have a hot laptop that runs sluggish due to the heat. So I say a small MATX Mobo with say a 660Ti seeing as that can run off a 450W PSU, Put a slim if not somewhat slim cooler on the CPU and make a screen and pullout keyboard to add to the case. Oh and a mouse. But then you still have a very large piece of equipment. So that's why they have to make the different architecture hardware to work the way it does (although I don't know why they make it so proprietary.) But then again we could just do what that guy did and make an Xbox Laptop. It was quite thick but it had everything from the xbox. EVERYTHING! And it was a straight up laptop by then Without the keyboard and mouse of course. but once again, proprietary hardware. I know there used to be laptops that you could replace every part. It just slid out and you could upgrade it. I just can't remember what brand or how long ago they were made.