The Lillster Posted December 22, 2010 Posted December 22, 2010 My current laptop is quite old now and I want to upgrade to something more powerful, but I don't want to spend massive amounts. The main reason I want a new laptop is so I can play Starcraft 2 StarCraft II System Requirements The system requirements for the StarCraft II are as follows: PC Requirements PC Minimum System Requirements*: Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c 2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor 128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better 12 GB available HD space 1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users) DVD-ROM drive Broadband Internet connection 1024X720 minimum display resolution PC Recommended Specifications: Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 Dual Core 2.4Ghz Processor 2 GB RAM 512 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800 GTX or ATI Radeon® HD 3870 or better *Note: Due to potential programming changes, the Minimum System Requirements for this game may change over time. I'm looking for a laptop that costs between £400 - £500 I've seen a good one on Cex Product Description Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo (T5450 - 2.0 GHz, 667MHz FSB, 2MB) Screen - 18.4" ( Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, high-brightness (300- cd/m2) Acer CineCrystal TFT LCD, two lamps, 8 ms high-def response time, 16:9 aspect ratio) Built In (CrystalEye Webcam) Storage - 320GB Hard Drive Memory - 4GB DDR II SDRAM li> Optical Drive Blu-Ray (Blu-Ray HD Play back + DVD-RW & CD-RW) Dolby Home Theater True 5.1 Sound with Cinebass Booster ExpressCard/54 slot Firewire Port 56.6K Modem 10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet 4x USB 2.0 Ports Dedicated (NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS with up to 1791MB of TurboCache 512MB Dedicated) 1x HDMI Port, 6-in-1 card reader (SD//MS/MS-Pro/MMC/MMC HIGH SPEED/xD-Picture card) Wireless (WIFI LINK A,B,G,N Includes MIMO) Connectivity - Infrared Battery 2.5Hours Weight: 4.1Kg Warranty: 1 Year Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium So can someone please help me out and tell me where I can get a decent laptop for a good price. Thanks.
Raining_again Posted December 22, 2010 Posted December 22, 2010 I don't recommend buying 2nd hand, god only knows how the previous owner treated it. And besides laptops don't have a huge life - you'd be lucky to get 3 years out of most laptops. If you follow your game spec guidelines you can't really go far wrong tbh, just do plenty of shopping around.
The Lillster Posted December 22, 2010 Author Posted December 22, 2010 Well to be fair Raining, the only game I want to play is Starcraft 2. Thanks for helping. I'll have to be vigilant for a good deal.
nightwolf Posted December 22, 2010 Posted December 22, 2010 Well to be fair Raining, the only game I want to play is Starcraft 2. Thanks for helping. I'll have to be vigilant for a good deal. Cex are piss-poor imo for these products anyway, I wouldn't touch them for something like a laptop. I bought an asus laptop for 350 from ebuyer last christmas, it plays wow and starcraft quite well, maybe take a quick look over there?
Raining_again Posted December 22, 2010 Posted December 22, 2010 a good deal ain't such a good deal when it breaks within months of buying... which is a very real possibility with dodgy-as-fook cex. been burned too many times by them to consider spending anything more than a few quid there. you can get really good deals everywhere at this time of year... and you've got a decent enough budget... *shrugs*
The Lillster Posted December 22, 2010 Author Posted December 22, 2010 Cex are piss-poor imo for these products anyway, I wouldn't touch them for something like a laptop. I bought an asus laptop for 350 from ebuyer last christmas, it plays wow and starcraft quite well, maybe take a quick look over there? Starcraft 2? As long as I can run Starcraft 2 without any lag, I don't mind which laptop I need to buy. Well, thanks and I'll check out ebuyer.com Can you tell me what Specs your Laptop has, nightwolf? - Thanks:smile:
Nolan Posted December 23, 2010 Posted December 23, 2010 (edited) The one from Cex what brand is it and is it new? nvm Lenovo Is a reliable brand from what I understand. Don't bother trudging through the site as this is the only laptop fitting within 400-500 and having discrete graphics capable of Starcraft 2, as seen below. Around ~40FPS while on Low@1280x720 and ~20 with Textures and Graphics set to Medium. You could probably play around with them to find what is acceptable to you. Don't jump right on this though, keep shopping around first. Right now manufactures are having some pretty good sales compared to some of the online outlets. Edited December 23, 2010 by Nolan
The Lillster Posted December 23, 2010 Author Posted December 23, 2010 This laptop has got a core i3 in it, for £389 that's a pretty good deal. http://www.dabs.com/products/lenovo-g560---15-6--hd-led-screen----intel-core-i3-cpu---2gb-ddr---250gb-hdd---win7-home-premium-laptop-77L9.html Processor Type Core i3 Processor Model 370m Display Size 15.6 in Installed Memory 2 GB Hard Drive Capacity 250 GB Native Resolution 1366 x 768 Optical Storage DVD SUper Multi Dual Layer 9.5mm SATA Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition Weight 2.6 kg Network Technology IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n Office Ready PC No Type Notebook Webcam Integrated Networking / Compliant Standards IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n (draft) Battery / Cells 6-cell Warranty 12 months Card reader 5-in-1 Graphics Intel GMA HD Connectivity 3 x USB 2.0, VGA, 4-in-1 card reader, Bluetooth 2:1, R-J45, Mic-in, headphone, Kensington lock
Nolan Posted December 23, 2010 Posted December 23, 2010 As far as I can tell the Intel graphics in that laptop is the one capable of playing Starcraft II. Supposedly around 30 FPS on low, but I don't know the resolution. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Graphics-Media-Accelerator-HD.23065.0.html
The Lillster Posted January 6, 2011 Author Posted January 6, 2011 Well I've finally bought a Laptop. Here are the specs: Processor Intel® Core™ i3 Dual Core (330M, 3MB Cache, 2.13 GHz) Screen 17.3" (Toshiba TruBrite HD+, 1600 x 900 HD Resolution) Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit RAM 2GB (DDR3 1066MHZ) Hard Drive 320GB Optical Drive DVD Rewriter (Records DVDs 8x & CDs 24x & Dual Layer Super Multi) Graphics Dedicated (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1GB Dedicated DDR3 RAM) Wireless LAN Wireless (802.11b/g/n Wireless) Network Card 10/100/1000 Gigabit Fast Ethernet Integrated Webcam Integrated Webcam with Microphone Card Reader 4-in-1 card reader (MS, MS Pro, MMC, SD) USB Ports 2x USB 2.0 ports Bluetooth Version 2.0 Speakers Intergrated Stereo Speakers VGA Port 1 External VGA Port Kensington Lock Kensington lock slot Charge Time 2.5 Hours HDMI 1x HDMI Port E-sata 1x eSATA Port Numeric Keypad Yes Warranty 1 Year International Toshiba Warranty Battery Life 2-3 Hours (up to 3 hours with power management) Weight 2-3 Kg (This Model 2.82 Kg) Finger Print Reader No Only £439!
Nolan Posted January 6, 2011 Posted January 6, 2011 That's a nice and full featured laptop. The only downside being it's Toshiba, and they won't let you update video drivers from AMD. My old laptop was a Toshiba and I loved it, it's still running fantastically albeit with a broken screen (from a fall not shoddy workmanship). The only issue I ever had was my RAM died twice, the first time I sent it to Toshiba and they replaced (and shipped) at no cost, the second time I just bought my own RAM which was an upgrade in amount (and technically speed though it didn't utilize the higher speed) but main an upgrade in that it's still going after a year and a half(Approximately, it's long enough that the purchase isn't in newegg's records now.) running. Honestly RAM is a very YMMV component though, either it's going to work or it will die. Better brands are just higher probability of not dieing, but it's still possible and lower brands can live forever as well.
The Lillster Posted January 6, 2011 Author Posted January 6, 2011 Ok well, I might upgrade the Ram eventually. And how come I won't be able to upgrade the drivers? - If the card is a dedicated one, then surely the updates are handled directly by ATI?
Nolan Posted January 6, 2011 Posted January 6, 2011 For a long time OEMs have only allowed their own video drivers to work no matter the type of card. Lately most of them have decided to allow the official drivers to work, which is good because OEMs never ever bother getting around to updating. Some OEMs (Toshiba and I think Sony) still don't allow this. There is probably a way around this (there always has been before) but I haven't really dug around to figure it out. I use to install modified desktop drivers which had limited effectiveness (GPU wasn't recognized correctly in model number). You don't necessarily need to update though, just every once in a while though drivers can really improve performance in various tasks.
The Lillster Posted January 6, 2011 Author Posted January 6, 2011 OK, I'm sure everything will be fine. Thanks anyway. Well I guess I'm now officially part of the PC/Laptop gaming master race
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