What's the best gaming laptop I can get for £900 or less?

[BisectedBrioche]

My old laptop's starting to break down (and wasn't that great to begin with) and my gaming PC's been dead for months, so I want to get a gaming latop to replace them both (ideally one which'll last a few years and I can also use for games programming).

Anyways, I've been searching around and I found this:[www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk]

INTEL® Core™ i7-4810MQ Mobile Processor 2.80 GHz 6M Smart Cache, Max Turbo Freq. 3.80 GHz
8GB (8GBx1) DDR3-1600 SODIMM Memory
NVIDIA GTX 860M 2GB PCIe Video
500GB 5400RPM SATA300 Hard Drive

I was thinking of replacing the 500GB HDD with the "250 GB Samsung 840 EVO SATA III Gaming MLC Solid State Disk" option (I don't think I'll really need the extra space; I've got all the programs I need installed on my current laptop, plus 5 games and it's barely used up 70GB).

Can I do better than that for £900 (about $1400, I think) or less?

EDIT: Just to clarify; a desktop wouldn't be very practical for me right now. v_v

[Rove]

Bisected님이 먼저 게시:

I suppose I should have said it outright in the OP, but; a desktop isn't really practical for me right now (the shortest answer would be that I need a reasonably powerful laptop and I can't afford both that and a gaming desktop).

Actually you probably can. What do you need the laptop for?

Check these out for example:

Complete gaming desktop including everything, note that the speakers are in the monitor.
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/kKJGdC
Total: £522.77

Laptops:

337.56 GBP
AMD A8-5550M APU using the integrated graphics
http://www.cclonline.com/product/143409/20B2000KUK/Laptops/Lenovo-ThinkPad-Edge-E545-15-6-inch-Notebook-AMD-A8-5550M-2-1GHz-4GB-500GB/NOT10040/

OR

369 GBP
Intel i5-4210U CPU using the integrated graphics
http://www.cclonline.com/product/153110/NX-ML8EK-015/Laptops/Acer-Aspire-E5-571-57BR-15-6-inch-Notebook-PC-Core-i5-4210U-1-7GHz-4GB-500GB-DVD-SuperMulti-DL-WLAN-BT-Webcam-Windows-8-1-64-bit-HD-Graphics-4400-Black/NOT00334/

Total under 900 GBP before shipping.

The gaming desktop is sort of budget BUT it's probably still better than you'd get in a laptop plus it can be overclocked or upgraded much safer and easier than a laptop. Laptops are disapointing cause when they aren't performing well enough you often need a whole new one. They are hard & expensive to upgrade and the options are very limited. The same with overclocking, difficult, impossible or just dangerous. Also the desktop screen is just plain bigger, I mean you won't find a reasonable laptop with a screen over 20 inches.

You will get a better experience with a desktop & laptop both for the price.

However the laptop you did find is similar in performance to the desktop I listed except that it's a laptop, things (like the screen) are smaller, hard to upgrade or overclock & so on.

Desktops win at gaming. Laptops are just expensive.

[BisectedBrioche]

...but if the desktop's as powerful as the laptop I'm basically going to be splitting my time between that and something worse, rather than using a machine with the same specs all the time (and in any case, the laptop would be what I'm using 75% of the time anyway - as I mentioned in the OP, I'll be using it for game dev/programming, so intergrated graphics aren't really an option).

Topper Harley님이 먼저 게시:

17" screen, 860m, blu-ray -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/G750JM-T4049H-17-3-inch-Notebook-i7-4700HQ-Bluetooth/dp/B00I1BRDVO/ref=sr_1_36?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1413586775&sr=1-36&keywords=gaming+laptop

Ooo, that's pretty good. Although I'm still leaning towards the one I mentioned in the OP (I don't really need a blu-ray player and the lack of info on the HDD's bothering me).

[Rove]

Look the one you mentioned in OP should be fine as far as laptops go. GPU is less powerful than PS4 and maybe slightly less than XB1 or about even to it. CPU is good, 8GB of RAM is good though single channel is not ideal. HDD is kinda small and limited upgrade ability.

It'll work and should approximate a portable XB1 console with more powerful CPU.

Quick search didn't find me anything with a GTX 970m at under 900GBP but of course if you managed to find a deal like that it'd be the way to go.

Honestly I still gotta say I prefer desktop and think you should use it more. Seriously when are you going to spend 75% of your work day needing a mobile computer? You work on game developing on a train to and from your day job or something? Fine if you do but just saying if it's a full time thing you should consider sitting down at a desk with a desktop and getting it done and spend the full 900 GBP on the desktop. Maybe you work with other people with more beefy machines but if you are in it solo you will definitely feel the pain of only having a laptop (at lower performance than a desktop) if you try and make demanding & cutting edge graphics engines & games & whatever else needs a really hardcore system.

I'd suggest the slightly more expensive version with 1TB HDD and 120GB SSD instead though just cause it's not that much more and having that extra SSD and HDD space will be good:
https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/FANGBOOK_Evo_HX6-200

Windows goes on the SSD, HDD is for movies, music and games.

[BisectedBrioche]

Rove님이 먼저 게시:

Look the one you mentioned in OP should be fine as far as laptops go. GPU is less powerful than PS4 and maybe slightly less than XB1 or about even to it. CPU is good, 8GB of RAM is good though single channel is not ideal. HDD is kinda small and limited upgrade ability.

It'll work and should approximate a portable XB1 console with more powerful CPU.

Quick search didn't find me anything with a GTX 970m at under 900GBP but of course if you managed to find a deal like that it'd be the way to go.

Honestly I still gotta say I prefer desktop and think you should use it more. Seriously when are you going to spend 75% of your work day needing a mobile computer? You work on game developing on a train to and from your day job or something? Fine if you do but just saying if it's a full time thing you should consider sitting down at a desk with a desktop and getting it done and spend the full 900 GBP on the desktop. Maybe you work with other people with more beefy machines but if you are in it solo you will definitely feel the pain of only having a laptop (at lower performance than a desktop) if you try and make demanding & cutting edge graphics engines & games & whatever else needs a really hardcore system.

I'd suggest the slightly more expensive version with 1TB HDD and 120GB SSD instead though just cause it's not that much more and having that extra SSD and HDD space will be good:
https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/FANGBOOK_Evo_HX6-200

Windows goes on the SSD, HDD is for movies, music and games.

Well, I don't really want to post my entire private life online, but thanks to various family commitments, I'm basically going to be moving back and forth a lot in 2015 and only be "home" (or anywhere else I could conceivably leave a desktop) a few weeks at a time. If there was a way I could lug a desktop around with me, I'd definitely get one.

As long as I'll be able to play most of 2015's releases on medium or better, I can live with a laptop. The games dev's more of a hobbiest/CV buffing thing, so XBOne level hardware should suffice.

Thanks for the advice.

[Rove]

Oh totally about the moving from place to place thing I think I get it.

But could you get a mini-ITX portable desktop with handles on the case and 2 monitors one for each home or something?

Cause a monitor (the clumsy part to move) will cost you 100~ GBP and getting 2 still leaves 700 GBP for a very respectable mini-ITX desktop.

Here is a example of the case you could use that is portable:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/bitfenix-case-bfcpro300kkxskrp

See that case is tiny and portable. You could totally carry it back and forth between two homes & homes and cottages and whatever else if that's what you needed to do.

I'm assuming it's moving between 2 houses like mom & dad's or something ( I had split parents when I was a kid ) but if it's more than 2 places with no spare TVs in the other ones then I can see how extra monitors beyond 2 would start to be a pain.

Still it's a idea and allows you to go for a more powerful GPU which is the most important part for gaming. Let me know if you are interested and I'll post a build.

Edit: here I went and put it together anyways just for fun so why not take a look?
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/F8TRqs
Total: £877.75

If you want it for even cheaper that can be done also:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/MH9pVn
Total: £723.52

& you could cut off another 70 GBP if you are willing to take out WIndows and use Linux or Steam OS instead. I recommend Linux Mint and have been able to use a program called Wine to run Windows programs including Steam for Windows & games on it before.

Note that both builds come with 2 1920*1080 21.5 or 22 inch monitors.

You can also make a middle price build by changing some but not all of the parts from the most expensive to the ones they got swapped for in the least expensive.

Hope you like or find the laptop of your dreams XD.

[BisectedBrioche]

Hmm, I didn't think of that.

It's not really a "moving between two houses" situation (basically some stuff happened just after I'd finished uni and had to leave student housing, then more stuff happened), but setting extra monitors up is doable (I've already got a few spares).

I'd rather avoid assembling my own PC, though (I built my last two, so I'm OK replacing parts later, but I don't want to go through the hassle of building from scratch again). Would that make a difference in the price?

[Rove]

Big difference. At best you could pay some guy at a local shop to do it for 50 GBP or whatever. At worst you are looking at a prebuilt for a few 100 GBP more probably at least.

Building your own is really superior.

[_I_]

if you go itx, do not go amd cpu
get an i3 or i5

a8-a10 will make it a hotbox

[Alchemist79]

Lian li make nice cases -

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-630-LL&groupid=2362&catid=2278

[Rove]

_I_님이 먼저 게시:

if you go itx, do not go amd cpu
get an i3 or i5

a8-a10 will make it a hotbox

Dude the A8-7600 is 65W (less than i5) and has a 45W mode also that is configurable (which is less than i3 at 53W) so you are wrong to say it will be a hotbox.

[BisectedBrioche]

I've spoken to the various people I'll be living with, and it looks like any sort of desktop (even a compact one)'s been vetoed, unfortunatly.

Just to check; would I see any benefit to switching the Fangbook's hx6-200's HDD to a 500GB high performance drive? I very much doubt I'll need a TB of space anyway.

It might be worth noting that if I got the -100 with a 250GB SSD, there would (according to the stats) a slot I could use to add a larger secondary HDD at a later date....

[Rove]

I think you'd be surprised how much space you can use. Still adding a HDD at a later date is a potential option though laptop parts are slightly harder to shop for than desktop due to more problems with compatibility & form factor & rarity. It can be done.

DO what feells right to you. I do really recommend both a SSD & a storage HDD and I'd actually even recommend going higher than 1TB for the storage.

Still if you want only the SSD right now that leaves room to add 2TB or however much larger a drive you canb fit there later. SO that's not a bad idea. You will just have to be careful with compatibility when shopping for a new HDD later.