Do i have to spend a fortune for a "gaming laptop"

I bought a pc laptop "that i led to believe is was a all in one rigs" boys i was dead wrong

but for $1500 "is good but i sholud have done better" so now i want to go back to apple and buy a gaming laptop abd i want to see do i have to spend a fortune

and if you must know "what i need it for well gaming and a desktop deplacement"

Honestly, if you're getting it for mostly gaming I wouldn't go Apple. I believe most will agree with me on this.

The_Mini_Rigs said:

I bought a pc laptop "that i led to believe is was a all in one rigs" boys i was dead wrong

but for $1500 "is good but i sholud have done better" so now i want to go back to apple and buy a gaming laptop abd i want to see do i have to spend a fortune

and if you must know "what i need it for well gaming and a desktop deplacement"

Click to expand...

Apple doesn't make gaming laptops.
Sure the MBP has a decent graphics card.
But what led you to believe that Apple ever focused on gaming with their products?

Seriously though, don't buy a MBP for gaming.
Don't buy an Apple product for gaming.
Period.

Will have to agree with both others here. Apple does not make what is considered a Gaming Laptop. Not in the least. If you really want a Top Gaming laptop, go with Dell or maybe Alienware. Not sure anymore as things have changed a lot in recent times, but do not get a Mac laptop for heavy duty gaming.

Yea go with a customized Dell XPS or one of the Alienware laptops to get your game face on.

yeah macs are good for everything except from gaming really.

i reccomend alienware

The dell xps m1210 (though tiny) is a pretty cool mobile powerhouse.

"Gaming" is a vague term. What are the games you want to play today? Search through Google to see what people use for specific games. See what their strengths are, as well as their weaknesses. What video chips are good? Which ones are inadequate? How is the cooling on them? Does the screen refresh quickly enough? Choose candidate machines from there and then look for reviews on them.

Also, look very closely at return policies. If/when you buy something, make sure you can return it if it doesn't meet your needs. Test it with a representative game you want to play. If it works, great! If not, then you need to reconsider your purchase.

The PC market changes so fast that what was hot six months ago may not be so hot today.

Good luck!

Do i have to spend a fortune for a "gaming laptop"

In a word - "YES"

This is why you will not see any true gamers with notebook computers - not unless it is only a second to their desktop rig.

It is also why I personally had never owned a laptop since my introduction to PC games 25 years or so ago. Would not have this MBP now if I were still into the latest games on the PC platform. A nice gamers desktop rig bought from a manufacturer (vs. building it yourself) is probably going to run at least $2500-3500. You want a notebook to do this - expect $5000.

Don't expect any $1500-$2000 notebook to be a gamers delight.

bobtomay said:

A nice gamers desktop rig bought from a manufacturer (vs. building it yourself) is probably going to run at least $2500-3500. You want a notebook to do this - expect $5000.

Don't expect any $1500-$2000 notebook to be a gamers delight.

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Not necessarily anymore. I don't know what games you're intending to play, but as far as games before Q4 of this year, a $1200 desktop including the flatscreen monitor works flawlessly. I imagine you, like most people, are talking about Steam or Blizzard games and maybe the Battlefield series. If you order from www.ncix.com you can get a pretty **** good computer for $1200 CDN. As far as Q4 and 2008, that may be a different story; however, $2500-$3000 seems a bit extensive nowawadays...

Gaming notebook?

I don't even like the idea. Playing PC games is such a high maintenance thing. Standards change and you should get new video cards every few years if you want anything remotely good.

Unless you want to drop $1600 or so on a new notebook every two years. Simply put: If you want to play computer games and you buy new ones frequently then you should get a desktop PC.

On the other hand, if you play a game like World of Warcraft all the time and that's it then a Mac would work good.

Well you question just reminded me of what a friends said to a customer at his work. You can have a cheap, good, and fast, pick your 2. For one most games are designed to run on windows. Laptops are generally not designed for gaming. If your really into gaming then don't go for a brand name computer like compaq or dell and get a desktop. Buy it piece by piece and assembly it (or have someone else put it together for you). That way you can upgrade your components has the games get more advanced and demanding every year.

Some strangely negative views on playing games on Apple products!

If you want to play games on a laptop, you're going to have to find one with a good spec and get about 3 years life out of it. Whatever laptop you have, because they're not upgradable, you're going to have to sell it to get a new one. Similarly with an iMac.

Macs hold their value so much better than PCs though, so you'll actually get more money for it on ebay when you want to get a new laptop in a few years time.

The MacBook Pro has a good GPU, a cracking processor and will handle games well for a few years. Sure, you can get an Alienware dual SLI equpped laptop if you want a monster gaming machine, but you don't get OS X and you don't have any of the style or cachet you get with a Mac.

Alexis said:

Some strangely negative views on playing games on Apple products!

If you want to play games on a laptop, you're going to have to find one with a good spec and get about 3 years life out of it. Whatever laptop you have, because they're not upgradable, you're going to have to sell it to get a new one. Similarly with an iMac.

Macs hold their value so much better than PCs though, so you'll actually get more money for it on ebay when you want to get a new laptop in a few years time.

The MacBook Pro has a good GPU, a cracking processor and will handle games well for a few years. Sure, you can get an Alienware dual SLI equpped laptop if you want a monster gaming machine, but you don't get OS X and you don't have any of the style or cachet you get with a Mac.

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Well for about $1500 you can get a Dell laptop with a kick A GPU and a 17" screen with 1920x1200 resolution that will smash most games out there.

With apple, the cheapest 17" is $2800. The gpu isn't as good as what's in the Dell and fortunately they just added 1920x1200 res capability.

Plus, why would you buy a mac when you're just going to use it to run windows?

chontos said:

Not necessarily anymore. I don't know what games you're intending to play, but as far as games before Q4 of this year, a $1200 desktop including the flatscreen monitor works flawlessly. I imagine you, like most people, are talking about Steam or Blizzard games and maybe the Battlefield series. If you order from www.ncix.com you can get a pretty **** good computer for $1200 CDN. As far as Q4 and 2008, that may be a different story; however, $2500-$3000 seems a bit extensive nowawadays...

Click to expand...

Yeah right, and you're talkin' about someone who's looking to build a rig that will play games vs a gamer looking for a "gamers" rig.

His first post asked about a "gamers laptop". Didn't ask about a laptop that was capable of playing any particular game. Hence my first post.

For most hardware knowledgeable "gamers", the bare minimum hardware specs for a "gamers" rig today would include at least the following:
1. a mobo with 2 PCI-E16 slots - minimum $175 - most around $250
2. a processor for those planning to overclock -the E6600 - $290
for those not planning on overclocking, minimum E6700 - $400
3. memory is cheap - 4GB - $200 or more
4. two nvidia 8600 or a single 8800 - either option - $500

I'll stop there - already up to $1200-1400 for a build it yourself rig - no hard drive, optical drive, sound card, power supply capable of handling this system (and no hardware enthusiast will skimp on the power supply), nice case to put it in, O/System, 5.1 speakers, etc. - Just as in the last 15 years or so, a medium priced "gamers rig" is still gonna run around $2k to build it yourself and this same configuration from Dell, Alienware, etc. is going to cost you at least $2700-3000. Haven't looked, but I doubt a configuration like this could be found in a laptop for less than $4-5k.

I agree that no mac is a gaming laptop but if you dont have very high demands and you only game less than half or so of the total time you spend using a computer, a mbp with XP and a mouse should be able to satisfy ur needs for about 2 years... Gaming laptops generally dont last for much longer than 2 years so unless your on the go alot or you need a laptop anyway for other reasons, a pc (with a mac mini on the side would be better.

Village Idiot said:

Well for about $1500 you can get a Dell laptop with a kick A GPU and a 17" screen with 1920x1200 resolution that will smash most games out there.

With apple, the cheapest 17" is $2800. The gpu isn't as good as what's in the Dell and fortunately they just added 1920x1200 res capability.

Plus, why would you buy a mac when you're just going to use it to run windows?

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That would be the only 17" notebook Apple offers with only a couple of options available. Just put the same CPU in that Dell first and then compare the price.
There is no comparison between systems if the CPU's are not equal to start with.

And we all already know that Apple is not into making a system in every size for every user. Dell is into being the largest manufacturer of computers in the world which means having options at every price point from $500 - $7000 available - And I'll bet you could put together systems from Dell in $10 increments all the way from $500 to $5000 - this, imho, is only to be able to get every last penny a customer has available for a computer, whether a little or a lot.

Yeah, I remember those $1500 "gaming" notebooks Dell had a couple years back - they'd put in a nice v/card and then stick a celeron processor in it. Most customers know so little about the naming conventions used in processors anymore, they don't really have a clue what it is they're getting.

bobtomay said:

That would be the only 17" notebook Apple offers with only a couple of options available. Just put the same CPU in that Dell first and then compare the price.
There is no comparison between systems if the CPU's are not equal to start with.

And we all already know that Apple is not into making a system in every size for every user. Dell is into being the largest manufacturer of computers in the world which means having options at every price point from $500 - $7000 available - And I'll bet you could put together systems from Dell in $10 increments all the way from $500 to $5000 - this, imho, is only to be able to get every last penny a customer has available for a computer, whether a little or a lot.

Yeah, I remember those $1500 "gaming" notebooks Dell had a couple years back - they'd put in a nice v/card and then stick a celeron processor in it. Most customers know so little about the naming conventions used in processors anymore, they don't really have a clue what it is they're getting.

Click to expand...

Actually, this was back in October and they had the 2.0ghz c2d

That's more than plenty for most games out there as most games are GPU dependant and only some need raw processor power over GPU and memory. Those are few and far between, but they're out there. Example? Never Winter Nights 2. But I've ran a lot of games at 1920x1200 resolution on that $1500 Dell that run at a nearly constant 60fps where they have stuttered at 1440x900 on my 15" MBP. Does the MBP have a faster processor? Yes..by .16 ghz. More memory? No, it's the same. Better GPU? No. Only a 125mb x1600. Even the 256 scored low in comparison with the nvidia go 7900gs. It's an amazing card and more than makes up for the .16ghz difference between the two processors.

What gets me is people that say similarly equipped PC's cost as much as a mac and won't compare an Inspiron with a MBP because Dell doesn't have it labeled as a top of the line model. That's why you let the hardware speak for itself and not the name the manufactures give it. I'm not going to say any more on that because it'll just start a big arguement.

Now Apple has the 8600 cards in the MBP's and you're still going to pay about $2200 or so for the 15" MBP that has the 256mb gpu in it. I'm sure it'll play games well with windows installed, but If you're going to buy a notebook to play games and run Windows 95% of the time, why are you going to spend the extra money on the MBP? The 8600 has about the same numbers on the benchmarks as the 7900, it's just DX10 compatible.

If some one knows what I'm talking about, what's the link for the table with all the notebook GPU benchmarks in it? I'll look for it and try and post it up here and you'll see why last gen's MBP's make horrible gaming machines and why this generation's are acceptable, but not as good as other offerings out there. I mean, you can get an alienware laptop with a sli configuration in it after all...

edit: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

Nvidia Go 7900gs 3DMark06 256mb= 3800

ATI Mobility Radeon x1600 128mb = 1800

Nvidia Geforce 8600M gt 128mb = 3566

The 256mb versions of the x1600 and the 8600m are going to have higher benchmark scores, but not a huge amount more. Most retain the same clock speeds but just have upped memory.

Well, I have to say that while I agree with everybody and what they've said, if you are even a semi-casual gamer (perhaps are into more of the popular multiplayer games such as CS:S, WoW, WC3, etc) then a MBP isn't such a bad option. The video card is better (though with less video memory) then the Dell D820 I recently had, and although it is NOT future proof it can handle most of thing modern games at reasonable quality levels.

I guess I'm not really speaking to the OP, but just defending the MBP as an acceptable gaming platform for the occasional gamer.

Well here mine

Is a

HP Pavilion dv9205s retail for $1,299

but i got $100 off so it brought down to $1,199

now i got a 3 yrs plan "thru pc richard and if you not familiar with them they are only the northeast "NY,NJ,PA,CT,Some VT,"

and the plan cost me $259

so add

$1,199.97
$ 159.00

plus tax which is 8.75% "i think"

total "around $1350 to $1450"

Now that being said i know that you prople including "your truely" have a love and hate relainship with HP but now i'm really think of reselling this laptop and i tell you now "i regreat buying this machines" as i look back at it

but if i sell this machine i know is goung to be about $700 to $900 if i resell it