prepurchase question ( gaming laptop )

[luckyluca]

Hello,

I'm thinking about purchasing a mid-high end 15" gaming laptop as gaming machine for my flight sim games. I'm going to plug it to my flight sim gear and use it as main pc when simming and then just use it as browsing laptop when on the sofa.


I laid eyes on the top of the spec vortex i7 and enigma2 laptops with either the 460m nvidia (vortex) or 5650 ati (enigma) and wanted your opinion about them.

I don't need fancy dx11 shaders as x-plane is opengl based and any sim is pretty much dx10 or lower. I do need a fast GPU though and was wondering if the £300+ difference is worth the price of the 460m.

lastly I'm still a bit skeptical about PCS' laptops because of the lack of online feedback and reviews. I would especially like to hear of stability and overheating, software or firmware updates and the dead pixel policy.

Also, is there any plan for a 15" with lower resolution? 1920x1080 is very high, it would be much better a 1680x1050 or 1440x900 for the eyes ;-)

Thanks
Luca

 

[Gishank]

Hi.

Whilst I haven't personally purchased a laptop from PCSpecialist (got a Desktop-gaming rig instead) I can answer a few questions. Though my first concern is the fact that you're getting a laptop and intending to game - do you absolutely need laptop? Gaming is more suited to desktops. ;D As for Graphics card, I personally would recommend the GTX460m as benchmark wise it has double the power of ATi's mobile 5650, plus it has a dedicated physics routine seperate from the graphics routine meaning essentially in physics intensive games such as flight simulators it could offer vastly increased performence over the 5650. It's worth it in my personal opinion, afterall it's best to get the best GPU you can - especially with laptops.

Additionally;
That is merely the max resolution, you can naturally change the output resolution in the OS - or have I misread your comment?

 

[luckyluca]

regarding the resolution any resolution different than the native lcd one will end up in jaggy blurred images and having owned 15" 1920x1080 laptops before I felt too small for everyday use.

Regarding desktop or laptop, after having switched to desktop replacement laptops since 2003 I got so used to them that I would suffer being constrained to a desk.
afterall I sit in front of a desktop for work all day everyday
(btw I wish I could run my flight sims on my work computer, it's a 12 core xeon beast with 50Gb ram )

L

going back to the question my main worry right now would be dead pixels. Other companies offer a no dead pixels guarantee for a small fee or indeed free.
I wouldn't mind spending £30 for such service!

Thanks
L

Hi.

Whilst I haven't personally purchased a laptop from PCSpecialist (got a Desktop-gaming rig instead) I can answer a few questions. Though my first concern is the fact that you're getting a laptop and intending to game - do you absolutely need laptop? Gaming is more suited to desktops. ;D As for Graphics card, I personally would recommend the GTX460m as benchmark wise it has double the power of ATi's mobile 5650, plus it has a dedicated physics routine seperate from the graphics routine meaning essentially in physics intensive games such as flight simulators it could offer vastly increased performence over the 5650. It's worth it in my personal opinion, afterall it's best to get the best GPU you can - especially with laptops.

Additionally;
That is merely the max resolution, you can naturally change the output resolution in the OS - or have I misread your comment?

 

[luckyluca]

after some consideration I decided to go with a desktop build (hurray!)

it will be use solely for flight simming (dcs a10 x-plane il2) so will need your help soon in the check this spec section!

thanks
Luca

regarding the resolution any resolution different than the native lcd one will end up in jaggy blurred images and having owned 15" 1920x1080 laptops before I felt too small for everyday use.

Regarding desktop or laptop, after having switched to desktop replacement laptops since 2003 I got so used to them that I would suffer being constrained to a desk.
afterall I sit in front of a desktop for work all day everyday
(btw I wish I could run my flight sims on my work computer, it's a 12 core xeon beast with 50Gb ram )

L

going back to the question my main worry right now would be dead pixels. Other companies offer a no dead pixels guarantee for a small fee or indeed free.
I wouldn't mind spending £30 for such service!

Thanks
L