Wanting help with a cheap laptop that can run Diablo 3 (on decent-max settings)

Forums › Gaming › Wanting help with a cheap laptop that can run Diablo 3 (on decent-max settings)

Roflstiltskin

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#101159 25-Apr-2012 13:15

Pretty much as the subject heading states, I have a good desktop that can run most-all modern games max settings, but my sister only has an outdated laptop.

She want's to upgrade but won't do much modern gaming beyond Diablo 3, which I realise won't require the hardiest of computers. Ideally the laptop would be one that doesn't play on minimum-medium settings at 5-10 FPS or is excessively powered/priced as she won't play most new/demanding games.

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to laptops and every time I search a gaming on I seem to find ones $2-5k geared at playing the latest flashy fps or something... or the other end of the spectrum with no real Graphics card.

I'd appreciate any help/advice.

Thanks

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#614910 25-Apr-2012 13:54

i just got my son a new laptop for $1300 , it has 8GB ram, i7 processor and 2x 1 GB ATI graphic cards and it plays most games on medium settings getting 50-60 fps, so you dont need to spend big money

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Roflstiltskin

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#614937 25-Apr-2012 15:05

Cool that sounds nice, where did you get it/what was it? Was there one available from ascent or something?

vexxxboy

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#614958 25-Apr-2012 15:29

Roflstiltskin: Cool that sounds nice, where did you get it/what was it? Was there one available from ascent or something?

no Harvey Norman, $1350 with 4 GB ram , told him i needed 8 GB ram and had cash so he put an extra 4 GB in and gave it to me for $1300, so if you have cash you can get a good deal

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Roflstiltskin

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#615527 26-Apr-2012 16:32

Anyone know of any other cheapish gaming laptops (not top of the line), would love to see an example on ascent or something

jonb

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#615562 26-Apr-2012 17:12

These would be alright, in the $1000 range.. is 1gb video memory enough for you?

ACER AS5560G AMD Quad Core A8-3500M

ASUS A53SC Pink i5-2430M

HP Probook 4530s i5-2450M

HP Probook 4730s i5-2430m17" screen, 1600x900

SONY VPCEH38FGB Black i5-2450M

Those links are all for pbtech. Have you also tried looking at pricespy, using a filter for 1GB / 2GB of video memory?

freitasm

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#615564 26-Apr-2012 17:14

Moved to correct forum.

Roflstiltskin

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#615611 26-Apr-2012 19:00

jonb: These would be alright, in the $1000 range.. is 1gb video memory enough for you?

ACER AS5560G AMD Quad Core A8-3500M

ASUS A53SC Pink i5-2430M

HP Probook 4530s i5-2450M

HP Probook 4730s i5-2430m17" screen, 1600x900

SONY VPCEH38FGB Black i5-2450M

Those links are all for pbtech. Have you also tried looking at pricespy, using a filter for 1GB / 2GB of video memory?

Oh wow thanks, that's really helpful. I'm looking through them and I did try pricespy, but I wasn't sure what amount of video power I should look at for a game like Diablo 3, but not endgame.

Also thanks for sending this to the correct forum, I wasn't sure where to put it, I just googled other people's gaming laptop suggestions and found some in this forum.

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jonb

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#615909 27-Apr-2012 10:41

Looking at the system requirements here, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_III , it looks like 1GB of video memory should be fine.

Roflstiltskin

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#618215 2-May-2012 09:30

Thank you everyone for your help so far.

I've been doing some research into laptop video cards and after originally thinking that this would be perfect, I noticed the graphic card was not as good as it looked (2 gig not much > 1 gig)

Anyway I was wondering if anyone had some advice as to whether it was worth the ~$200 upgrade for this?

jonb

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#618723 3-May-2012 09:46

I would've thought some more people would have replied..

I personally don't like the DV6, as I got burnt (almost literally) with one we bought two years ago that ran so hot when doing gaming it kept on shutting itself down and the heat was damaging the battery. It only ran for an hour on battery new, and then about ten minutes after a year. I see on that page HP say they've now re-designed the range to have better cooling so it might not be aproblem now.

For that price ($1299) your best getting a 17" screen model if portability is not a big selling point for you. The 15.6" DV6 weighs a lot so you may as well have a bigger screen area and resolution for gaming and everything else.

I can't see the extremePC link from behind my office firewall, so can't comment on that.

Roflstiltskin

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#618816 3-May-2012 12:11

Hey, thanks for the reply/info. I suppose I would be concerned if it was overheating, my old laptop did that a few times.

My main concern I guess was the graphics card, but ideally a larger screen and resolution would be ideal. I'm just not sure how much performance I would have to sacrifice for a similar/lower price.

Lias

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#618860 3-May-2012 13:30

It's not so much how much RAM the graphics card has, as to the power of the GPU.

For instance the Lenovo E520 you linked has an Mobility 6630, which has much less power compared to the recommended desktop card (Radeon 4870)

To get the equivalent you'd want to be looking at a laptop with a 6850M or better (6870, 6950-6990).. Or with Nvidia chipsets, 460-485, 560-580, etc)

You wont find GOOD gaming performance in a cheap laptop.

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Roflstiltskin

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#618893 3-May-2012 14:32

Thanks for the informative reply, this is precisely what I was after. I know I'm not expecting a good gaming laptop cheaply, that's unrealistic. I was more wondering if there was a sub $1300 one that wouldn't have to run d3 on low-minimum settings with 5-10 FPS. I already have a good desktop that can run it fine, this is more for when it's in use, or I'm traveling or something, a secondary gaming laptop.

Quickly in my research I realised the size of the GPU was more a show of big numbers than an indicator of power... But I found it hard to get an idea of what cards I should be aiming for.

In the noel-leemings HP I linked, I see it has the AMD Radeon HD 7690M XT which according to notebookcheck is a few places on the benchmark list higher than 6850M... I'm not entirely sure how all of the measured numbers relate to power, so I'm not sure how usefull/accurate this is towards my goal.

jonb

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#618896 3-May-2012 14:37

I forgot about that, I thought the RAM size was more important.

On this thread on Tom's Hardware, someone recommends these chipsets as minimum for Diablo3 at medium settings..

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/67504-35-laptop-opinion#
NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M / Nvidia GT 540M or AMD Radeon HD 6550M (or better) graphics cards.

garvani

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#618899 3-May-2012 14:47

If you can hold out for a couple more weeks the AMD Trinity based laptops are coming out (one has just launched in Korea). These will offer much better performance in the value range.
For example this is the HP that just launched in korea

HP Pavilion G6-2002AX
AMD A10-4600M which is a quadcore 2.3ghz with 3.2ghz turbocore
Radeon HD 7660G DUAL GRAPHICS with HD 7670M (better than desktop GTS 450 performance)
8gb DDR3 1600mhz
1tb Hard drive

All for the equivalent of 980.116 NZD. (probably would be a tad more expensive due to local pricing)

And heres a low quality video of said laptop playing BF3, hard to tell the settings etc but if it can play that then D3 shouldn't be a problem!

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