New PC Spec advice please

[Gary]

Hi,

 

I have not been very active over last couple of years (since BS1 days really) due to the low spec of my existing laptop which really can't manage BS2 or A10 unfortuately.

 

Anyway, need to get back involved (been away far too long) and have decided to bite the bullet and get a new laptop today (yes very inpatient!)

 

It needs to be a laptop rather than desktop and I really do have a limited budget of approx £700

 

Although not ideal way of buying I do have a PC World local to me and will be getting it from there.

 

So question is does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations please?

 

(aside from get best processor, dedicated graphics and as much RAM as possible)

 

Any advice greatfully recieved....

 

Kind Regards,

 

Gary

[danilop]

I urge you to reconsider laptop as a choice for DCSW (or any other hardware demanding game for that matter), if at all possible. Especially in the price range you mentioned. I'm on the laptop (out of necessity, not the choice) ATM so I'm speaking from the bitter experience.

 

So what's wrong with your average laptop for DCSW build then, you may ask?

 

1) Heat - cooling your overheating, ordinary sized laptop is a major engineering task. Not possible in your business oriented laptop. You need real gaming laptop for proper heat dissipation due to several hours of intensive gaming - only problem is that the decent laptops (meant for gaming) are $2000 and up.

 

2) Performance vs Price - this is huge. Although laptops are great for business and general computing - getting performance needed for the newest games is extremely expensive. Again, you are looking at $2000+ laptop to even approach $1000 desktop build.

 

Screens are tiny even on the most expensive laptops in comparison to usual desktop monitor, so for decent flight simulator experience you need at least 23" external monitor. Another $400-500 minimum on the $2000 already mentioned ...

 

3) Upgradability - practically non-existent or extremely expensive.

 

The only advantage i could think off is portability, but if you build your desktop system in increasingly popular LAN boxes (cases meant for easy transportation to LAN parties) you are portable as well.

 

Of course, if you really want the laptop for gaming, go for it - for the price you mentioned, don't expect high quality graphics and the long term thermal stability is definitive gamble (google heat issues and mainstream Dell laptops, for example ;))

Edited February 11, 2013 by danilop

[Gary]

Danilop,

 

Thank you for taking the time to reply - it is much appreciated.

 

Unfortunately I am stuck with the laptop only option and fully aware of the limitations you mention above.

 

Many years ago I used to construct my own desktops sourcing parts mainly from Asus (before they even started producing their own builds!)

 

Trouble is things move on so quickly in the PC world that keeping up,or catching up would take far too long.

 

i'm really stuck with the choice of not bothering at all, or biting the bullet and getting the laptop (I am justifying the purchase on the basis it can be used for other things, not least work and therefore needs to be portable - I wish this wasnt the case but it is)

 

Tempted to buy the Acer v3 I7 3632qm with 8gm RAM, Nvidia 710m 1 gig.

for £750

 

Not sure what people think of this given my limitations?

[Rubberduck]

Have a look at pcspecialist.co.uk

I got my desktop from there and they also do laptops, good thing is you choose your own spec and it is very intuitive. A good forum as well, good advice from knowlegable people, as well being able to post the spec here & get some feedback. You can get a quote immediately and use this to see if you can get some better prices etc, maybe worth a look ?

[cichlidfan]

One of the few laptops that I would consider for DCS would be an Asus Republic of Gamers series. I suspect they may run more than you want to spend but they have models that will definitely do a respectable job with DCS.

[tintifaxl]

 

Tempted to buy the Acer v3 I7 3632qm with 8gm RAM, Nvidia 710m 1 gig.

for £750

 

Get at least a GTX660m or equivalent grafics card with 2 Gigs of VRAM.

[Gary]

Rubberduck,

 

Had a quick look but didnt really seem to offer much more for the same money?

 

Cich,

 

Thanks but as you suspected - not in the same price range at all..

 

Tint,

 

Thanks also but unfortunately I wont get to choose my components freely, have to go with the best processor, memory, graphics I can find and the Acer seemed to offer most for my limited money.

 

Will the 710m be a bad bottleneck? given the processor and memory seem good spec for DCS?

 

Thanks for all the replies guys btw...very helpful...

 

Regards,

 

Gary