New pc

I'm thinking bout gettinga new lap top and need one that runs sl really good. I have been looking at the dell alienware but its pricey..anyone have any suggestions on a good lap top to run sl and other games?
any info is appreciated

Any laptop you get that will run SL WELL is going to be pricey. What's more, even as pricey as those laptops are they still will be lower performance than a desktop in the same price range. Laptops were invented for portability geared toward business applications.........and, that is the base each and every laptop produced comes from. Someday they may catch up with the power of a comparable desktop. But, they will always be "pricey" in comparison.

Look at the Asus G51, G60, or G72 series. The best value is the G51J, which has a core i7 CPU. They all come with a GTX 260m and 4 GB RAM. These laptops have dual hard drive bays. There are cheaper Core 2 Duo models available at Best Buy with a lower resolution screen, starting under $1000. Newegg has a few models that are specific to them that might be a better value, and then resellers like Xoticpc sell customizable versions.

I looked at a few of the Asus on the net but ive never heard of them til now. thanks will def. check it out

I've been running a G51 for a couple of months now. It handles SL very well. Mine has the Core 2 Quad. I have everything set to the max, draw distance at 256 meters, 4x AA and anisotropic filtering on. No problems running at those settings, and the screen looks great.

I keep looking at the alienware from dell..it looks awesome and the laptop i have now is a 17 inch screen and i want another 17 as im used to it. the one i have now is messed up. i thought it was my graphic card which the one i have in now isnt that old but someone told me they think its my motherboard but isnt for sure. Its all confusing to me lol

The M17x is an impressive machine...there is a good deal on them at Microcenter, if you have on near you. The Asus G72 is a 17 inch with a GTX 260m as well. Not as good as the Alienware, but cheaper.

nope just looked..i'm in North Carolina and went to their site and see none in NC

http://bit.ly/newegglaptopswithnewishnvidia

That should produce some laptops with decent or better nvidia graphics at newegg.

thanks

On the new Nvidia cards, avoid anything with less than a 3 in the second digit (for 3-digit numbers). If you are looking at 8 or 9 series, the second digit should be 6 or higher.

At http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_m_series.html there is a chart...look for Performance or better. Mainstream cards will run SL at low settings.

I'll second the recommendation for ASUS. As off the shelf laptops go, ASUS is my favorite make, hands down. I absolutely love my G70. It's nearly two years old, and it still runs circles around most other laptops.

Since you hadn't heard of ASUS before, Sasha, let me tell you a little about them. They're best known as a manufacturer of high end motherboards, graphics cards, and other PC components. The brand is extremely popular among gamers and hardware enthusiasts.

ASUS also helped pioneer the netbook industry. The Eee PC is one of their flagship products. It was one of the first netbooks on the market when it first came out, and its various incarnations continue to be rated by Cnet and other reviewers as the best netbooks available.

In recent years, ASUS has dove into the laptop market in a huge way. Their status as a high quality parts manufacturer as put them in a unique position, the only laptop maker in the world who manufacturers their own motherboards and graphics cards. Because they make the key components that other companies have to buy, they're able to offer far more bang for the buck than just about anyone else. ASUS laptops tend to be very feature rich, and relatively inexpensive. It's hard to ask for much more than that.

Case in point, I'm sure you noticed that the Dell/Alienware systems you first mentioned are way more expensive than the closest equivalents from ASUS, and most models don't offer as many features as ASUS gives you. This is because Dell is just an assembler of computers, not a manufacturer of parts. There's a huge difference there.

All that said, there are a couple of (minor) drawbacks to ASUS laptops. One is the inability to customize. You're buying an off the shelf product, so it's possible that the exact configuration of parts you may want might not be available. However, they generally offer a wide selection that this isn't an issue for any but the most finicky of customers.

The other potential catch is you have to be careful who you buy from. If you get an ASUS machine from Best Buy, for example, it won't be quite the same as what you'd get from NewEgg and other online retailers. The Best Buy versions tend to be stripped down, with midrange substitutes for what would otherwise be high end components. Perhaps even more importantly, they also do not come with the same warranty as you'd otherwise get. The real ASUS warranty is superb, covers just about everything you could think of, but the Best Buy version is quite limited. If you get an ASUS machine, get it from NewEgg or TigerDirect, or any other reputable online computer retailer. Steer clear of the likes of Best Buy and Walmart for this.


Now, if you'd rather customize a latptop than buy one off the shelf, the brand I'd recommend is Malibal (malibial.com). They boast some of the fastest laptops on the planet, they use only ultra high end components, their customer service is top notch, and their prices are amazingly low for what they deliver. They're one of the only computer assemblers I know of who do not mark up their prices on parts at all. When you buy a Malibal machine, you're getting the parts at cost, and just paying a reasonable amount beyond that for labor and service. You couldn't ask for a better deal.

Malibal prices start around $1600, and the sky is the limit from there. So if you're looking for something really cheap, they won't be for you. But if you want something high end at an extremely reasonable price, they can't be beaten.

I'm VERY happy with my Rock! This is the latest revision that they do....

http://www.rockdirect.com/viewNotebook.php?pName=XTREME%20840%20SLI