I'd really appreciate some wise advice - Gaming Laptop, affordable, Shogun 2

[LoboCaelus]

I've decided to bite the bullet and buy a new Laptop (my current one is in a slow death spiral and will likely pack in any day now). Ideally i would like to spend no more than $1200 (or preferably $1000) but i want something that can handle Shogun 2 comfortably and smoothly (and Empire and Napoleon.)

I've been looking at a bunch of laptops - the Lenovo ideapad Y580 looks like a decent bet - but being a bit of a Luddite i tend to get bogged down in all the detail and very confused.

I would really appreciate any recommendations for quality gaming laptops that can handle the like of SG2 and at around the $1000 mark or a little above.

Thanks.

[Furunculus]

two things you will need:
1. GPU - nVidia 640M / AMD 7750
2. CPU - Intel Core / AMD Trinity

[LoboCaelus]

Ok so i take it this spec would do the job? Thanks

3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor( 2.40GHz 6MB)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX660M 2GB

8.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3 SDRAM 1600 MHz

500GB 7200 rpm

[Furunculus]

oh yes, just fine.

[LoboCaelus]

Great to hear, especially since that spec costs just over a $1000. Thanks for the advice

[CrossLOPER]

I played with a Y580 for about a month. It will play The Witcher 2 just fine on high settings without uber sampling. Just don't modify the boot.ini on this laptop or you will regret it. Also, shut off the bloatware; none of it works as intended.

http://wiseoxooxo.imgur.com/guides#3

[LoboCaelus]

Thanks, that's helpful. Could you recommend a particular Y580? Can i ask what you played on? Im leaning toward the 1TB 5400RPM+32G SSD.

[Fragony]

I heard great things about Alienware's budget offering

[LoboCaelus]

Is that the M14x?

[LoboCaelus]

Would anyone recommend the Samsung Series 7 Gamer?

DISPLAY | 17.3 in Full HD SuperBright Plus LED (1920 x 1080)
PROCESSOR | Intel Core i7-3610QM 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.30 GHz
MEMORY | 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHzHARD DRIVE SIZE | 1.5 TB SATA 7200 RPM (2x 750 GB) • 8 GB ExpressCache SSD
VIDEO | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M with 2 GB graphics memory

[oops - accidently added comment as an edit rather than a quote - corrected]

[Furunculus]

it is an older generation (fermi rather than kepler) GPU so it will be noisier and more power hungry than newer equivalents:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.70785.0.html

[CrossLOPER]

Thanks, that's helpful. Could you recommend a particular Y580? Can i ask what you played on? Im leaning toward the 1TB 5400RPM+32G SSD.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834310660

They don't sell the exact model I had anymore because everything is regrettably being "upgraded" to Windows 8. Don't bother with the SSD; it is FAR too small and tacks on about 200USD for no real advantage. TRUST ME. If you follow the guide I gave you (avoid the part about shutting off official windows services, part of it kills of the windows firewall and it is a bit of a pain in the ass to replace with something else) and replace McAfee with MSE and MWB you are gold with boot up time.

I cannot stress enough how useless the bloatware is. The boot optimiser, for example, tacks on thirty seconds and resets every other time you start up the laptop. It's hilarious.

If you really want a SSD, wait a couple of years before 500 GB gets into sane range and just replace the entire drive. This brings up the other problem with the "smart" technology that the laptop has which tries to optimise everything for you. Actually, if you can afford a fresh copy of windows 7, DO THAT.

Also don't buy alienware or any other "gaming laptop/pc". What those are, essentially, are glorified ricer rigs with a corporation's stamp on them. They have hardware that no gamer will ever need (1000 dollar processors, a 200USD i5 runs the most intense games just fine).

tl;dr The hardware is great, but the bloatware is worse than using Norton.

[LeftEyeNine]

Would anyone recommend the Samsung Series 7 Gamer?

DISPLAY | 17.3 in Full HD SuperBright Plus LED (1920 x 1080)
PROCESSOR | Intel Core i7-3610QM 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 3.30 GHz
MEMORY | 16 GB DDR3 1600 MHzHARD DRIVE SIZE | 1.5 TB SATA 7200 RPM (2x 750 GB) • 8 GB ExpressCache SSD
VIDEO | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M with 2 GB graphics memory

[oops - accidently added comment as an edit rather than a quote - corrected]

I have the Turkish version of that - 8 GB RAM with 500+500 GB HDD, ceteris paribus.

I am indeed enjoying it. If you can afford it, go with that.