New laptop budget... CPU or ram for gaming performance?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Drakeskull, Feb 12, 2012.

  1. Drakeskull

    Drakeskull Private E-2

    I've been configuring. A new laptop from a couple of manufactures for awhile and think I just about have what I want but my only delima is going with 4 vs 8 gigs of DDR3 at 1600, or the i7 2760 (2.4g 6m cache) vs 2860 (2.5g 8m cache).

    The laptop will have a 580m 2g in it so it will be 4gigs of ram and the 2860, or 8 gigs of ram and the 2760. It's right on the borderline of my budget, and I'm thinking the 2860 is the better deal at the moment for speed and because it will be possible to upgrade the ram myself a few months later and for a lot cheaper.

    Just looking for input this will be almost strictly for gaming, and web browsing I have another laptop I already do my photoshopping and other work on.
     
  2. ACE 256

    ACE 256 MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Overclocking Expe

    Your on the right track. What GPU setup options are there? From a gaming standpoint GPU is number one, CPU is second and memory speed/size is third. I game with only 4GB of ram with no problem on new titles. But then again I run my os bare bone when I'm gaming so your mileage may very. You nailed it on the head I think, ram is cheap, CPU upgrades are not.
     
  3. Drakeskull

    Drakeskull Private E-2

    They have pretty much have any option available I've looked through sager, cyber power pc, and Alienware configs, at the lower end sager seems to be cheaper, but when I really start getting to the more high end hardware like the 2860 CPU, and the 580m gpu, the price gap actually narrows, and actually got to the point to where alienwares m17x is the same price as the system configured on sager. I've decided on the 580m this time around hoping it is going to give me a few years of highend pretty mobile gaming.

    Edit:lol at my old system in my sig, been years since I've seen those specs.
     
  4. Tueur

    Tueur Sergeant Major

    Personally I wouldnt use a laptop for gaming. they are too inefficient at getting rid of heat to make it viable. A desktop will be far cheaper and probably last longer too.
     
  5. jim45682

    jim45682 Private E-2

    Will it be a 32bit or 64bit OS? and what are some examples of games your wanting it to play?

    32bit OS wont see anymore than 4gb of ram so that would answer your question right there, and some games are more CPU intensive than others
     
  6. collinsl

    collinsl MajorGeek

    98% of games probably won't see a difference between either spec montioned. 0.1GHz and 4MB of L2 cache will not make a lot of difference, nor will 4GB of RAM for gaming. Your average modern game will probably be limited to 2GB of RAM, even on a 64-bit system as they don't need much more than this. Processor-wise, I would balance the 0.1GHz increase with how much extra it is costing you.
     
  7. Drakeskull

    Drakeskull Private E-2

    Lol ended up building a desktop, oops
     

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