typcal good gaming computer

gf said for my bday she is going to get me a gaming lap top. We both are medical field people but do enjoy a good mmo here and there so we can play together, Looking for nothing to fancy and has to be under 400 dollars for a good lap top. Im a little lost on the new technology nowadays....heres a few i was looking at listed but what is a typical gig ram and ghz people are running now....also going o use this for internet browsing...medical papers

ASUS A53U-ES21 15.6-Inch Laptop (Mocha)

HP G72-b50us 17.3-Inch Laptop PC

Acer Aspire AS5749Z-4809

Acer Aspire AS5750Z-4835

oshiba Black 15.6" Satellite C655D-S5518

Acer 15.6" Aspire AS5250-0895

[Major Attitude]

Gaming laptop is an oxymoron. They never perform like a desktop. Under 400? Sorry my friend a decent gaming rig would be at least 800 and closer to 1200+ for a "gaming" laptop. At 400 dollar you are at literally entry level laptops. Look for best video card and plenty of memory, that will help.

[gloozit]

Just a quick look at the Toshiba's gpu, got me here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Rad...0.40952.0.html
And it said this about that chip:

running fluently

• Call of Duty 4 - medium details (800x600 low - 61fps)
• Quake Wars: 1024 Normal Quality: 20.4fps - in lower quality settings it should run fluently
• Left 4 Dead 2 - 1366x768 medium details playable

playable with stuttering

• Alien Swarm - 1366x768 low-medium: 15-30fps - playable
• Call of Duty 6 MW2 - 1024 low 28fps - barely playable?
• Dragon Age: Origins: 1024x768 low - 22fps - stuttering
• StarCraft 2: 1366 low - 35fps - playable (no big battles)
• Dirt 2 - 1366x768 low - 20fps - barely playable

not playable

• Bioshock 2 - 1024 low - 23 fps
• Civilization V Benchmark: 1366 low - GPU:7.8fps, CPU:25.4fps
• Far Cry 2 - lowest Details in 1366x768 nur 16.6 fps
• Just Cause 2 Demo - 800x600 low 18-20fps

What MajorAttitude said pretty much sums it up. You can play video games on a good laptop, but it will cost at least twice, what you want to pay. And even then you are going to want to add a good laptop cooler. And keep a good eye on temps.
I gave up with all the extra work and attention, it takes to keep a laptop in gaming condition. I built a desktop strictly for gaming. And that is still going to cost a bit more than your budget, especially to play the newest releases

well i prefer my xbox for friends wise but the gf was always bugging me 24/7 till i got her hooked on a mmo called forsaken world i got two different people listing the specs to play

1st
Info so far, from various sources:

Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows 2000 / XP /Vista / 7
CPU: Dual-Core 2.0GHz
RAM: 1 GB RAM
HDD: 5 GB Free
Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce 9600GT

Recommended Specifications:
OS: Windows 2000 / XP /Vista / 7
CPU: Pentium Dual-Core 2.5GHz
RAM: 2 GB RAM
HDD: 8 GB Free
Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce 9800GT or better


2nd
Source: the Perfect World Download pages

"System Requirement
Operating System Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
CPU Intel Pentium 4 1.5Ghz or AMD Athlon 1500+ or newer and faster CPU
RAM 512MB or more of RAM (Vista and Windows 7 require 1GB or more, 2GB+ preferred)
Hard Disk 5GB of Hard Drive Space or more (14GB or more preferred)
Graphic Display 3D video chipset with pixel and vertex shader model 1.3 supported. GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB or ATI™ Radeon™ 8500 64MB or newer for Windows XP. For Windows Vista and 7, a GeForce FX 5200 128MB or ATI Radeon 9500 128MB or newer is needed.
Sound Drivers DirectX compatible sound chip or onboard audio capability with the latest sound drivers
Network Broadband Internet connection required"

well basically got the gf hooked on a mmo cause she was being very clingy and needy so she would get off my back a little those other games i am sure are great but i dont think i need those high of specs to run this one called forsaken world its a free mmo heres the specs needed just to run it...so listed which one of those lap tops or brands would you stick with

Source: the Perfect World Download pages

"System Requirement
Operating System Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
CPU Intel Pentium 4 1.5Ghz or AMD Athlon 1500+ or newer and faster CPU
RAM 512MB or more of RAM (Vista and Windows 7 require 1GB or more, 2GB+ preferred)
Hard Disk 5GB of Hard Drive Space or more (14GB or more preferred)
Graphic Display 3D video chipset with pixel and vertex shader model 1.3 supported. GeForce 4 Ti4200 64MB or ATI™ Radeon™ 8500 64MB or newer for Windows XP. For Windows Vista and 7, a GeForce FX 5200 128MB or ATI Radeon 9500 128MB or newer is needed.
Sound Drivers DirectX compatible sound chip or onboard audio capability with the latest sound drivers
Network Broadband Internet connection required"


or another guy said this

Info so far, from various sources:

Minimum Requirements:
OS: Windows 2000 / XP /Vista / 7
CPU: Dual-Core 2.0GHz
RAM: 1 GB RAM
HDD: 5 GB Free
Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce 9600GT

Recommended Specifications:
OS: Windows 2000 / XP /Vista / 7
CPU: Pentium Dual-Core 2.5GHz
RAM: 2 GB RAM
HDD: 8 GB Free
Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce 9800GT or better

[gloozit]

A GeForce FX 5200 has a benchmark of 1095.
A Raedon 9500 has a benchmark of 708, According to this site, http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
The chip in the Toshiba is a Raedon HD 6310 with a bench mark of 666.

Lower is not better. You can look at the other chips, on the other laptops and compare their benchmarks, at the site I linked. This is the searchable page there: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

And if she gets really hooked, you're still going to want a better gaming machine, ask Mimsy

so your telling me non of the above would work for that game basically? lol she has a sony sony vaio and it plays fine on that

[gloozit]

Yes, according to the specs you posted for the game.
All these laptops have less than the needed graphics power.

For Windows Vista and 7, a GeForce FX 5200 128MB or ATI Radeon 9500 128MB or newer is needed.

that really sucks...my best bet i guess i looking up a lil more expensive one on ebay and hope for a good price i guess unless one of those has some cheap updates i can do here and there to make into a decent lil gamer...the sony vioa of hers is like 1-2 years old and plays it fine thats just weird i guess thinking these newer ones cant but that older one can.....well what brands do you reccomend....im told acer and asus are good brands

[Goldenskull]

Originally Posted by Major Attitude

Gaming laptop is an oxymoron.

Agreed



I spent about close to 900$ for mine and its not even maxed out yet.
Mine here would be a cheap typical Build.
I was on a budget when i started to build this hell my cpu is 65watts low power but i can (OC) it too 3.68Ghz.My main board can fit 16 gigs of Ram if needed.

Right now i am try to just keep it cooled.And i am doing a pretty good job.My Cpu barely reach's 80F While gaming.Video card is the worst i still got the stock cooler.

If you want a good gaming computer you have to make sure you got really good amount of air flow.Or if you want go with Liquid Cooling.

CPU
AMD Athlon II X2 260 70 °F 3.20GHZ
RAM
8.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
MSI 870A-G54 (MS-7599) (CPU1) 87 °F
Graphics
1023MB GeForce GTX 550 Ti (EVGA) 103 °F

i guess im just looking for something simple to get me by for that game

[gloozit]

Darn it!!! I have to apologize. I crossed lanes when I was looking down those lists. I was totally wrong.
Radeon HD 6310M Score194(higher better) Ranked 666 (lower Better)
GeForce FX 5200 Score 45 Ranked 1095

Any of those laptops should work for that game.
Sorry, I caught myself by going higher in price and wondering how intense that game could be, because no laptop could play it. so I back tracked and found, I was the problem.

[Goldenskull]

Originally Posted by gloozit

Darn it!!! I have to apologize. I crossed lanes when I was looking down those lists. I was totally wrong.
Radeon HD 6310M Score194(higher better) Ranked 666 (lower Better)
GeForce FX 5200 Score 45 Ranked 1095

Any of those laptops should work for that game.
Sorry, I caught myself by going higher in price and wondering how intense that game could be, because no laptop could play it. so I back tracked and found, I was the problem.

Every body has there good and bad days.

lol so the good news is any of those will correct? lol

[gloozit]

Yes, any of those will play that game.
I like Toshiba's because they have good sound. (If a laptop can have good sound. )
Choose the i3's or i5's in your list. ( I think I remember an i5, in there)
Then you will have a laptop that can also work hard.
And again, sorry for my bad eyes.
I kept wondering about that game. My laptop couldn't play it according to what I was reading, as results.
And I have played all the Crysis games, Far Cry games, and the Stalker games on here, without trouble. My scores are GeForce 310M Rating 286 Rank 506
Once I looked back I saw what I was doing, I hoped you were still here.

tell you what man thats alot of relief on my part. for the last 4 years the gf and i have never really spent more then 50 bucks on each other for gifts but she wants that wedding ring bad lol. She told me she wants to get me a bigger gift im thinking to push me in the direction lol. So knowing I can get away with her wanting to spend 200-400 bucks on a lap top and knowing i can if alot of sweat off my back

[gloozit]

Originally Posted by gixbusa

but she wants that wedding ring bad lol.

A laptop will please her but not make her happy. At this point there is only one thing she will be happy with, a big friggin' diamond (or a little one on an engagement ring, but then you are roped, tied and history)

I'm pretty sure she will be able to play that game, but you will want to keep an eye on temps. Something not spoken about was air flow, in those laptops. The one with the best cooling, cpu and gpu would be your best buy.
Just remember that's not a real powerful chip, so check your games out before buying them.
This is a place you can check a PC to see if it can play a certain game: http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/

I just checked and that game is on the list (Perfect World) My laptop gets a high score for that game, so any of those laptops should get a good enough grade to play it also.
Maybe go to BestBuy and try out out of their demos with that gpu and go to that site and check?
But after seeing how mine compares to the recommendations, I know those laptops will go above the minimum requirements, if not all the way to near the top.

you sir are awesome. she has her sony viao and i will just have to choose one of those comps for me then it will be a hard choice lol you have a top three to go with? we are going to best buy tonight after she gets off work so i will browse there. if it comes down to sound i do have some speakers i bought off walmart...had a 20 dollar gift card and decided why not when they had a sale on there logitech speakers that plug into the headphone jack and sound pretty nice

[Major Attitude]

Yo, money is tight. Go to New Egg or Tiger Direct and shop the laptops in your range and reviews. Might find a better deal and most deliver with days. PLUS you don't want to trust the average employee at a chain store, I have heard crazy lies from those guys.

major no worries bud, i hate the guys at best buy.....they told my parents a few years back there computer was garbage and a piece....had them buy some 900 dollar comp....i asked if i could have there old comp....placed a new internal hard drive in there and bam good as new....ran faster then there new one...i did have a lil chat with the manager and the salesman.....mad him feel like a complete dumb ...not sure what the language barrier on here is but you can guess...i go to stores and see what they have and then go on amazon and ebay for my items...but i do some research on some gadget sites..i do have about 120 bucks for ebay on gift cards i was gonna use so i was gonna place that towards the lap top.