Need help picking a budget "gaming" laptop
Posted: 06 Jun 2013, 18:06
Gaming is in quotes because I will be mainly using it for work. Currently I have a quite old Compaq Presario F700, which with a combination of linux and winbloze 7 tweaking I've managed to maintain a respectable operating efficiency. I don't try to play games on this thing. Even flash games. I could, but it's age is showing in a big way.
These are the ones I am looking at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B3P ... nder500-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B7K ... nder500-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AYT ... nder500-20
I'm looking to spend up to about $600 bucks. The issue is, none of these laptops are available near where I am atm. Currently I am in Kansas City, and I need a laptop that I can go and pick up from a store. This means that I probably need one from microcenter.com (make sure to select kc store (Overland park, ks)) or best buy. Distance to the stores doesn't really matter, as long as it's in the Kansas City area.
Thing is, I know fuckall about laptop hardware. I do very little with laptops, and I have no idea which gpus are worth a crap. I would prefer nvidia for obvious reasons, but I'm not necessarily looking to run spring on it (although that would be a plus).
Mainly I'd like to be able to play sc2 (because it's a great time waster) l4d2, FTL (another awesome time waster), etc.
So yeah, no real super intensive games. Like I said, spring would be nice, but no big deal. I don't care about size or weight. I don't even really care about res (as long as it's at least 720p). HDD space I don't care about. I don't want an SSD (because they cost a fortune).
I just need a remotely decent gfx card (like maybe a gtx 620 mobile equivalent or so?), a processor that can handle decent multitasking (quad core would be nice), and 6 - 8 gb memory.
I'm hoping that someone here knows how to shop for laptops well. I do desktops and servers, not laptops, so I'm entirely out of my element here.
I'm in Kansas City on business, and my current laptop is causing me QQ (I can't even watch youtube videos in HD because the sound/video don't sync up).
I have of course optimized this laptop to hell and back, but honestly, it's just old and it's time to start looking at a replacement.
Any ideas?
Edit: Something with either no OS on it or Linux would be ideal (So I don't get dicked for the OS license that I'm not going to use).
These are the ones I am looking at:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B3P ... nder500-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B7K ... nder500-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AYT ... nder500-20
I'm looking to spend up to about $600 bucks. The issue is, none of these laptops are available near where I am atm. Currently I am in Kansas City, and I need a laptop that I can go and pick up from a store. This means that I probably need one from microcenter.com (make sure to select kc store (Overland park, ks)) or best buy. Distance to the stores doesn't really matter, as long as it's in the Kansas City area.
Thing is, I know fuckall about laptop hardware. I do very little with laptops, and I have no idea which gpus are worth a crap. I would prefer nvidia for obvious reasons, but I'm not necessarily looking to run spring on it (although that would be a plus).
Mainly I'd like to be able to play sc2 (because it's a great time waster) l4d2, FTL (another awesome time waster), etc.
So yeah, no real super intensive games. Like I said, spring would be nice, but no big deal. I don't care about size or weight. I don't even really care about res (as long as it's at least 720p). HDD space I don't care about. I don't want an SSD (because they cost a fortune).
I just need a remotely decent gfx card (like maybe a gtx 620 mobile equivalent or so?), a processor that can handle decent multitasking (quad core would be nice), and 6 - 8 gb memory.
I'm hoping that someone here knows how to shop for laptops well. I do desktops and servers, not laptops, so I'm entirely out of my element here.
I'm in Kansas City on business, and my current laptop is causing me QQ (I can't even watch youtube videos in HD because the sound/video don't sync up).
I have of course optimized this laptop to hell and back, but honestly, it's just old and it's time to start looking at a replacement.
Any ideas?
Edit: Something with either no OS on it or Linux would be ideal (So I don't get dicked for the OS license that I'm not going to use).