I need a no bullspit assessment of gaming laptops.

Post » Mon May 28, 2012 9:52 pm

I'd have to disagree with the statement that a DV6 is intended for gaming. It is a media laptop, intended for music, movies, and light gaming, but it certainly isn't a true gaming laptop and would not match the ASUS in performance. The cooling is also subpar under heavy stress based on what I've seen with several friends of mine who have that laptop.

So you're saying it has a GPU with 1 GB of GDDR5 is there to listen to music? The fact is, it has the Llano GPU which can easily display 1080p video and any other kind of media. What do you think it also has a discreet GPU hanging around for? It might not have the same computation power as the ASUS but that doesn't mean it isn't intended for gaming.

The cooling is fine. Like just about any laptop with a reasonably powerful GPU, there is significant fan noise and case heat when pushing the system. But that doesn't mean there's a cooling problem.


if anyone is looking to replace their sata hardrive with something fast but cheap and yet not nearly as expensive as an SSD and also has relatively decent capacity.. i'd suggest a seagate momentus XT 7200rpm drive.... combine the SSD+HD technologies.... it'll boot/shutdown fast and it's automatically able to determine what to load onto the SSD for fast load times and it'll change that over time too... great for a significant boost.

I will second this notion. These things are great. The second generation versions just came out with twice as much flash memory as well.
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Laura Mclean
 
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Post » Tue May 29, 2012 9:31 am

Dbl post plz delete
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Paul Rice
 
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Post » Tue May 29, 2012 2:50 am

I guess I should update:

I made the decision to buy the linked $800 ASUS, but it took so long to decide that the price jumped back up to $1200. Ain't that a kick in the head? Anyone know where I can grab that laptop for $800 or am I going to have to go through the hunting process again?
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Matt Terry
 
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Post » Tue May 29, 2012 2:12 am

Buy a http://www.xoticpc.com/force-16f2012-msi-16f2-p-3376.html. Best bang for the buck. And the Nvidia 570m is a lot faster than the 560m.
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Marquis T
 
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Post » Mon May 28, 2012 7:49 pm

So you're saying it has a GPU with 1 GB of GDDR5 is there to listen to music? The fact is, it has the Llano GPU which can easily display 1080p video and any other kind of media. What do you think it also has a discreet GPU hanging around for? It might not have the same computation power as the ASUS but that doesn't mean it isn't intended for gaming.

The cooling is fine. Like just about any laptop with a reasonably powerful GPU, there is significant fan noise and case heat when pushing the system. But that doesn't mean there's a cooling problem.

The HP dv6 range (my laptop), it really a great laptop, It has good cooling. Maybe an older varient of the Dv6 didn't have such great cooling, but the new builds do.
Also don't underestimate it's computation power. It's no whelp, it's just waiting to have it's potential be unlocked, It's very easy too.
If It wasn't voltage capped so it doesn't go beyound only a little over it's stock voltage I could easily see this thing pushing 4Ghz, with some good cooling.

I did actually get a Zalman cooler recently, not because I needed it, but because I wanted to see if I could go beyound 3.2Ghz, it's still not that hot at 3.2Ghz
I would not be overclocking my processor from 1.6Ghz to 2.8 and even 3.2Ghz if cooling was a problem.
AMD should never of clocked them this way, it really made them look alot weaker than they really are.

I don't see the ASUS as being significantly more powerful than the HP dv6. That particular intel can overclock I beleive, but no results online show it going anyway near as far as an Llano on stock stuff.
Also It seems to be FSB unlocked, not multiplier unlocked, so you'll cause all kinds of headaches as you go up in speed. Since it will be affecting other components.
Since this game is CPU heavy and both Gfx cards are about the same, AMD with huge potential for overclocking wins me over.

Undervolted settings on battery I can run this laptop for about 6 hours on low task usage, watching a movie, web browsing, or in my case, coding.
If I want to game it will run for 2-3hours, but I rarely do that when on battery. That is with the smallest default battery.

Overclocked It does Skyrim at Ultra (low/medium shadows) with everything else to the max (uGrid 9). Steady Framerate always smooth. Lowest is usually 25, but it never feels laggy. Max obviously caps at 60.
On Stock it still will do Skyrim at High and again a steady frame rate. I just didn't keep it there for long since it was so easy to get more performance out of it with min effort.

Lets not forget the more important thing, it's budget friendly for it's competition. With room to be put towards even more upgrades, which my suggestion already gave it quiet a few.
HP might not advertise it as a Gaming laptop, but look at the hardware, it is. Quad Core, Intergrated and dedicated Gfx (both powerful) and lots of Ram. You just aren't paying a premium for it to be labeled as one.
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Destinyscharm
 
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Post » Mon May 28, 2012 10:23 pm

I've made my choice, it arrived yesterday. See update. That is all. Peace out.
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Madison Poo
 
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Post » Tue May 29, 2012 2:28 am

Razer Tablet/PC dealio if you got endless funds IMO. Below that MSI new gaming laptop got incredible reviews....past that Razer Switchblade and the new apple dealio the ProBook or whatever are pretty neck in neck(those you are paying more for the name than say the MSI). Under that ummmm.......get a PC.
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Amy Masters
 
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