I'm thinking about getting a new computer - now DIY desktops. No rush.

[Dean]

Well, I'm a bit tired over my current computer, and it's slowness. It's a 3-4 year old Compaq Mini (10.1") laptop, with no disc-drive, so I'm on the lookout for a new computer.

Behold His... slowlyness .

I've often wanted to play the more demanding games (especially Euro Truck Simulator (2?)), but this could only just run Counter Strike 1.6 and A.O.E II (both via download). The only thing I like about it, is it's compact size, and that it runs Windows XP (SP3, I think). If I remember right, it's got 1.00 GHz, and "Intel Atom inside" (what is that ?). To be honest, I know nothing about computers and what I should get of "inside items". I do know, that I want it to be fast to startup, able to play games (ETS 2 ) and be in a reasonable price range. I've been looking on Dell's GPX, but it's way to pricey. I then went onto SONY. They've also got these 10000 DKK+ (~$1743+) computers, but then I found this:

SONY VAIO E-series 15 (SVE1513C5E)

Price is fine - also with some upgrades! I'm not sure what I need for ETS 2, and similar games, but I would chose this:

• Intel® CoreTM i5-3230M, 2,6GHz (they've also got Intel® CoreTM i7-3632QM, 2,2GHz - which I'm going for.)
• Windows 8 (only one available )
• AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7650M 2GB (best they've got for this model)
• 39,5cm (15.5") LED 1366 x 768 + webcam (nothing to choose from)
• 320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm) (goes up to a 750 GB)
• 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L-SDRAM (also the best for this model)
• Blu-ray Disc(TM)-player (it's free so... )

By choosing the best (with the 320 GB harddisk), it's just under my ABSOLUTE maximum limit of 6000 DKK (~$1046 USD). But, if I can save anything, and still run the games, I'll do that !

Now, as the ending comment, I would like to ask for recommendations inside my price range, "pro tips" and etc. I'm not in a rush, really, as I won't get a new computer before the old one "dies out". And, as I don't have space for a desktop, I'll need a laptop. I would, by the way, like it to have a HDMI-output as well, so I can plug it into my TV. Battery should be 4 hours+.

I hope you clever guys can help me, a bit :tup:.

Edit: I would be interested in running Simraceway, too . Though, I think ETS2 is more demanding than Simraceway...

 

[Luminis]

Obvious first question first: You've still got the Compaq - are you positive that you want a laptop? A desktop PC would offer better bang for your buck...

/edit: Scratch that, I missed the part about being limited in terms of space.

 

[Gdog96]

The 'intel atom inside' is the CPU of the compaq: the Intel Atom. They often use this CPU for smaller laptops and some tablets.

http://www.ebuyer.com/414934-lenovo-thinkpad-edge-e530-laptop-n4f49uk

This laptop has a better GPU than the one you selected, based on the benchmarks I have seen. This is good because games are more GPU limited than CPU limited, as most CPUs out there today are sufficient more most games (unless we're talking years old).

It has less ram but 4 gigs is sufficient for most gaming.

 

[Dean]

Obvious first question first: You've still got the Compaq - are you positive that you want a laptop? A desktop PC would offer better bang for your buck...

/edit: Scratch that, I missed the part about being limited in terms of space.

Well, I'm only considering at this point, so everything's welcome, as long as it's below $1050 USD 👍.

The 'intel atom inside' is the CPU of the compaq: the Intel Atom. They often use this CPU for smaller laptops and some tablets.

http://www.ebuyer.com/414934-lenovo-thinkpad-edge-e530-laptop-n4f49uk

This laptop has a better GPU than the one you selected, based on the benchmarks I have seen. This is good because games are more GPU limited than CPU limited, as most CPUs out there today are sufficient more most games (unless we're talking years old).

It has less ram but 4 gigs is sufficient for most gaming.

Oh, that's what it (the Intel Atom) is! I still have no clue what CPU and/or GPU is, but I'll look both up on Wikipedia. - But, what you're saying is that the "GPU" is more important than the CPU, when it comes to gaming, right?
Edit: - What I mean is, is it better to have more GPU, than more CPU?

 

[Luminis]

I don't know whether you'd be able to find a retailer that sells Schenker notebooks. The Schenker XMG A522 AD should be in your price range. It's a 15 inch laptop, comes with an i7-2630QM, 8GB RAM, an NVDIDIA 660M and Win7. Price is around 850 Euro, which should be just below 1,050 USD, I think.

Availability could be the big issue here, but Schenker builds some awesome laptops for the price.

 

[Gdog96]

CPU stands for 'central processing unit' and is basically a chip that acts as the brain of the PC. It is inserted into a motherboard which acts like the central nervous system. The CPU tells the motherboard what to do and the motherboard co-ordinates the working of the PC. That's how I like to think of it.

GPU stands for 'graphics processing chip'. This is incharge of displaying image, in its simplest form. Sometimes the graphics chip can be intergrated onto the CPU, this is called 'intergrated graphics'. This isn't as powerful as a dedicated graphics chip or 'graphics card' which have RAM set aside for video processing and don't have to share the CPUs power.

And yes, if you have to choose between more CPU power and more GPU power, for games, go with more GPU power.
However this doesn't mean you can go for an old rubbish CPU. You need a relatively decent CPU, or it will hold back the graphics card, because the CPU needs to tell the GPU what to do and if the CPU is slow at telling the GPU things, then the GPU will run slower. This is called a bottleneck.

I reccomend an Intel i5 for gaming, like the one in the laptop you suggested in the original post. If you have enough budget for an I7, you should go with that (aslong as you're not sacrificing GPU power), this is because, in laptops, i5 CPUs generally have 2 cores whereas i7s have 4 cores. Now, most games these games will run just fine on 2 cores, and will continue to in the future, but with new games like crysis 3 being released, future games will start to make use of more cores. (A core is just like a section of processing power within the CPU). But like I said, you will be fine with 2 cores so don't worry if you can't get an i7.

I know that's probably more information than you expected, but I thought I'd give you abit of background knowledge to help you along Sorry if I overwhelmed you You can ask about anything here and I can try to explain it better if you want.

In short, GPU power is more important than CPU power in games, and CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, and GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit.

 

[Dean]

I don't know whether you'd be able to find a retailer that sells Schenker notebooks. The Schenker XMG A522 AD should be in your price range. It's a 15 inch laptop, comes with an i7-2630QM, 8GB RAM, an NVDIDIA 660M and Win7. Price is around 850 Euro, which should be just below 1,050 USD, I think.

Availability could be the big issue here, but Schenker builds some awesome laptops for the price.

I couldn't find a Danish retailer .

CPU stands for 'central processing unit' and is basically a chip that acts as the brain of the PC. It is inserted into a motherboard which acts like the central nervous system. The CPU tells the motherboard what to do and the motherboard co-ordinates the working of the PC. That's how I like to think of it.

GPU stands for 'graphics processing chip'. This is incharge of displaying image, in its simplest form. Sometimes the graphics chip can be intergrated onto the CPU, this is called 'intergrated graphics'. This isn't as powerful as a dedicated graphics chip or 'graphics card' which have RAM set aside for video processing and don't have to share the CPUs power.

And yes, if you have to choose between more CPU power and more GPU power, for games, go with more GPU power.
However this doesn't mean you can go for an old rubbish CPU. You need a relatively decent CPU, or it will hold back the graphics card, because the CPU needs to tell the GPU what to do and if the CPU is slow at telling the GPU things, then the GPU will run slower. This is called a bottleneck.

I reccomend an Intel i5 for gaming, like the one in the laptop you suggested in the original post. If you have enough budget for an I7, you should go with that (aslong as you're not sacrificing GPU power), this is because, in laptops, i5 CPUs generally have 2 cores whereas i7s have 4 cores. Now, most games these games will run just fine on 2 cores, and will continue to in the future, but with new games like crysis 3 being released, future games will start to make use of more cores. (A core is just like a section of processing power within the CPU). But like I said, you will be fine with 2 cores so don't worry if you can't get an i7.

I know that's probably more information than you expected, but I thought I'd give you abit of background knowledge to help you along Sorry if I overwhelmed you You can ask about anything here and I can try to explain it better if you want.

In short, GPU power is more important than CPU power in games, and CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, and GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit.

Makes more sense to me, now . You didn't overwhelm me at all. -Thanks!

I was searching about the AMD Radeon, and I'm a bit worried wether or not it'll be able to run ETS (2) and similar games.I'm not looking to run it on ultra settings, high, would be just perfect. And, yes, SONY got the i7 (see OP), — inside my budget limit.

 

[Gdog96]

The laptop I suggested has a Nvidia GPU in it, which is faster than the Radeon in the Sony, according to the benchmarks I have seen. I'm sure other people on here can find a better laptop, to be honest I didn't look for too long.

 

[djinline]

This link will probably help with the searching for a new laptop. It indexes a lot of different retailers' products.

EDIT: Another link. You can select a minimum resolution of 1366x768 if you think you're going to be fine with it.

 

[E28]

The AMD 7650M will run ETS2 fine, trust me. I have Intel HD4000 integrated graphics (far inferior to the 7650M) and ETS2 runs fine. VRAM is the main limiting factor for me in ETS2, and 2gb is 4 times what I have.

 

[Dean]

The laptop I suggested has a Nvidia GPU in it, which is faster than the Radeon in the Sony, according to the benchmarks I have seen. I'm sure other people on here can find a better laptop, to be honest I didn't look for too long.

I've heard NVIDIA should be good...

This link will probably help with the searching for a new laptop. It indexes a lot of different retailers' products.

EDIT: Another link. You can select a minimum resolution of 1366x768 if you think you're going to be fine with it.

Size isn't really important to me. I'll just plug it into my TV (should give me 1900x1080). And thanks for finding Danish links :tup:!

The AMD 7650M will run ETS2 fine, trust me. I have Intel HD4000 integrated graphics (far inferior to the 7650M) and ETS2 runs fine. VRAM is the main limiting factor for me in ETS4, and 2gb is 4 times what I have.

That's really nice to know ! I'm not sure how the SONY compares to other computers, but I like it's look. Might just be my SONY freak, coming up, again. For the record, I own 2x 32" SONY TV's, a PlayStation 3, a pair of SONY MDR-500 headphones, a SONY Xperia J smartphone and two (broken) Sony Ericsson phones. - I am a SONY freak, right? I just need a SONY computer, to complete "circle" .

Anyway, I found out the i7's a "quad core", and the i5's a double. The i7 does make the computer ~250 DKK too expensive, but if it's worth that over the i5, - I'll pay for it.

 

[djinline]

Anyway, I found out the i7's a "quad core", and the i5's a double. The i7 does make the computer ~250 DKK too expensive, but if it's worth that over the i5, - I'll pay for it.

Yeah, it is well worth that little extra money over the budget. It would be also better to get a HD 7650M with 1GB of VRAM to cut some costs, I doubt you'll need more than that for most games at 1080p. That would leave you at 6099,- DKK. Now if you want it in black colour with the backlit keyboard it will be 6179,00 DKK.

 

[Joel]

Would suggest a Lenovo y580 Ideapad. Quite good value for the money and will run most games outside of Metro 2033 and Battlefield 3 at ultra settings with no drama. Under 1K USD for an i7 processor, GTX 660M GPU, and 8 gigs of RAM.

 

[djinline]

I just found this laptop, 1TB HDD, HD 7650M 2GB and a bigger 17.3" Full HD screen. That same model would cost you 7646.00 DKK (~$1328) from Sony's website.

 

[Luminis]

I couldn't find a Danish retailer .

Too bad, but I kinda thought so.

I'm not sure how the SONY compares to other computers, but I like it's look.

From personal experience, I'D say that Sony's Vaio laptops are generally a tad pricey for what they are.

Would suggest a Lenovo y580 Ideapad. Quite good value for the money and will run most games outside of Metro 2033 and Battlefield 3 at ultra settings with no drama. Under 1K USD for an i7 processor, GTX 660M GPU, and 8 gigs of RAM.

I'd second this. Even if it's only to get the 660M over the 7650M. The 660M is considerably faster than the 7650M, as can be seen here. The 7650M is a competitor to NVIDIA's 630M and can't compare to the 660M in the Lenovo, really.

Which is why I'm saying Vaios are generally a tad expensive for what they are: Even if you can find an offer that's quite a bit below Sony's original pricing, you can still get a better deal elsewhere.


/edit:
Forgot about this, but I doubt that the 660M is capable of running most games on Ultra. It's far, far slower than the desktop version, after all.

 

[Dean]

Would suggest a Lenovo y580 Ideapad. Quite good value for the money and will run most games outside of Metro 2033 and Battlefield 3 at ultra settings with no drama. Under 1K USD for an i7 processor, GTX 660M GPU, and 8 gigs of RAM.

Looks like a good competitor, to the SONY... 👍. And, if it can run games on ultra, it would be good, but I'm also okay with just high or medium quality.

I just found this laptop, 1TB HDD, HD 7650M 2GB and a bigger 17.3" Full HD screen. That same model would cost you 7646.00 DKK (~$1328) from Sony's website.

I've used Amazon (France) before, but I want the system to be in Danish, and a Danish (or Nordic) keyboard. Sadly, I don't think Amazon offers that .

From personal experience, I'D say that Sony's Vaio laptops are generally a tad pricey for what they are.


I'd second this. Even if it's only to get the 660M over the 7650M. The 660M is considerably faster than the 7650M, as can be seen here. The 7650M is a competitor to NVIDIA's 630M and can't compare to the 660M in the Lenovo, really.

Which is why I'm saying Vaios are generally a tad expensive for what they are: Even if you can find an offer that's quite a bit below Sony's original pricing, you can still get a better deal elsewhere.


/edit:
Forgot about this, but I doubt that the 660M is capable of running most games on Ultra. It's far, far slower than the desktop version, after all.

It would be a 1200 bucks (DKK), cheaper, if Denmark didn't tax it (what we call "moms" in Danish)...
And, as said earlier, I'm not looking to run games on ultra settings - if it can run it with the 7650M 2GB (or 1 GB?), that's fine, but high and/or medium is fine too .

 

[Gdog96]

Would suggest a Lenovo y580 Ideapad. Quite good value for the money and will run most games outside of Metro 2033 and Battlefield 3 at ultra settings with no drama. Under 1K USD for an i7 processor, GTX 660M GPU, and 8 gigs of RAM.

Scrap my suggestion, this one is better.

 

[Dean]

"IdeaPad Y580 - This product is no longer available for purchase on lenovo.com" .

I'll check the local electronic shops, too.

I'm not sure, if the SONY center-shop is closed in my city, but I'll check if it's still open (not for the Lenovo).

 

[Joel]

Hmm, check online retailers maybe, bestbuy or amazon might have it. I was looking into getting one last summer so it must have been discontinued.

 

[Dean]

Hmm, check online retailers maybe, bestbuy or amazon might have it. I was looking into getting one last summer so it must have been discontinued.

I think it was, sadly. There isn't any Danish retailers (online as well as offline), selling it at below ~$1050 USD .

I tried running a Pricerunner search on the SONY, and it seems like only SONY've got the SVE1513C5E... I found a 1512-something, but there must be a difference. Still, SONY's price (when upgraded and also when not upgraded) is the best. I do, too, prefer purchasing directly from the company, from their Danish (web- and/or "real"-)shop (SONY, Lenovo etc.) - if possible.

 

[Dean]

So, just to give an update; I've been lurking around and I found that Dell've got some great discounts, these days. I found an Inspiron 15z (with almost 1000 DKK in discount), with a 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3537U processor (4 MB cache, up to 3.10 GHz), 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM (1600 MHz), 500 GB (5400 RPM) and a 32 GB mSATA-SSD-drive with NVIDIA® GeForce® GT630M 2 GB and Windows 8.

It is, though, 690 DKK above my ~$1050 USD limit, but again, if it's better, it might be worth it in the end. Again, I have very limited understanding of what this above means, so could you please tell me how this compares to the others mentioned in this thread?

 

[Luminis]

The above means that you've got great RAM, a great processor, good hard drives - but the graphics card is pretty bad. The 630M isn't really capable when it comes to video game. It'll be bottlenecking the performance of the computer all over the place.

The specs of the Lenovo N00b616 posted are pretty much ideal. In any case, I wouldn't go with anything below a 660M graphics card. The mobile GPUs are considerably slower than their desktop variants as is, you absolutely do not want to go with a budget version. To put this into perspective:

The 630M should be on par with a Geforce 9800, which was released in early 2008. Which, then, would be the predecessor of the predecessor of the predecessor of the predecessor of the current GPUs.

 

[DQuaN]

A 32GB SSD is way too small if it is used for a system drive. I use a 64GB and I struggle to keep more than 20GB free.

 

[Dean]

Thanks for the inputs, guys. Let me just ask a question;
What does the GHz value mean, on the i5/7 cores? - And what is best (I made these up...) an i5 with 2.5 GHz or a i7 with 2.0 GHz?

My search led me to a MSI GT780DX 607NE with Core i5 2430M (2.4 GHz), 6 GB ram - apparently upgradeable to 8 GB, 640 GB HDD and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570M (1.5 GB GDDR5 SDRAM) on Windows 7 Home Premium. Unfortunately it's 3000 DKK higher than my limit - but I guess I'll be willing to pay the extra bit. I did a search on the GPU and (correct me if I'm wrong) it should be better than the 660M - I hope.

 

[DQuaN]

The Ghz is how fast the CPU is. i.e. How many cycles a second it does. While this is a good indicator of CPU performace (the faster the better), it also depends on other factors. Mainly how many calculations it can do and how much data it can handle in one cycle.

So a CPU with 1.5Ghz that can handle 8 computations per cycle will be better than a 3Ghz CPU that can do 2 computations per cycle.

That's a very rough explanation but it gives you an idea.

 

[Dean]

Now, I understand it (I think)! Thanks .

 

[Gdog96]

And what is best (I made these up...) an i5 with 2.5 GHz or a i7 with 2.0 GHz?

It heavily depends on the optimization of the program/game you are using, so performance will vary.

 

[Dean]

Hm... what to expect? Computers are very complex so...

I just checked the ETS2 website, and the minimum specs are "XP/Vista/7/8, Dual core CPU 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM, graphics card with 256 MB memory (GeForce 7600 GT-class equivalent or better)", and the recommended is "Windows 7/8, Dual core CPU 3.0 GHz, 4 GB RAM, graphics card with 1024 MB memory (GeForce GTS 450-class equivalent or better)". The AMD Radeon in the SONY is (again, correct me if I'm wrong) better than the 7600, but I'm not sure how much... (Again, I'm not looking into running on ultra settings, but neither do I want very low quality (low is what I consider unreadable text, and pixelations). So medium to high quality).

 

[djinline]

A 32GB SSD is way too small if it is used for a system drive. I use a 64GB and I struggle to keep more than 20GB free.

I guess that 32GB mSATA SSD on the Dell Inspiron 15z is used as a cache, not as a system drive.

If you really want to ditch your previous budget of 6000 DKK and go for high performance, I'm just putting some options here: MSI GT60 15.6" with GTX670M + DVD or MSI GE70 17.3" with GTX660M + BD.
Note that the difference between i7-3610QM and i7-3630QM is only 100Mhz so they're practically equal.

There is also this Asus G55VW 15.6", which has a nice cooling solution and good specs too, but not as good price-vs-performance as those two MSI's above. I don't know if I've missed anything better than these...

If I had to choose I would go with the GT60 0NC because it has a 9-cell battery, smaller screen thus obviously being smaller (you're using a TV so it's not necessary to have a large screen on the laptop) and of course a bit more powerful GPU for just about the same price, only problem is that some people say it is a bit noisy but not deafening.

Hopefully I put enough thought into this.

 

[Dean]

I would prefer below 6000 DKK, but, I'm pretty sure I'll get one that can't run anything properly (like my current).

Another one, I believe can be the one; MSI GE60 0ND-287NE, Intel Core i5 3210M, 6 GB SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM, 750 GB HDD, 15.6", GeForce GTX 660M 2 GB and Windows 8 64-bit (I believe there's a 32 bit too, though I don't know the difference, plus I can't choose between them on this model), for 7290 DKK (~$1257 USD). I would prefer prices around that if I should choose a new maximum limit.