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Best Gaming Laptop Under $500?


The Peculiar Derp

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I have decided to finally get a good gaming laptop, something better than my current one. I'm sort of on a budget, so is $500 good enough? I could possibly go up to $700 if needed. I may also use the laptop for school stuff. What are your recommendations?  :muffins:


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Laptop

Gaming

Budget

 

Pick two.

 

 

Jokes aside, a gaming laptop will cost a lot more than a gaming desktop, simply because the parts are more expensive and a lot harder to find. Not to mention labor fees, because assuming you can get all the laptop parts, it's a hell of a lot harder to build a laptop than a desktop. With a desktop, all you need is an hour or so, a screwdriver and some fairly basic knowledge. With a gaming laptop, the CPU and even GPU are often soldered directly into custom MOBOs, so as to allow a combination of power, cooling and small size.

If you want a gaming laptop, expect to pay at least $1000. If that's fine, Sager is pretty damn good.

 

Now if you can get a desktop and still have a laptop around for school, your options really open up. Something like this (~$800) or this (~$600) would be great gaming (note that they don't include OS's or monitors. Most students can get OS's cheap or even free through the school, and you can get a decent monitor for <$100, especially if you aren't picky). Assuming you can build your own machine, which really isn't that difficult if you look up some instructional videos and are careful. Or find a PC enthusiast at your school (I guarantee there are at least a few) and get their help.


EDIT: extensive formatting changes, added some more links, etc.

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Hi ! I'm moving this thread to media discussion.

 

I'm also going to get 's attention so he can help you out maybe. Best computer guy I know.


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What Evilshy said. You are not going to find a good gaming laptop for under $500.

 

 

 

Jokes aside, a gaming laptop will run a lot more than a gaming desktop, simply because the parts are more expensive and a lot harder to find.
Um, you sure about that?
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Um, you sure about that?

 

 

Oops. I meant it as in "X will run you more than Y", as in it costs more, but I can definitely see the ambiguity when talking about computers.


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Well, 500 dollars is not going to buy you a good gaming Laptop by any stretch of the imagination, mainly because laptop parts (ironically) are much more expensive than desktop parts. The biggest pain for laptops is mobo's, mainly because they are generally not of the ATX form factor family.

 

Another issue is balancing high-end performance and space. You also have to about power usage, and batteries.

 

For a halfway descent gaming laptop, be willing to fork out at least $1,000, and thats not even including assembally fees, shipping, the OS, and peripherals (ie Mouse, Headset, and all that jazz).

 

However, if you have $1,000 to spend, why not just build a much better desktop instead. Just like Evilshy said, descent desktop monitors (unless your looking for a 35" 4K triple monitor setup) are usually little over $100, and an OS can be bought relatively cheap. 

 

Anyway, hope that helped. 

Edited by DATA EXPUNGED
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The best gaming laptop you're going to find for $700 is the Lenovo Y40.

 

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y40/#tab-tech_specs

Game FPS for this laptop(towards bottom) : http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-R9-M275.124666.0.html

 

However, I'd recommend getting something with a faster processor and GPU. It'll cost more but it'll be worth it when you get much better performance in intensive games.

 

Here's some more powerful (but more expensive) options:

 

http://www.xoticpc.com/force-16gc-29029-860m-msi-ge60-apachepro-barebones-p-7173.html

Game FPS: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-860M.107794.0.html

 

And if you're really wanting to max out every game:

 

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8651-clevo-p650se-p-7690.html

Game FPS: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html

 

Keep in mind that the two laptops above don't come with Windows.


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About that lenovo... the GPU might not be bad, but a 1.8 GHz CPU is not gaming quality at all.

 

And about stuff on xoticpc, it coming with windows pre-installed is one of the options, but you still have to pay for it.


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True, true, and also true. 

 

@Evilshy is corrrect. You're not going to get a gaming laptop for 500 bucks. You're not even going to get a good laptop for 500 bucks.

 

Your best option if price is an issue is to build a desktop yourself. Laptops are expensive, while putting together a PC is much cheaper by comparison.

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i dont think you will get much for 500$ in my opinion just buy a gaming desktop don't even have to buy a monitor if you dont want to (well just hook it up to your laptop during set up and other things if you dont want a monitor) because you can set it up so you can stream games from that to your current laptop so you will have something for school and games


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Also, don't forget that you can hook up a desktop to any remotely modern TV through HDMI and use that as a monitor.

Edited by Mouse

^ don't listen to this guy ^


                                     

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It should be noted that unless you plan on playing some of the more advanced, new and shiny games you don't need an uber powerful laptop. You can go to Walmart, buy a decently powerful laptop not even meant for gaming specifically for about $400 or so and still be able to play a great many games both old and new, even if at lowered settings.

 

I bought a laptop two years ago just like that and I can play anything from Psychonauts to Baldur's Gate, Limbo to Recettear with little to no issues whatsoever. You don't need the best of the best to play the best of the best.

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There's no such thing. Most laptops within the 500 dollar price range contain overall low specs incapable of playing any demanding game that is newer than 2007. I had a similar budget of 600 dollars and found no "gaming" laptop worth owning.

 

You can, however, build a decent gaming tower for 500 dollars from Computerlx. Just click on one of the computers you like within the link below and edit the specifications to fit your budget and interests.

 

http://www.computerlx.com/

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