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Thank you, thats the kind of posts that i need:-)
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cpugeek13: Thank you, thats the kind of posts that i need:-)

You should find a few more laptops and link their store pages (Newegg, TigerDirect, NCIX, Amazon, or whoever has the best price). We should be able to help you narrow your selection.
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cpugeek13: Does anyone have an opinion on the sony? I know the video card isn't quite as good as the asus, but its not bad either. Also, it has 6 gigs of ram, which is more than the other laptops i've been looking at.

The amount of memory (beyond 2GB) is competely irrelevant to gaming performance. The video card itself is the bottleneck.
In addition, for gaming, do NOT buy a laptop with a video card poorer than Nvidia GeForce GT240M / Mobility Radeon HD 4650. Those two are based on, respectively, the desktop GeForce 9800 / Radeon HD 4650 series, and will run all games with high settings levels.
Processor is less important for gaming alone, but more important if you do other work / heavy multitasking. In those cases, a low-clocked Core 2 Duo can start to struggle (the G60VX only has a 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo processor). If you want a better processor, do not blow money on highly clocked Core 2 Duos, instead go for the new Core i7 processors. While it has a low "base" clock speed of 1.6 GHz (in the 720QM version), it responds by clocking itself up according to how it is being used. It is also quad-core, with hyperthreading meaning that you "virtually" have 8 processor cores available (two threads can execute on the same core at the same time, or at least very nearly). It can operate as a quad 1.6 GHz, a duo 2.4 GHz, or a solo 2.8 GHz, or in-between, clocking itself up as it goes. So, for older games which utilize only one processor core, you effectively have a 2.8 GHz processor which is more than enough.
The machine I have (ASUS X62J it was called here, might be different code elsewhere, but it is part of the M60 series) has the following specs;
- Core i7-720QM (Quad 1.6 GHz w/ multithreading and turbo-boost)
- Nvidia GeForce 240M 1GB DDR3
- 4 GB DDR3 RAM
- 2x500 GB 5300 RPM hard drives
- Win7 Home Premium 64bit
- All the other normal stuff (integrated webcam, bluetooth, networking, card reader, hdmi-port, etc. etc.)
I can testify to it's performance and stability in all games I have tested. It runs Crysis, the ultimate benchmark, on high settings fluently. And it costs less than the G60VX, offering better performance for other tasks than gaming.
Post edited December 14, 2009 by stonebro
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stonebro: In addition, for gaming, do NOT buy a laptop with a video card poorer than Nvidia GeForce GT240M / Mobility Radeon HD 4650. Those two are based on, respectively, the desktop GeForce 9800 / Radeon HD 4650 series, and will run all games with high settings levels.

Eh. The 4650 will run many games at high, but 20-40 FPS is not exactly a desirable framerate, since it is an average and frames will often dip to 15 or lower. Also, the Asus notebook that you refer to may be powerful, but a comparable i7 machine is $1500.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220605&cm_re=asus_i7_laptop-_-34-220-605-_-Product
Benchmarks (4650):
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-4650.13883.0.html
ADDED--
Asus laptops w/ 240M
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=4+50001315+40000032+1040248928&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=32&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=3&srchInDesc=
Asus laptops w/ 4650
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=4+50001315+40000032+1040246846&QksAutoSuggestion=&ShowDeactivatedMark=False&Configurator=&Subcategory=32&description=&Ntk=&CFG=&SpeTabStoreType=3&srchInDesc=
Post edited December 14, 2009 by melchiz
Here's some of the laptops that I'm looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220634
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B2+Duo+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9556072.p?PID=3586864&nAID=11138&id=1218124204092&ci_sku=9556072&ref=39&cjsku=9556072&ky=2gfnd4j9YOTpkHmwzOYeVVqdBkHGzRzrJ&ci_src=11138&loc=01&URL=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9556072&type=product&id=1218124204092&cmp=RMX&ky=2gfnd4j9YOTpkHmwzOYeVVqdBkHGzRzrJ&ci_src=11138&ci_sku=9556072&nAID=11138&ref=39&loc=01&cmp=RMX&AID=10638425&skuId=9556072
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Sony+-+VAIO+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B2+Duo+Processor+-+Chocolate+Brown/9556198.p?PID=3586864&nAID=11138&id=1218124203262&ci_sku=9556198&ref=39&cjsku=9556198&ky=2gfnd4j9YOTpkHmwzOYeVVqdBkHGzRzrJ&ci_src=11138&loc=01&URL=http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9556198&type=product&id=1218124203262&cmp=RMX&ky=2gfnd4j9YOTpkHmwzOYeVVqdBkHGzRzrJ&ci_src=11138&ci_sku=9556198&nAID=11138&ref=39&loc=01&cmp=RMX&AID=10638425&skuId=9556198
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+-+FX+Edition+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Centrino%26%23174%3B+2+Processor+Technology/9605365.p?id=1218130485627&skuId=9605365
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146613
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220566
Which one do you think is best?
That Lenovo is a fantastic deal.
That M60J was suprisingly expensive in dollars compared to the G60VX, considering it is the same machine I have save for the one extra hard drive.
You could also consider a custom manufacturer like SAGER:
http://www.sagernotebook.com/default.php
They do custom gaming laptops based off the (very good) Clevo barebones at a competitive price.
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iuliand: I would stay away from ASUS. So far I know two people that had trouble with their ASUS notebooks. It's just my personal opinion based on personal experience. I may be wrong but as long as there are other reliable notebook makers on the marked I don't see why taking the risk of buying ASUS.
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stonebro: This is subjective and blatantly wrong. Recently released numbers from the insurance business shows that Asus laptops suffer the least number of breakdowns in the first three years of use, compared with all other brands on the market. Brands like HP and Acer, for example, each hover around the 25% mark in hardware failures during the same three years - almost 10% more than that of Asus.
Thus, there is lower risk in buying Asus right now than any other brand.

This is my opinion based on the fact that the only two people I know that have a ASUS notebooks had trouble with them. One had to return the notebook for repair and the other has (somehow) solved the issue with a BIOS update (it is not entirely solved but it's "usable"). I don't care about MTBF stats. I'm concerned about issues that are annoying and are not (or hardly) qualified for warranty.
And regarding Acer, I can say that I know four people (including myself) with acer notebooks and there is no problem whatsoever. I'm no Acer fan, I just say I had no problems with them. Again, I might just have been lucky.
Your opinion is biased and therefore of litte value to the original poster. I could just as easily state that I've got a brand new Asus and it's great. All I'm saying is that right now Asus is the leading brand in terms of MTBF, and it only takes a google search to find the numbers that back up that claim.
I have an Asus N81 and love it. It's my second Asus laptop, third if you count netbooks. The Radeon 4650 is great for gaming, and it is fairly light (a little over 5 pounds). I admit that my opinion is biased in the positive direction, but I'm a happy Asus customer.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220634
I agree with you Stonebro that anecdotal evidence is not very useful for saying whether a brand is good. MTBF and reliability is more useful. And in my opinion Asus's warranty and customer service is excellent. If you register one of their laptops they even cover accidental damage.
Sorry to necro, but I just wanted to follow up on this topic. I bought the Lenovo and just got it today. Its fantastic! Thanks so much guys!
And btw, if anyone plays Dawn of War 2, let me know. I'm so happy that i can finally play this game! (though I'm a bit of a noob)
That Lenovo really is an amazing deal, I think I'll get it for my next laptop (screw you MacBook Pro, this has quad core!).
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michaelleung: That Lenovo really is an amazing deal, I think I'll get it for my next laptop (screw you MacBook Pro, this has quad core!).

Just a heads up.. quad core barely matters even to this day, unfortunately.
You can count the games that can make use of several cores in a meaningful manner on your hand. It is my understanding that what matters these days are mostly the pure clock rate and the features of the processor itself.
That being said .. gaming laptops are not really that hot. I bought a gaming laptop for a obsene amount of money about 2 years ago( not gonna give you a exact figure since it really was overly expensive ).
My experience ? Well, it burns your balls and - while able to run almost everything, it still struggles with the more extreme games. Crysis runs well and stable on medium settings with no anti alias, and games like supreme commander chuck a bit when too many units are on the screen. Far Cry 2 ran at like 5 FPS.
Just a year after buying my laptop, I bought a gateway gaming laptop for my girlfriend, for about $1k ( usd ). It runs but it's not that hot for gaming, really. The worst part is that the power supply keeps dying on her laptop. Even though its connected to the outlet it runs on battery and acts as if it was not plugged in.
She likes MMORPGS, she tried WoW, Warhammer online and Aion - the power supply dies so frequently to make it unplayable in Warhammer and Aion - merely WoW with its outdated graphics works.
Basically what I am trying to say is that gaming laptops are extremely overpriced and have a insane decline in value.
If you only travel between 2 fixed locations, it might be preferable to build a desktop at each place, and you'd probably still save money and have better performance.
A friend of mine bought a really expensive alienware laptop a year ago and now she's cursing the hell out of it calling it a PoS lol.
As for my situation ? I was traveling between the US and Germany and in the end I settled with a SFF ( Small Form Factor ) Micro ATX case - it even comes with a carry grip. I outfitted it with the most powerful hardware available and now I got quality gaming whereever I am. I barely use my gaming laptop at all ( but my GF uses it now to avoid the power issues with her laptop ).
I do fully agree that work laptops are awesome. I picked up a mini Vaio laptop which allows me to work / pretend-to-work-but-really-play-roguelikes for about 8-10 hours which is awesome. =P
Lastly a piece of advice if you really, really need a gaming laptop: The most important thing is the graphics chip. Make sure that it does not say "shared memory" anywhere on it.
Shared memory is a given, that's a terrible idea for anyone planning to do gaming. But I only plan to maybe game a bit but do a lot of video editing, so I'd need an actual graphics card anyway.
I'd go quad core because firstly, it sounds cool. Yeah, I'm shallow.