| Gaming laptops 101 |
| Written by Henry Johnson | |
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Want to game on the go? A gaming laptop can turn an eternity of boredom on planes and trains or in the doctor's office into just a brief wait, but only if you buy a good one. When selecting a gaming laptop, customers should consider the following factors: display, graphics and sound cards, processor, RAM, networking capability and price. Games require a lot of horsepower from your computer. So, when purchasing a gaming laptop, make sure it has a fast and powerful processor, at least 2 Ghz. But remember, the more powerful the processor is, the more power it will drain, so make sure you have a secondary battery for your unit. Random Access Memory is important for gaming. When buying a gaming laptop, make sure it has at least 500 KB of RAM. When you're gaming on a laptop, you want crystal clear picture and sound to give you the best performance possible. Don't settle for the bottom-feeder sound and video cards that come standard with most laptops. For your video card, consider buying a BFG GeForce GTX 295 The BFG GeForce GTX 295 is regarded by gaming pros as best video card currently on the market. This video card has two GPUs, and when combined with a good motherboard, it can't be beat as a platform for gaming. When buying a soundcard you can either get an internal or an external sound card. If you are shopping for a gaming laptop, you probably don't want to drag around clunky pieces of hardware so, purchase a good internal sound card and headphones. Gaming is becoming an increasingly community-based activity, so when buying a gaming laptop, be sure that it can easily link to a network or the Internet so you can play with -- or against -- fellow players. Lastly, you don't want to go blind trying to discern every squiggle on your gaming laptop, so be sure yours has a decent sized screen. Size does matter, and there's a big difference between a 17" screen and a 10" screen. Save money on Lasic eye surgery later by forking out a little extra now. If you don't want to haul around a 17", a 15" is a good compromise. Also, and this should go without saying, when putting together a gaming laptop, make sure all the components are compatible. Not every dealer offers a generous refund policy, and it's not cool to have shelled out a wad of cash for a component you can't use. Gaming laptops can cost more than $3,000, but solid, good-performing systems can be had for a less budget-busing price. The Gateway P6860FX is available at Best Buy and other retailers for varying prices, but one can usually be had for under $1500. It has one of the best video cards you can get, but its processor is a bit slow. HP's DV9700t/z is a good multi-purpose laptop. It's a pretty well-rounded system, but won't excel in any one area -- a workhorse, not a show horse. The t series offers Intel processors and the z series offers users AMD processors but the AMD version doesn't have as many choices when it comes to graphics. Surprisingly enough, the Asus G2S-X3 is a pretty solid pick. It sports an Intel T7500 processor, 2GB of memory that you can bump up to 3 GB, a 250GB hard drive, and comes standard with a nvidia 8600M GT graphics card boasting about 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Gaming laptops can give you fun on the go, but only if you pick the right one. Choose your own adventure, but choose carefully. |
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