CS - Friendly Laptop?

[Panthress]

Tin Man and I are actively searching for a laptop he can use to play CS... And though I'm pretty good with the workings of PCs, I have no clue about laptops... Didn't even know they come without video cards more often than not... And we can't spend a whole lot of money, of course...:o
Does anyone know of a good setup? I can tear-down and upgrade a PC, install software and whatnot... Even a good place on the internet to buy a decent refurbished laptop??

Hewp!!!!! :eek:
(Though it might be scary -- Tin Man and I playing at the same time! :twisted: )

[Dhalgren]

Hey Panthress & Tinman..

One nice thing about trying to play CSS on a laptop is that it's not as resource intensive as some of the newer games coming out. I have a cheap laptop that I bought last summer from Best Buy for $400 and it runs CSS fine.. I did turn down the video setting a little, but other than sprays being a little grainy, it hasn't detracted from the game at all.

My system: Acer Extensa 4420-5963
Processor: AMD Athlon64 x2 TK-57 (1.9Ghz, 2×256KB L2 cache) dual core
Graphics: ATI Radeon X1250
Memory: 2GB DDR2-667
Hard Drive: 160GB 5400rpm HDD
OS: Vista Home Premium 32-bit

I would say that as I am playing on last year's $400 laptop, the ones you can get this year for the same price point should be able to run CSS just fine.

Caveat: Not just *ANY* $400 laptop will be better.. make sure it is at least dual core, and has a decent graphics system. One resource I highly recommend is Tom's Hardware.. there is graphics hierarchy chart that you can use to compare both desktop and notebook gfx systems.. address is:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2569-6.html

As long as the laptop you are getting has a dual core and a graphics chip/card better than the ATI Radeon X1250 I am running in mine, you will be able to play CSS just fine for $400. Other games, I dunno about.

Dhalgren

[Dhalgren]

Looking at Newegg.com, I am not finding anything decent for $400 or under, but in the $400-500 range, I see several candidates. Generally, it looks like the Intel laptops in that range are no good, because they use a wimpy Intel GMA 4500M integrated graphics chip. Same goes for GeForce 8200M.. not enough horsepower.

Looking at AMD machines, there a couple contenders:

COMPAQ Presario CQ61-420US NoteBook AMD Athlon II M320(2.1GHz) 15.6" 3GB Memory 250GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Radeon HD 4200 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834107044
$519.99
($489.99 after $30.00 Mail-In Rebate pdf )
$14.30 Shipping

TOSHIBA Satellite L505D-LS5010 NoteBook AMD Athlon II M300(2.0GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR2 800 250GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Radeon 4100 - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114789
$479.99
Free Shipping*

These two systems are both capable of running CSS: they are both dual core processors, and they rank 2 steps above my own laptop in terms of graphics. The COMPAQ laptop has a slightly better gfx chip and a 7200 rpm HDD, so it might be just a tad faster.. the wierd thing is that it comes with 3GB of RAM. The TOSHIBA is $35 cheaper ($65 if you are like me and generally forget to mail in rebates) and marginally slower gfx and 5400 rpm HDD, but does come with 4GB of RAM.

It's a toss-up which is better, but I would give the edge to the COMPAQ because I can always upgrade the memory easily if I have to (though you won't have to, just to play CSS).. whereas it's much more difficult, costly, and maybe impossible, to upgrade the gfx and HDD. Just remember to mail in the rebate!

Lastly, their prices are a little higher than the $400 I spent on my laptop last year, but you might be able to find these or similar systems for less than Newegg's price with a little searching online.. I just went to Newegg directly and didn't comparison shop at all.

Hope this helps!
Dhalgren

PS. Both of these systems come with Windows 7 64-bit. I am assuming that CSS has no issues with this OS.. can anyone chime in if they are running CSS currently in Window 7 64-bit?

[Dhalgren]

Gah.. rereading what I wrote and realized (again) just how much of a geek I am!

Anyways, just wanted to clarify that the laptops I suggest are good enough for CSS and general/light computer usage. For watching movies, playing music, web browsing, downloading files, MS Office, older games like CSS or Civ4, light photo editing, and run-of-the-mill daily use, the laptops I found should do you fine.

If you are wanting to play any other games, especially newer ones, you may want to go with a more expensive laptop, as November suggested. But if you are going to spend in the $800-1200 range on a gaming laptop, in my opinion you would be better off building your own budget desktop gaming system and get better bang for the buck. Tom's Hardware has a pretty good value gaming rig outlined in this article for $750:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/value-gaming-pc,2578.html

[uberbaked]

Tin Man and I are actively searching for a laptop he can use to play CS... ... And we can't spend a whole lot of money, of course...:o
Does anyone know of a good setup?)



I am running an HP Pavillion dv6000 Entertainment Series laptop. It's relatively cheap and runs all the games and 3D modeling software i use perfectly.

The End.

[uberbaked]

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/html/interactive/dv7/model.html?buyNowLink=default&jumpid=re_r329_3d/NBT/dv7|ProdPage|other&usePopup=true

[Panthress]

A friend of mine dropped some serious coin on an alienware laptop (see 4500bux) and my home built, $750 desktop would run circles around it...you pay alot just to have stuff "miniaturized"..

LMAO --- For $4500, we could buy 2000 Suburban!!!!

[Panthress]

If you are wanting to play any other games, especially newer ones, you may want to go with a more expensive laptop, as November suggested.

The laptop would primarily be for Tin Man (who, until I introduced him to CSS, hated video games)... It would be used for CSS, web browsing, Craigslist, email...maybe word processor when we're on the road... that's about it...
I also have a severe aversion to "new" MS products... the laptop would run Windows XP, period!
We've been laptop shopping for about 2 years now.. CSS is just an excuse for urgency ;)

Lotsa awesome info, tho!! Thanks guys!!!

[tamski_gurl]

no IDEA...no clue?!

[Dhalgren]

I have this feeling that Panthress' eyes were glazing over as she read read my posts.. lol. Anyways, running Windows 7 may not be too bad, from all I hear, it's a pretty clean OS, at least in comparison to Vista - which is prtty much crap.