Need advice on new gaming laptop

[Corrado Toxiri]

Hi all,

I'm finally settled in the USA, so I'm planning to buy a new gaming PC, a wheel and return to SIM racing
I had to leave my (good old) gaming PC at home, it's a fixed unit and it's quite unpractical to carry it with the luggage on the flight.

I'm thinking at a laptop as I won't live in the final home till July, I live in an apartment and I need to save space. On this PC, other than playing rF and eventually rF2 and some other older games, I will mainly browse the Web, read the forums, work from home and make some photo and/or video editing. I would then enjoy a large monitor (although it might be later integrated with an addtional 24" LED monitor) and some decent RAM quantity. Windows 8 64bit is now also a "must have" for new units.

I had a look at what they call "gaming laptops" but they look so damn expensive!
For example, on this site (Tigerdirect) which is considered a cheap one in the USA, the smaller gaming laptop is quoted almost 1,200 US Dollars:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=3998

The problem is that - if you want a good graphic card on the laptop - it usually comes with more RAM, larger HDDs, Core i7 processors, etc... so you might buy expensive parts that you don't really need. And possibly miss some others (like a cheap but VERY effective SSD system drive).

I will have to go in the "normal laptop" section and start looking around to find something that has enough power to run the games, without necessarily being the "super machine" linked above.

So what is your suggestion for a good setup? What is needed and what is not?
Is anyone of you playing rF / rF2 on a laptop today and with which specs and results?

PS:
I even thought of going the opposite way, buying a machine that is not a bulky 17" unit but one that's highly portable like a tablet but also powerful, which is the new Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... CatId=6847

On the paper, it should be a good beast, not as powerful like the first one linked above, but enough for rF probably.


Thanks a lot for your support!
Corrado

[Corrado Toxiri]

What do you think of these specs, a lot cheaper than the ones above?

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8 ... es_17.html

Is the HD Graphics 4000 on laptops the same integrated graphic board that comes with the new Core i5 processors on the fixed PCs? Because I have it on my fixed PC (although I decided to disable it and replace it with my older but faster nVidia GTX 550 Ti) and it wasn't too shabby.

On paper, the laptop linked above is quite similar to my current fixed gaming PC, but I don't know if the mobile versions of CPU and graphic card are slower, given the same name/series.

Otherwise, also this seems a good option, although more expensive:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/8 ... es_17.html

Oh, my... I'm getting confused again, LOL

[Rouke]

I can't help you with laptop advice Corrado but i had a quick look in ISI tech forum and they do discuss things related to your quest.
a quick search:
http://isiforums.net/f/search.php?searchid=410502

even if a topic is somewhat redundant (guys talking about 3,000 worth of gear) the responses are still informative.

Or start your own thread at ISI tech, i think there's more awnsers to be found there.
Keep in mind that rf2 is still beta, things will change, one can asume for the better but who knows what they come up with in the end?

I seriously doubt a tablet is the way to go for rf/rf2 no matter the specs. tablets just aint normal computers and rf aint an app


So how are things in the US of the A? how does it feel to be free at last?

[Corrado Toxiri]

Thanks Rouke.

Can you please tell me the forum name (Technical Help?) and the post name? The link doesn't work for me and I didn't find the post you are mentioning

[Rouke]

oh wierd, its dead to me now as well.

http://isiforums.net/f/forumdisplay.php ... al-Support

i did an advanded-search with Laptop as keyword using only that forum to search in, but i just did it again on all-forums and there's even more threads about it.

Its only a few threads about the subject but since rf/rf2 is going to be the culprit for you i thought it would be a good place to check out.

[Corrado Toxiri]

Thanks dude