About a month ago my laptop died. Now being a games reviewer, I kind of need a computer, so I set to researching the market. Of course I was looking for a gaming laptop, so I had to have certain things.
A minimum of a Direct X 9 compatible graphics card.
At least 2GB of RAM
At least a 2GHz Pentium Core 2 Duo (or equivalent)
A 17" Screen
My budget, £1500.
Now before we get started let me just say. I have not being bribed to favor any company, and sadly not offered a free PC by any of them either! In fact, I am not being offered anything to give positive results to any product. This is based purely on my research and nothing else!
First I decided to look at the big names in computers. Hewlett Packard, Packard Bell, Toshiba, Sony, Dell. With out going into details it became clear very quickly that I was looking in the wrong places. All though all of them offered very good and very powerful machines it always came at a price and tended to not have a very good graphics processing unit (GPU). Dell was an exception, so I used them as my starting point. I put together the best XPS latop I could for about £1500, here is what I came up with.
I started with XPS™ M1730 for £1299. The bas package included
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2-cache)
Single 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700m GT graphics card
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2×1024]
160GB (7200RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW
17" WUXGA Screen
Next I hit customize to see what I could get for my £1500
I managed to push the processor up to a T7700 2.4GHz and upped the RAM and added a Dual SLI GeForce® Go 8700m GT option, pushing the price up to £1578.
Taking this as a my benchmark I scoured the Net for companies that sold Gaming laptops and came up with a surprise, Evesham. I remember my college having Evesham computers and would never in a million years associated them to games! But it turns out they do a few pretty good laptops aimed at the gaming market. From their site I managed to put together the following spec laptop for £1474
Zieo N650-HDS
Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T7700 processor (2.4GHz, 800MHz, 4MB cache)
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT Graphics
4GB DDR2 RAM, 667MHz
250GB Serial ATA 5400rpm hard drive
DVD/CD-RW/Dual Layer DVD-RW Drive
17" WUXGA Screen
Very impressive indeed!
I could not conduct research into a games machine without heading in the direction of Alienware!
For the princely sum £1,505.18 of I could get
Area 51 m9750
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 2.16GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz
512MB Nvidia® GeForce™ Go 8700M GT graphics
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 1024MB
120GB 7200 RPM SATA
8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo
17" WUXGA Screen
Finally I found a british company called Rock Direct.
For £1523.73 I could get.
xtreme 770
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 2.2GHz 4MB Cache 800MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB (DX10)
2GB DDR2 667MHz
160GB 7200rpm SATA HDD
HD DVD-ROM / +/- DVD Writer
17" WUXGA Screen
Another honorable mention goes to MSI for their GX700 which can be picked up for about £1050 which will get you.
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 2.2GHz 4MB Cache 800MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512MB
2GB DDR2 667MHz
250GB SATA HDD
DVD Super Multi/ Combo
17" WUXGA Screen
Time for a comparison table me thinks!
| Dell – XPS™ M1730 | Evesham – Zieo N650-HDS | Alienware – Area 51 m9750 | Rock Direct – xtreme 770 | MSI – GX700 | |
| CPU | Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 (2.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 4 MB L2-cache) | Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T7700 processor (2.4GHz, 800MHz, 4MB cache) | Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7400 2.16GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz | Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 2.2GHz 4MB Cache 800MHz | Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7500 2.2GHz 4MB Cache 800MHz |
| GPU | Dual SLI GeForce Go 8700m GT 256MB | NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB | NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB | NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT 512MB | NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 512MB |
| RAM | 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2×1024] | 4GB DDR2 RAM, 667MHz | 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 1024MB | 2GB DDR2 667MHz | 2GB DDR2 667MHz |
| HD | 160GB (7200RPM) SATA Hard Drive | 250GB Serial ATA 5400rpm hard drive | 120GB 7200 RPM SATA | 160GB 7200rpm SATA HDD | 250GB SATA HDD |
| CD / DVD | Fixed 8x DVD+/-RW Slim Slot Load drive, including SW | DVD/CD-RW/Dual Layer DVD-RW Drive | 8x Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24x CD-RW Combo | HD DVD-ROM / +/- DVD Writer | DVD Super Multi/ Combo |
| Screen | 17" WUXGA Screen | 17" WUXGA Screen | 17" WUXGA Screen | 17" WUXGA Screen | 17" WUXGA Screen |
| Warrantee (Free) | Base Warranty – 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support) | Silver 1 year warranty (in home) | AlienCare 1-Year Free Phone 24/7 and Collect & Return | 3 Year pan-European Collect & Return Warranty | |
| Price | £1578 | £1474 | £1,505.18 | £1523.73 | £1050 |
All prices are correct as of 13/12/2007. They include VAT but exclude Delivery!
From this comparison you can see that evesham, pound for pound offer you the best machine! You can also see that the Geforce 8700 is the standard card for this level of machine.
Unfortunatly the MSI is not user upgradable
as it voids your waruntee, so that instanly threw it out of the running for me!
Looking into that a bit further it turns out that although this card will offer you DirectX 10 compatibility, it actually is not as fast generally as its predecessor the NVIDIA GeForce 7950 Go GTX. This card out performs the 8700 on all DirectX 9 benchmarks! To get a decent DirectX 10 card you would need to plump for the 8800GTX, which only Evesham and Rock. Whilst Rock allows you to upgrade your system at a cost of £340.43, you had to go for the £1,999.00 Zieo NX680-HDX from Evesham.
Also I found out that Rock Direct will actually allow you to upgrade the graphics chip in the xtreme 770 to the Geforce 8800 at a later date! Ok it will cost you about £400, but still, it is a way of guaranteeing a bit of future proofing. I am trying to confirm if this is true of the other sellers. Rock also offer the longest warrantee, although it is worth noting you can increase you warrantee with the other sellers for a cost.
So in the end it came down to the Evesham – Zieo N650-HDS and the Rock Direct – xtreme 770 and how future proof I want my PC to be? The answer is very. I need to keep hold of it for the next few years, so for me I will probably be plumping for the xtreme 770 from Rock Direct. I will however hold out to buy the version with the NVIDIA GeForce 7950 Go GTX in it. Also you are getting HD-DVD compatability, which should help with future proofing, depending on who wins VHS vs BetaMax 2 !!
In the end you really do get what you pay for.