Hello everyone,

This is my first post on TES forums and I know that this is a very helpful community so I've come for some advice.
I am looking at buying a laptop between now and July-August. I'm between two laptops, one that I can afford now and one that will require more time to save up the money.
Since this will be the only PC I own, my deciding factor is that I want to be able to play Skyrim at the highest possible quality without having frame-rate issues.

Specifically I'm looking at computers with these specs, is that enough, overkill, or underpowered?

SPEC1: Dell XPS 15 @dell
i7-2630 QuadCore
NVIDIA? GeForce? GT 540M 2GB graphics with Optimus
6GB RAM

SPEC2: Sager NP8150 @xoticpc
i7-2630 QC
nVidia GeForce GTX 460M 1,536MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 or ATI Mobility Radeon? HD6970 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 (+$245)
4GB RAM

I know that the sager with the Radeon HD6970 will have enough power, but its hard on my wallet, so without any knowledge of what specs TES5 will require, what do you think? Is SPEC1 or SPEC2 with the 460M enough for Skyrim?

spec2 with the radeon card.

Not sure how much the larger vram will affect it, but I suspect the 1GB 460M will still be much faster than the 2GB 540M. If they were both 1GB, then definitely the 460M is much faster. The 540M is based on the 435M which in no possible way would I ever consider for gaming.

The 1GB NVIDIA 460M or 1GB AMD 5830M are probably the lowest tier laptop cards that can deliver decent framerates for recent games at 1920x1080. They are both DX11. The 6970M is the safest bet if you can afford it. Keep in mind, you are not going to get much battery life out of that machine. If you get a Sager, I believe they are a bit easier to upgrade than most laptops (they have MXM connectors for the graphics card, so it is possible to upgrade, unlike many laptops where the video card is soldered or glued to the mobo)

I would avoid the 540M as it is probably the least likely card out of your options to to be able to play Skyrim.

On the other hand, if you look at the 6970M on this ranking chart ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970M.43077.0.html ) it is ranked pretty high on the list, ranked higher than the desktop version of the 5770. This one is your safest bet out of the options you are considering

EDIT: obviously best and cheapest choice is to build your own gaming desktop + buy non-gaming desktop. the total price will be cheaper and you will have a powerful gaming desktop that would beat any laptop. However, if you need the portability, I can understand as I also game on a laptop. My Envy 15 laptop has the AMD 5830M, and I'm planning to play Skyrim at 1920x1080, with high res texture pack installed (if there is one) + most detail settings maxed (2 x AA, 16 x AF). Hopefully I will get at least 40 fps or better, but I will have to wait a bit longer to know for certain.

Get an Asus G73jh. That's what i'll be playing Skyrim on... :happy:

Agreed, this is what I have. It is a great laptop, and Asus makes very good products.

Let's see

Asus G73jh

• 1 GB 5870
  
• previous generation CPU
  
• looks like a plastic spaceship
  
• price $1500-1800 (this seems to be the price range for the i7-820QM)
  
• GPU difficult or not possible to upgrade (proprietary MXM connector)
  
• max RAM is 8GB

Sager NP8150

• 2 GB 6970
  
• Sandy Bridge CPU
  
• looks like a laptop
  
• price $1507
  
• assembled by XoticPC with special attention to thermal paste, etc.
  
• GPU can be upgraded in the future
  
• RAM can be upgraded to 16GB ( 4 DIMM slots)

What makes more sense?

If you can find a laptop with 2560x1600 resolution you won't need a great GPU to make any game look good. Since it is 2x the resolution of 1920x1080 jagged edges are not noticeable and it is much easier for distant objects to be identifiable. Sadly, I believe there is no laptop that has such monitor attached to it.

Tip the more you spend now is less youll spend on upgrades later. If you can try to get the best video card you can afford, without having to sacrifice eating or buying essentials.

Well when did the second one come out? The g73 has been out for for over a year and a half now. The sager sounds like a desktop it has so much stuff in it, can it cool properly? Also the way the g73 looks is your opinion, and the reason it looks like a spaceship because it was modeled after the stealth fighters.

I'm just going to get it on console Games for windows means it won't run whatever your specs.

The Asus is slightly older, so of course it's going to be slightly inferior. Unfortunately the Sager NP8150 isn't even available in the UK as far as i'm aware.

I'd point out though that the G73jh is just as upgradeable as the Sager is. Not sure where you're getting your information from there, but it's wrong. Not that anyone would need more than 8GB of RAM any time soon...

Also, it's fairly minor but worth mentioning that the G73jh has the larger screen.

It also looks a lot, lot nicer in my opinion. :happy:

i don't understand your post. can you elaborate?

it's not going to be GFWL, it will be Steamworks DRM.

if I had to choose between running Skyrim on console at 720p with low res textures, etc., or on PC at 1080p, with high res textures, optimized performance boost from DX11 features and 1000s of mods available, it seems like PC is an easy choice if it's within your budget.

Hey Everyone thanks for all the responses!

I have been comparing the VCards for each laptop based on this notebookcheck chart : http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html
Because of the amazing score the AMD card got , I was already leaning toward the Sager NP8150.
XPS:
* Performance is nowhere close to Sager
* Battery life is twice that of Sager NP8150

Sager:
* Performance is desktop-like, great for having only one computer
* Is 2 hours of life enough?

Ahh the great tradeoff: performance vs. battery life.
I'll have to double-check with the reseller if the laptop has a user-upgradable graphics unit, as their website states (user upgradable) only the last,most expensive option (Nvidia GTX 485).
Anyone know if there are new performance laptops on the way this summer? Perhaps its best to wait as close as possible to the end of summer..

Im getting this sixy [censored].

MSI GX780

The latest 2nd generation Intel? Core? i7 Processor
? Genuine Windows? 7 Home Premium
(MSI recommends upgrade to Genuine Windows? 7 Professional)
? Full-Color Backlight Keyboard
? Exclusive DDR3 SO-DIMM x 4 slot Design
? Exclusive TDE Technology
? High-end NVIDIA? GeForce GT 555M discrete graphics card
? Sound by Dynaudio
? THX TruStudio Pro Provides Excellent Surround Sound
? Latest & fastest Data Transfer Technology USB 3.0

and hooking it up to a 42 in 1080p tv
http://www.msi.com/product/nb/GX780.html

it's a trade off for any decent gaming laptop. 2hrs is pretty good for gaming laptop IMO.

AFAIK, there aren't any great gaming laptops that have excellent battery life while gaming. I have an Envy 15, which came with a heavy external slice battery that sort of makes up for it, but I still would not game on battery.

you are probably never going to want to game on battery. if you dial all the performance settings up your battery will not last 2 hours, perhaps more like 1 hour.

however, if you dial all the settings way down and dim the screen, etc., maybe you can stretch out the battery life a bit longer than 2 hours if you need to take notes, etc.

if you need to do non-gaming tasks like word processing etc. while traveling and you need long battery life, you might have to buy some kind of external power supply, which will be really heavy and inconvenient to carry around.

Budget is right, to run the game at the same quality as on console you would need to spend twice as much(not including a TV, but who doesn't have one), and if you bought you PC/Laptop more than six months ago and you didn't spend more than a G it probably wont work.

Elaborate more please, as I'm sure you're implying a PC from 6 months ago (or older) won't be able to run Skyrim which is being developed on a console at the moment. Are you basing this all on assumptions and spectral evidence?

If I had to guess I would imagine a lot of PCs that are several years old will be able to run Skyrim at 720p with low res textures and settings

I know that I wont be gaming on battery, I just wish that higher end cards had optimus type technology, it would be nice to just use integrated VCard when I dont want the extra graphical power, but the highest optimus for NVidia stil doesn't come close.. And neither does the 555M in the previously-mentioned MSI. The MSI looks like a gamer laptop, but their video card choice is a deal breaker for me.

The perfect laptop is a MAC/PC desktop the size of a laptop with 3d-hologram function

The HP Envy range is sweet, I like the Beats Edition although it's specs are not awesome it should play Skyrim no problem.

Are you buying a 1500$ laptop just for gaming? Why not build a better 1000$ desktop for gaming and buy a netbook or something stupidly cheap to type on and surf the web?. You can build a beast of a pc with that money! Btw laptop graphics cards are neutered, and are not the same as their desktop counterparts. For and example, a 460m<460 for a desktop.

Google toms hardware graphic card hierarchy cart, it list most cards in a tiered chart by power, you'll see that mobile versions of cards are sometimes two tiers below their desktop counterpart.

I'd go for a desktop gaming PC.

I have the Envy 15, hoping, but not sure if it will deliver decent Skyrim frame rate at 1920x1080, max settings and hi res textures. Unfortunately the Envy 15 was discontinued.

The Envy 14, although soon to be refreshed with Sandy Bridge CPU in June, will probably still be bogged down by POS video card and crappy display (recently only 1366x768 display available as they stopped shipping with 1600x900). Also it is heavier and bulkier than the Envy 15.

The Envy 173D has a slightly better GPU (6850M), but it doesn't compare to the 2GB 6970M in the Sager OP is considering, especially considering the price.

Want I mean is, if you bought a PC more than 6 months ago and you did not spend a lot on it, it will run like a snail, developed on a console issue is irrelevant.

In terms of budget, it is far more cost effective to get it 4 a console (I am not saying consoles are better, visually a PC is far better as we all know, plus mods but in most other areas a console is better. Oh God, here comes the WAVE )