Buying a new laptop to run Skyrim

[Viper139]

Hey, I've never owned a laptop before just desktops that I've built myself, but due to living university I want to get a laptop that I can take to lectures and play recent games on such as skyrim.

I've been looking for a while and found this one, I would like to know if you guys think it’s a good laptop for the price, my budget is £500.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/laptop/range/nspirepro2430.html

 

[Brownjohn]

For reference, I've got an I5 processor and a nvidia gt325m gpu in my laptop, and I can run skyrim on medium settings w/o many problems. I also played the Battlefield 3 beta, with low settings, and it ran fine. Deus Ex HR played on medium w/o issues.

What I'm saying is that that laptop shouldn't have any problems playing skyrim.

For £500, I'd recommend this laptop: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-Notebo...1_7?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1321647269&sr=1-7

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, Asus gives a 2 year warranty that covers accidental damage. I've never heard of the brand you mentioned, and as far as major manufacturers, Asus is one of the best for reliability.

 

[airgamer]

I don't have the money for a laptop unfortunately...I just recently bought a cheap, old model laptop cuz my netbook broke. How can you determine if your computer can run a game? The computer requirements lab I saw didn't work for me...but then again I was using firefox...maybe I shoulda used chrome...

 

[Evilbeaver]

Edit: After posting this, I realized I forgot you seem to live in the UK. Though, the best bang for buck rule of thumb concerning asus may still hold true there as well.




In general, I have found Asus' G series laptop line to provide the most bang for your buck in terms of specs.

Doing a search on newegg and google with the key phrase "Asus G series", this is the best I found in a couple of minutes.

http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_...4&i_cntr=1321671657641&sid=IDx20070921x00003a

Though, there might be better deals out there, so I encourage you to do your own due diligence.

Also, sears might charge sales tax, in which case might make the price comparable to the same model sold on newegg, depending on where you live.

It seems to be very similar to the one I got on newegg a mouth ago for 800 bucks, but the one linked to above seems to have a slightly better videocard.

However, be warned that the upgrade process turned out to be one of the most unstreamlined processes for any laptop I have ever owned, but you can get it done with the below video. Also, this laptop tends to be a pound more than other, similarly speced (though more expensive) gaming laptops.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev8y8xlCdHE

You can use this video to upgrade the ram as well.

Hope that helps.

 

[DonDonRaiden]

I know it's out of your price range, but just to confirm on the other mentions of the Asus G series. I recently picked up an Asus G74SX-DH71 and traded in my PS3 copy of Skyrim for the PC retail copy. It works without a hitch and recommended me using Ultra settings for it. I'm loving it so far. My rig runs the GTX560M w/ 3GB. I think you can still pick up a 560M in the G53 series...could be wrong, but im sure I saw an upgrade for it.