It’s time for some more gaming laptop reviews. It’s been 6 months since the last set of reviews and I must say I am impressed with the options available right now. 6 months ago in January, it was hard to come up with a list of good deals. This was in part because of the holiday season ending and a lack of new mobile graphics cards being released around that time. Luckily, ATI has released some great new cards that have created better competition with Nvidia’s aging recycled releases.
The baseline price starts off at $850 $680 for the budget recommendations below. I always strive to come up with a sub $800 recommendation, but if the performance can’t match the price, I simply can’t justify the review. The top end price is $1400, but is a definite extreme gaming notebook in a class of its own.
The Gateway NV7901u comes equipped with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, which averages 29FPS on high and 42FPS on medium in Battlefield Bad Company 2. The HD 5650 is a DirectX 11 compatible card, but unfortunately probably won’t have the power to use the new DX 11 features in upcoming games. With that aside, the Mobility HD 5650 is still a powerful gaming laptop card and a great deal in a $850 laptop.
The Gateway NV7901u also comes with the new Intel Core i5 430M at 2.26GHz, 4GB of DDR3 ram, a large 17.3″ screen, and a 500gb 5400rmp hard drive. With all of those features and the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, this is definitely a great budget laptop.
Mobility Radeon HD 5650 Benchmarks on notebookcheck.net
Street Price – $849.99
More info on the Gateway NV7901u *No longer available
Two great alternatives to the Gateway NV7901u are the Aspire AS5551G-4591 and the HP Pavilion dv7-4060us. They both come equipped with the same ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, but come with slightly slower and older processors. If you’re on a budget, you can’t go wrong with either of these machines.
Street Price – $679.99
More info on the Aspire AS5551G-4591
Street Price – $849.99 ($799.99 after rebate)
More info on the HP Pavilion dv7-4060us
The Gateway P-7908u is the same exact laptop I recommended in January of this year. Even though it’s been 6 months since I first recommended it, it’s still a killer laptop and still a great deal at $950. The one big downfall to this laptop is that the max resolution is limited to 1440×900. To me this wouldn’t be a deal breaker, but for some this may be an issue.
It still comes with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M, which is actually a bit faster then the GTS 360M in my next recommendation below. The next recommendation below is $150 more, but makes up for it with other great features.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M Benchmarks on notebookcheck.net
Street Price – $949.99
More info on the Gateway P-7908u
The TOSHIBA Qosmio X505-Q860 comes with a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M with 1GB of GDDR5 and beefy hardware to match. As I noted in my recommended gaming laptop above, the GTS 360M is a touch slower than the older GTX 260M, but this laptop comes with newer hardware to match the newer graphics card.
It comes with the new Intel Core i5 430M, 4GB of DDR3 ram, a 7200RPM 500GB hard drive and a massive 18.4″ screen @ 1680×945. The newer processor, faster hard drive, and larger screen with a higher max resolution can easily justify the extra $150 if you have it.
GeForce GTS 360M Benchmarks on notebookcheck.net
Alternatively you may be interested in ASUS G Series G51JX-X1 NoteBook for $1199.99. It also has the GTS 360m but comes with a Intel Core i7 720QM processor and a 15.6″ screen which is definitely more portable than a 18.4″ screen.
Street Price – $1099.99
More info on the TOSHIBA Qosmio X505-Q860u
The MSI GX740-079US pretty much speaks for itself. A fast Core i7 720QM, a blazing Mobility Radeon HD 5870, gigabit lan, wireless N, and bluetooth. You get the picture.
If you have the money, it’s a awesome laptop for the price.
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 Benchmarks on notebookcheck.net
Street Price – $1399.99
More info on the MSI GX740-079US
Disclaimer: The State of Affairs received no direct compensation for writing this article and is in no way directly affiliated with Gateway, Toshiba, ASUS, MSI or Newegg.com.
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