What PC should I consider?

Razzak

I was looking to get a new PC because I do have an old one currently. I am a bit interested in a bit of gaming so much as being able to play Crysis 3 at a pretty decent level. One that is really thin and light so portable. I will not care for an optical drive however I don't mind if I get one. Lastly I was thinking the price range to be about $2000 or less.
I asked for a laptop because I take take my laptop with me for other reasons.

Answer
Take a look at these rankings:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-worst-notebook-brands-2013/3

For gaming laptops I would start here:
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/landing_pages/ideapad/gaming-pcs
http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/Gaming_Products/

Gaming laptops are pretty expensive. In your shoes I would get a performance desktop and then a separate more basic laptop. The reason is the $1500 or so you spend on a high end laptop now will be outdated as far as gaming performance within 2 years and you would need to repurchase to keep up to speed. You could get an excellent gaming desktop for well under $1000 and then an inexpensive laptop for $300-$500. The desktop would be relatively easy and inexpensive to upgrade over the next years while the laptop would chug along just as able to meet your mobile needs then as now.

YMMV

Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung are the top 4 laptop brands. I wouldn't consider any other brands.

Dell makes Alienware and they are not worth the money charged.
Acer makes Gateway. You'd have to pay me to use one of their machines.
Sony hardware has generally been good, but they are notorious for putting huge amounts of crapware/bloatware on machines and gathering information on their consumers without their knowledge or permission.
Toshiba has bottomed the rankings. Personally, I have used them and never had a problem, but that does not appear to be the case any more.

What desktop to buy for gaming?

yes

I want a desktop pc for games like skyrim and call of duty, but i can't seem to find a decent one for under £350. Can anyone help?

Answer
Something like this if you can build your own and even that's £385. I can't see a way lower than that and still have even a bottom-rung gaming PC. Really, you need to start in the £450-500 range to get an decent machine.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Pentium G2120 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor (£63.41 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£37.58 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£18.22 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.19 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card (£75.02 @ Dabs)
Case: Xigmatek Asgard II Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.31 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£44.53 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.96 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £385.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-26 14:25 GMT+0000)

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What desktop to buy for gaming?

Q. I want a desktop pc for games like skyrim and call of duty, but i can't seem to find a decent one for under £350. Can anyone help?

Answer
Something like this if you can build your own and even that's £385. I can't see a way lower than that and still have even a bottom-rung gaming PC. Really, you need to start in the £450-500 range to get an decent machine.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Pentium G2120 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor (£63.41 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£37.58 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£18.22 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.19 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card (£75.02 @ Dabs)
Case: Xigmatek Asgard II Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.31 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£44.53 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.96 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £385.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-26 14:25 GMT+0000)

How do I build/customize/modify my laptop for gaming?

Q. I want a gaming laptop but they cost no less than $1000 and my dad says he will only pay $500 and i would have to pay the rest, but I don't have more than $400 so...
I want to build or customize or modify my laptop when I get one (probably in a month) so I would probably buy a $500 or $600 laptop with a decent system.
What laptop should I buy for this?
What should I change about it and how?
Write extra important stuff as well please!

Answer
In case you are looking for a laptop to play high definition games then you might need a laptop that comes with extremely strong processor and good graphics card. Now you must be thinking that this kind of laptop might cost you a lot, well if it was 2010 then sure, but now in 2013 you can get a powerful gaming laptop for as low as $500. Here, in this article weâre going to show you 10 cheap gaming laptops that you could get for under $500. Many people still think that cheap laptops canât deliver what it requires to play latest games as desktop pc but in reality they both are the same and have same processor within them.
the following laptop will be suitable for you!
Laptops from HP Envy series have always been on top in many of my lists already and here we go again, HP Envy dv6-7210us is on the second spot in our list of cheap gaming laptops. It totally deserves that due to its low price and latest hardware specs, it comes with 6GB RAM, AMD Quad Core processor of 1.9 GHz, 750 GB hard drive and of course Windows 8. Besides performance, sleekness and style is what makes it so perfect and totally worth, it is also very much lightweight and can be easily compared with top notch ultrabook. So, if these specs are good enough for you and can afford to pay $500 for it then youâre definitely going to enjoy playing games on it.

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what is the best laptop under 1000$ for 2013 ?

Ahmed

Hello !!

I would like to know what is the best laptop under 1000$


I need a laptop mostly for College using like gaming , browsing and using Photoshop cs6 .
I need it to run BF , crysis , GTA IV .... ETC

about the specs

HDD: not less than 640~750 GB
RAM : not less than 6GB
Screen : not less than 15.6
Have a backlit keyboard
Display : Anything that works great will be fine :) i don't care if it's 1080p or 720p

Stuffs that is really important for me :
High build
Good battery life : i really don't want it to be like 1~2h , like min 3~4h is great :D

I don't really mind running some games in mid or even low , well if it runs great without lag , then that's all i need , beside most of the games still looks good even in low .

What i do really care is it to have low issues , high performance and to last long .

Thank you .

Answer
I would go with ASUS or HP. ASUS has the best warranty when it comes to laptops. Some of their models come with a two year warranty with a one year accidental warranty. HP can give you a reliable best bang for the buck laptops or they can give you give you a superior system if you step up in their high end systems. One of the ASUS is above your price point but it can play all the games you want.

ASUS laptop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230597
Core i7 3630QM(2.40GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231089
Core i7 4700HQ(2.40GHz) 17.3" 12GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA Dedicated 2GB GTX 765M 1920 x 1080 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

This HP can be customized to what you need, Bump the APU and ram for better performance.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC A8-5550M APU HD 8000 Series Graphics 6GB DDR3 750GB 5400 rpm HD Starting at $530

These are not customizable

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us
HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $700 less then an inch thick 4.5lbs

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC
17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $750

Brand buying advise

You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down. What cost you less today is going to cost you more tomorrow.

Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.

Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.

Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.

Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.

Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.

Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.

Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.

ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.

Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.

Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.

Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate.

Choose wisely.

Help with budget gaming rig?

panos

So I wanna spend about 450 euro MAX on a pc
This what I have thought of

Intel core i3 2100=120 euro
HD 7750=100-110 euro
4 GB RAM kingston= 50 euro

270 euro on this + 120 more on all the other componets (Mobo,disks,keyboard,mouse,500 GB hard drive etc)

This is made from scratch so I am not going for the i5 2500k or a high end card,ill most likely make a 150 euro ugrabe in next 2013 christmas (I guess)

SO is this a good build that will run games like bf3 at medium/high at 50+ fps? Any changes/advices?

Answer
Do not know what the conversion is here in the states, but I think I would get more ram, all you can afford. 8Gb min, be advised that you can only go to 16 under windows home, you will need professional to go the 32 GB which is what i have. While the i3 is a good choice, you can go to AMD 6 core for about the same price which has better performance. All mother boards are not equal , check all specs before.

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what is the best laptop under 1000$ for 2013 ?

best gaming pc 2013 under 500 image

Ahmed

Hello !!

I would like to know what is the best laptop under 1000$


I need a laptop mostly for College using like gaming , browsing and using Photoshop cs6 .
I need it to run BF , crysis , GTA IV .... ETC

about the specs

HDD: not less than 640~750 GB
RAM : not less than 6GB
Screen : not less than 15.6
Have a backlit keyboard
Display : Anything that works great will be fine :) i don't care if it's 1080p or 720p

Stuffs that is really important for me :
High build
Good battery life : i really don't want it to be like 1~2h , like min 3~4h is great :D

I don't really mind running some games in mid or even low , well if it runs great without lag , then that's all i need , beside most of the games still looks good even in low .

What i do really care is it to have low issues , high performance and to last long .

Thank you .

Answer
I would go with ASUS or HP. ASUS has the best warranty when it comes to laptops. Some of their models come with a two year warranty with a one year accidental warranty. HP can give you a reliable best bang for the buck laptops or they can give you give you a superior system if you step up in their high end systems. One of the ASUS is above your price point but it can play all the games you want.

ASUS laptop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230597
Core i7 3630QM(2.40GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231089
Core i7 4700HQ(2.40GHz) 17.3" 12GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA Dedicated 2GB GTX 765M 1920 x 1080 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

This HP can be customized to what you need, Bump the APU and ram for better performance.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC A8-5550M APU HD 8000 Series Graphics 6GB DDR3 750GB 5400 rpm HD Starting at $530

These are not customizable

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us
HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $700 less then an inch thick 4.5lbs

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC
17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $750

Brand buying advise

You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down. What cost you less today is going to cost you more tomorrow.

Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.

Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.

Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.

Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.

Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.

Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.

Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.

ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.

Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.

Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.

Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate.

Choose wisely.

Looking at laptops for work & play?

OutOfLuck

I've got an older model (gateway, intel centrino, windows 7...can't really remember all the stats but it's around 3-4years old). It's good enough for anything work related/going online, But I'm thinking of getting a new one for under 500$.

Found a deal where the following was at or below my range:

- Toshiba Satellite C55-A5332


I'm looking for something with some decent software/programs already installed for reports/essays/presentations, etc. but also for gaming (nothing insane like alienware, but enough to skate buy with current PC games).

If the one above is good enough, or you have some suggestions in my price range, let me know.

Answer
For preinstalled software for Office applications, most new laptops come with Microsoft Office Trial preinstalled. This will work for 30 or 60 days, but then you have to purchase. Instead, consider LibreOffice, a full featured Office suite which will do almost everything Microsoft Office does and just as well, but is completely Free! It is fully compatible with Microsoft file formats so you don't have to worry about being able to view/modify/create Office documents. And did I say it was FREE!?

Take a look at these rankings:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-worst-notebook-brands-2013/3

For something to do gaming, you will need to raise your price point a bit. Gaming machines start at around $750. You can save a bit off that if you get a factory refurb or perhaps a model from last year or such. This should give you some ideas for gaming laptops:
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/landing_pages/ideapad/gaming-pcs
http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/Gaming_Products/

Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung are the top 4 laptop brands. I wouldn't consider any other brands.

Dell makes Alienware and they are not worth the money charged.
Acer makes Gateway. You'd have to pay me to use one of their machines.
Sony hardware has generally been good, but they are notorious for putting huge amounts of crapware/bloatware on machines and gathering information on their consumers without their knowledge or permission.
Toshiba has bottomed the rankings. Personally, I have used them and never had a problem, but that does not appear to be the case any more.

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what is the best laptop under 1000$ for 2013 ?

best gaming pc 2013 under 500 image

Ahmed

Hello !!

I would like to know what is the best laptop under 1000$


I need a laptop mostly for College using like gaming , browsing and using Photoshop cs6 .
I need it to run BF , crysis , GTA IV .... ETC

about the specs

HDD: not less than 640~750 GB
RAM : not less than 6GB
Screen : not less than 15.6
Have a backlit keyboard
Display : Anything that works great will be fine :) i don't care if it's 1080p or 720p

Stuffs that is really important for me :
High build
Good battery life : i really don't want it to be like 1~2h , like min 3~4h is great :D

I don't really mind running some games in mid or even low , well if it runs great without lag , then that's all i need , beside most of the games still looks good even in low .

What i do really care is it to have low issues , high performance and to last long .

Thank you .

Answer
I would go with ASUS or HP. ASUS has the best warranty when it comes to laptops. Some of their models come with a two year warranty with a one year accidental warranty. HP can give you a reliable best bang for the buck laptops or they can give you give you a superior system if you step up in their high end systems. One of the ASUS is above your price point but it can play all the games you want.

ASUS laptop.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230597
Core i7 3630QM(2.40GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231089
Core i7 4700HQ(2.40GHz) 17.3" 12GB Memory 1TB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA Dedicated 2GB GTX 765M 1920 x 1080 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot

This HP can be customized to what you need, Bump the APU and ram for better performance.

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC A8-5550M APU HD 8000 Series Graphics 6GB DDR3 750GB 5400 rpm HD Starting at $530

These are not customizable

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us
HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $700 less then an inch thick 4.5lbs

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC
17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $750

Brand buying advise

You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down. What cost you less today is going to cost you more tomorrow.

Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.

Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.

Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.

Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.

Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.

Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.

Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.

ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.

Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.

Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.

Never buy an All In One. They are far worst then laptops of any kind to service and they have a higher failure rate.

Choose wisely.

Looking at laptops for work & play?

OutOfLuck

I've got an older model (gateway, intel centrino, windows 7...can't really remember all the stats but it's around 3-4years old). It's good enough for anything work related/going online, But I'm thinking of getting a new one for under 500$.

Found a deal where the following was at or below my range:

- Toshiba Satellite C55-A5332


I'm looking for something with some decent software/programs already installed for reports/essays/presentations, etc. but also for gaming (nothing insane like alienware, but enough to skate buy with current PC games).

If the one above is good enough, or you have some suggestions in my price range, let me know.

Answer
For preinstalled software for Office applications, most new laptops come with Microsoft Office Trial preinstalled. This will work for 30 or 60 days, but then you have to purchase. Instead, consider LibreOffice, a full featured Office suite which will do almost everything Microsoft Office does and just as well, but is completely Free! It is fully compatible with Microsoft file formats so you don't have to worry about being able to view/modify/create Office documents. And did I say it was FREE!?

Take a look at these rankings:
http://blog.laptopmag.com/best-worst-notebook-brands-2013/3

For something to do gaming, you will need to raise your price point a bit. Gaming machines start at around $750. You can save a bit off that if you get a factory refurb or perhaps a model from last year or such. This should give you some ideas for gaming laptops:
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/landing_pages/ideapad/gaming-pcs
http://www.asus.com/us/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/Gaming_Products/

Lenovo, Asus, HP, and Samsung are the top 4 laptop brands. I wouldn't consider any other brands.

Dell makes Alienware and they are not worth the money charged.
Acer makes Gateway. You'd have to pay me to use one of their machines.
Sony hardware has generally been good, but they are notorious for putting huge amounts of crapware/bloatware on machines and gathering information on their consumers without their knowledge or permission.
Toshiba has bottomed the rankings. Personally, I have used them and never had a problem, but that does not appear to be the case any more.

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How much will it cost to build a high-end gaming computer in 2013?

best gaming pc 2013 under 500 image

Theo Turne

I'm thinking of building a new gaming PC this year (I built one in 2010 for around £1000 but its getting a bit dated now). I expect to be building around June-July time, and given the current speculation on future releases from Intel/AMD, my specs will be approximately as follows:

i7-4770k
HD 8970 3GB
16GB 1600MHz RAM
Crossfire ready LGA1150 Motherboard
Decent case with 750/850W PSU (for potential Crossfire)
256GB SSD (no HDDs, I hardly use any space, currently running Win 7 with 5 games, using 120GB)
Windows 8 Pro (with Blue upgrade)
Peripherals: 1080p 27" monitor, decent gaming mouse/keyboard/headset (expected to be £300-400 for all peripherals)

What sort of price do you think this would equate to? Note that the launch price of the i7-4770k is expected to be about the same as that of the 3770k, and likewise for the HD 8970. Could I get it for under £2000 (a little over $3000)?

Fell free to make comments on my choices/suggestions (I will consider getting an nVidia GPU but not an AMD CPU). Thanks!
Please note that I live in the UK and therefore prices are around 20% higher than in America.
@Wcdih... I'm not going to get X79 as it won't be any better for gaming than X87. I have a friend with an i5 2500k and a GTX560Ti, another with an i7 3930k and a GTX560Ti and they get Identical fps. Have you got any links to the specs of that i5 you mentioned?

Answer
processor is too much, i5 3570k is all you need.

if you are gettign 16 gigs of ram make sure its 4 x 4 gigs and not 2 x 8 gigs and 8 gig sticks have higher latency timings in general.

rest looks good.

could easily get for £2000

personally i would just upgrade your current one if you spend £1000 on it 3 years ago it must have an i7 or similar and good psu. just get a new graphics card and SSD.

the only thing i would change is the monitor, if you are going over 26" you are far better off swapping to a 2560 x 1600 res monitor, trust me it looks amazing.

my friend has one of these, its amazing:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/27-dell-u2713hm-led-ips-monitor-dp-hdmi-dvi-vga-2560x1440-10001-350cd-m2-8ms-black-with-4-port-usb-3

okay its probably gonna cost closer to £500 - 525 with all the keyboard mouse etc now but trust me its worth it, if your paying £2000 you may aswell go for the best.

EDIT:

editing due to your post.

you do realise processor has nothing to do with gaming performance. the i7 4770k will perform almost no different than an old phenom 2 965 in gaming if paired with identical graphics cards.

aslong a as a processor can run a game having a better one will make, at most, 2 - 3 FPS difference.

your friends get the same performance because they have the same graphics card, if the one with a i5 2500k got a 660ti he would have far better gaming performance than the one with the i7.

anandtech.com seems to be down at the moment but if you look at the benches between CPUs and scroll down to the bottom and look at gaming performance you will see minute changes between the 3570k and the 3770k processors but , in comparison, huge changes between the nvidia 660 and the nvidia 680.

What desktop to buy for gaming?

yes

I want a desktop pc for games like skyrim and call of duty, but i can't seem to find a decent one for under £350. Can anyone help?

Answer
Something like this if you can build your own and even that's £385. I can't see a way lower than that and still have even a bottom-rung gaming PC. Really, you need to start in the £450-500 range to get an decent machine.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zFRV/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Pentium G2120 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor (£63.41 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock H61M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£37.58 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£18.22 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.19 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7750 1GB Video Card (£75.02 @ Dabs)
Case: Xigmatek Asgard II Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.31 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£44.53 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.96 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £385.20
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-26 14:25 GMT+0000)

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Gaming Laptop for under $200 (Possibly $100) (COMMAND AND CONQUER)?

best gaming pc 2013 under 500 image

Antwonn

Hello all,

So my dad is looking for a cheap laptop mainly under $100 but i say $200 because he is buying it USED. The main reason its so cheap is because he just plans to use the internet, Listen to music and Play a series of 1 game. That game is Command and Conquer, even though he wont be able to play the new one thats comming out in 2013, he will play it on mine because i have a custom build PC (took time to research, but epicness) So its just command and conquer and no other game. We have every single commmand and conquer that came out. So right now he is looking on Craigslist..Only because its used but Help me out here, as this is the hardest thing to figure out.

Answer
First of all, you will be lucky to find a system for $100 to $200 bucks with the right combination of hardware able to run any C&C game. With all the hastel & hope that a used system off Craigâs list will even work in a week or two from the time you get it, youâre better off just going online or a store & spend $300 to $400 for a brand new system you know is going to work 3 to 4 years from now. At that point you can at least get $200 out of it on Craigâs list when youâre done, so in the end youâre only spending $200 at most anyways.


Down in source I posted 2 links to two laptops that have more than enough hardware to run almost any game on the market to date. Both are quad core systems, with 4 GB DDR3 ram to support it. Also comes equipped with the Radeon HD 6520G & is upgradable to 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz ram if needed witch I'm sure wonât ever be the case. Best part about these are that there both under $400, only difference is one has a 320 GB HDD & the other has a 500 GB HDD!

Help with budget gaming rig?

panos

So I wanna spend about 450 euro MAX on a pc
This what I have thought of

Intel core i3 2100=120 euro
HD 7750=100-110 euro
4 GB RAM kingston= 50 euro

270 euro on this + 120 more on all the other componets (Mobo,disks,keyboard,mouse,500 GB hard drive etc)

This is made from scratch so I am not going for the i5 2500k or a high end card,ill most likely make a 150 euro ugrabe in next 2013 christmas (I guess)

SO is this a good build that will run games like bf3 at medium/high at 50+ fps? Any changes/advices?

Answer
Do not know what the conversion is here in the states, but I think I would get more ram, all you can afford. 8Gb min, be advised that you can only go to 16 under windows home, you will need professional to go the 32 GB which is what i have. While the i3 is a good choice, you can go to AMD 6 core for about the same price which has better performance. All mother boards are not equal , check all specs before.

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What is the best gaming pc build under 500$?

best gaming pc 2013 under 500 image

FABULOUS

Please make it so I could play mostly every gaming on high or ultra settings with a decent frame rate.THANK YOU!

Answer
Try this
http://www.budgetbuildpc.com/june-2013-500-build/

You can replace the motherboard with a cheaper micro ATX one if you're planning to not upgrade in the future to save money now.

I really want to start PC Gaming, More info in the description.?

Kylie

Okay so, I have decided that I want to star PC gaming and I have a few questions.

1.) Hard drives are like the heart of everything, so what would be a good one for a beginner? I don't really have a technological background either so building one is out of the question. I just want one to start off with.

2.) Should I just use a regular old monitor or get a specialized one? (if that's worded correctly)

I don't want to spend too much in the beginning, but as time goes one get better equipment. From what I've been researching some of the lesser expensive ones are about 500-600 so are there any recommendations for equal or below?

Any advice or input would be great.

Answer
With a lower budget, why not just get a Gaming Laptop so you can game anywhere?

An example laptop would be the Acer Aspire E1-571-6811.

You can see more laptops within your price range here:
http://bestlaptopforgaming.org/laptop/bang-for-the-buck-gaming-laptops-under-500-reviews-2013/


Do your research before making a selection. :-)

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