Need some argumentative ammo and advice

[locke0987]

My father and I are buying myself a gaming lap top soon and I'm looking for some ammo to persuade him to chip some more in. Now, I like to consider myself atleast marginally knowledgable and up to date in updates in computer gaming technology but lately I've been falling behind.
Here are some of my main questions;

• Do games have a finite or infinite FPS?
• From my understanding, installing dual video cards will increase performance upwards of 100% and would there be a noticeable difference?
• What would be the specs of a computer to run a severly demanding game (Oblivion, Supreme Commander, BF2142, etc.) at max capacity.

Now, to the laptop itself. Where would be a good area to find a high performance gaming laptop in the range of $2500? I've looked at Alienware and it looked like I could get a decent setup for around that price. Here were some basic specs;

• Ultimate Vista (I am aware that Vista does not currently support SLI technology though I suspect that it will be the drivers will be created soon enough)
• 2.2g amd turion 64 800mhz processor
• 2g DDR SO-DIMM 400Mhz
• Dual 256 Nvidia Geforce 7900 SLI enabled
• 80g 5400 rpm w/ NCQ and 8mb cache
• unspecified sound card. Though it states it as "High Def sound card w/ surround sound"

That covers it for the most part and it comes up to about 2500, is that a good price or can I find something better?
Thank you very much for your time, it is appreciated.

 

[b1gapl]

Hey locke0987,
Welcome to T.F.!

There is a finite FPS.

Dual video cards will only increase performance about 20-40%. It would be noticeable if you were playing at high resolutions.

 

[funkywaggnelz]

err, can u get two top of the line vid cards into a laptop??

 

[macdawg]

$2500 would get you a lot more performance in a desktop than a laptop, which is important to keep in mind before dropping that much money into a gaming system.

I would strongly recommend getting a single, but very powerful videocard, opposed to two of the 7900's for performance, heat, and power consumption reasons.

 

[Riznarf]

$2500 would get you a lot more performance in a desktop than a laptop, which is important to keep in mind before dropping that much money into a gaming system.

I would strongly recommend getting a single, but very powerful videocard, opposed to two of the 7900's for performance, heat, and power consumption reasons.

agreed, plus in a laptop everything runs alot hotter. i know you can squeeze a 7950 go gtx in a laptop which would probably serve you pretty well. I'm not sure if they have 'go' (the mobile) versions of the 8 series yet. Honestly, on a laptop since you wouldn't be playing at ridiculous resolutions anyways, (unless you're hooked up to a larger monitor) a single gpu would do fine.

Additionally, I'd STRONGLY suggest a C2d, (t7200 is probably the best bag for the buck) due to the energy efficiency and overall ownage of amd. Toy around with different configurations online and see what pricing looks like.

To run a seriously demanding game (ie Supreme Commander, 2142, etc...) would be near impossible for a laptop on a $2500 budget....a desktop, no problem. To give you some sort of idea, I have a T7200 (2.0ghz c2d) and a geforce 7400go with 2gb of 667mhz ram, and I can only play 2142 on min settings...sometimes a little higher....but a long ways from maxing.

What company are you thinking of buying it through?

 

[baron5]

yeah , gaming laptops are really expensive. ud be better off going for a desktop for alot cheaper and alot more perf. but if u really need the portability of a laptop then ull have to go all out money wise.

 

[kobe24]

yeah laptops are destoryed buy destops when it comes to gamin but alien ware do make good gaming laptops and so do asus from what ive heard

 

[QuaziBee]

I've heard this deal before; "When you get into college I will buy you a laptop", and so you want it to be the best it can. Honestly what I would reccomend is building a top of the line desktop for $1800 and spend the rest of whatever your budget is on a dinky dell laptop for class. You're going to get so much more power out of a desktop there is really no comparison.

Of course if thats not the deal then why get a laptop anyways? And welcome to T.F.! (I like it here)

 

[veg1992]

I've heard this deal before; "When you get into college I will buy you a laptop", and so you want it to be the best it can. Honestly what I would ree ccomend is building a top of the line desktop for $1800 and spend the rest of whatever your budget is on a dinky dell laptop for class. You're going to get so much morpower out of a desktop there is really no comparison.

Of course if thats not the deal then why get a laptop anyways? And welcome to T.F.! (I like it here)

lol my parents say that to me a lot!!!! also good to have a crappy laptop.. so u don't get distracted and start playing games

 

[QuaziBee]

also good to have a crappy laptop.. so u don't get distracted and start playing games

Very true, I use a nice pc at work and sometime I start to drift into game land when I should be doing more Administering.