Laptop Trouble

[Bahumat]

Hey guys i wanna buy a Laptop to play daoc/wow etc on

i hear you all immediately say "Buy a desktop pc" but this is out of the question, due to space and a few other factors it has to be a Laptop

i am looking to get someething with the following spec but i dont wanna pay £1000+

Processor: 3GHZ
RAM: 1GB but may settle for 500MB
Graphics: ...hmm had trouble finding something good, 128mb graphics but tbh im none the wiser who is better than who, radeon, geforce etc.

probably will want a cd burner as well.

anyways if your bored then go find me a pc that is good yet affordable and post the link. if your a bit lazy then just post a link to a site

i live in the uk and only speak english so i will have no clue if you post a swedish site lol.

willing to spend up to 1k

 

[Mojo]

The only lappy I have seen that will run games half tidy is the Dell Inspiron range (currently the 9100/9200) all my mates buy dells tbh, none are buying anything other than the inspiron range.

I am sure theree are others, Alienware make some but iirc they are way more expensive than Dell's.

But TBH £1000 is abit tight for gaming lappy a budget of £1300 is a bit more like it.

(been a few months since i last chked prices so dunno for sure), but certainly the inspiron 9200 is a good benchmark to compare other makes to if nothing else.

 

[Mojo]

Forgot to add

512mb wont be enough ram and it is cheaper to get 1gig with your lappy rather than upgrade later. However if you do decide to go with 512 make sure its a single simm (if u get an option), at least that way it wont be tossed into the spares cupboard when/if you do upgrade.

 

[Bahumat]

ok change of plan, where is good to get desktop pc's? i said i would not get one but i dont wanna have to sell all my organs to play daoc at home lol.

 

[frogster]

My lappy is a Gericom, who are apparently quite big in Germany.

Its 3.06 Gig with 512MB RAM. 60 Gig HD Wireless adapter, DVD Burner and 128MB Geforce FX Go5600. 2 Years free insurance and warranty.

Runs DAoC well and cost £999 inc vat from Aldi

For Desktops i'd go to somewhere like aria.co.uk and buy your own bits. They will charge a small fee to put it together for you if you cant do it yourself.

 

[Bahumat]

thanks guys, keep those sites coming lol im just siting about at work so i got all day

 

[Sycho]

Bahumat do you know anyone who can build pcs?or can you yourself? if so then buy the components probably from www.overclockers.co.uk and you can build a great games pc for £1000 with a nice 17 inch TFT(viewsonic ones rock).You could buy the athlon 3000 tower pc from there that's already built then get the monitor, mouse and keyboard for around £1000.That built 3000 athlon tower pc there is very good.Something like this, if you can't build your pc or know someone who can:

DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
"Titan" AMD Athlon 64 3000+ System (FS-001-OK)
Operating System - Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - OEM (OS-001-MS) 1
. 1
£652.00 £652.00
Viewsonic VX715 X Series 17" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-007-VS)
£190.00 £190.00
Microsoft Digital Media Keyboard - OEM (KB-045-MS)
£13.95 £13.95
Logitech MX510 Performance Optical Mouse - Retail (KB-024-LG)
£27.12 £27.12
Subtotal £883.07
VAT £154.54
Total £1,037.61

 

[frogster]

Hmmmmmz

Have your thought about small form factor? You mentioned space being a problem. A SFF PC With a TFT would take up bugger all room and you would still get all the funtionality of a Desktop with the ability to transport it

£100 for Biostar IDEQ 200N (I have one, velly nice)

Nforce 2 mobo. Adequate sound and 8XAGP and 1 PCI

£100 for Athlon XP 3000

£50 for DVD Burner
£10 for Floppy
£230 for 6800GT
£65 for 200 Gig HD
£100 for Gig of DDR
£152 17" 16ms TFT
£70 XP Home OEM

=£877 ish

Jobs a guddun.

Speakers, Keyboard and mouse are up to you. You could put a tv card in there also if you fancy.

Prices and components are rounded up from Aria.co.uk so would be cheaper. Also this is just an example, but not a bad one for 5 mins quick look.

 

[frogster]

Stop posting before me Sycho!!!1

P.s my idea is better :O

 

[Gotrag]

See Bahumat told you Sycho was your man he built my pc for me.... well not actully built but you know

 

[Sycho]

Athlon XP cpu's suck compared to 64s.

Was the pc good gotrag?xD

 

[Gotrag]

Athlon XP cpu's suck compared to 64s.

Was the pc good gotrag?xD

Yes was great.... i have come into abit of money so i was wondering if you could make me another one?

About 1.6k worth?

i can use the other as a bb machine hehe

 

[Sycho]

You can get an SLI machine for that....but not all games support it currently, in other words you wouldn't get no fps increase compared to using one 6800 ultra when there is two inside.

You are mad if you want a second pc already i can make one that price but it's a lot of money and i do not the see point of it unless you use two pcs in your house regularly.(i.e member of family uses one often aswell as you)

If bahumat can build a pc or get one built you can get an athlon 3000+1gb ram+6800 non ultra/GT+antec/cooler master case and 200gb hd for around £900-1000.(with a 17 inch monitor too)

 

[Bahumat]

cheers guys. i tried making my own with soap but i got hot as i was sat in a metal room and all the soap started to melt.

anyways cheers guys, the bvuilding part im ok with plus if i do make a FUBAR i have a few friends i can ask.

btw sycho i could not see a graphics card on your setup, did you not list it or?

 

[Gotrag]

cheers guys. i tried making my own with soap but i got hot as i was sat in a metal room and all the soap started to melt.

the funney thing is i can actully imagne you doing that

 

[Gotrag]

You can get an SLI machine for that....but not all games support it currently, in other words you wouldn't get no fps increase compared to using one 6800 ultra when there is two inside.

You are mad if you want a second pc already i can make one that price but it's a lot of money and i do not the see point of it unless you use two pcs in your house regularly.(i.e member of family uses one often aswell as you)

If bahumat can build a pc or get one built you can get an athlon 3000+1gb ram+6800 non ultra/GT+antec/cooler master case and 200gb hd for around £900-1000.(with a 17 inch monitor too)

was only joking about it being a bb machine i would gifv the old one to my dad for his work

just so you know me and Bahumat are just game friends nothing to do with each other irl sadlly :/ i would like to meet him kool guy

 

[Sycho]

This is what i have come up with, spend £40-50 more and you can get a 6800 non ultra but a 6600GT still is a fine card if you do not play higher than 1280x1024 resolution.(doubt anyone does really unless on 19 inch or more monitor)

Also forgot to mention the motherboard has 7.1 onboard sound which is very good too and the monitor is real nice.


DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST REMOVE
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum (Socket 939) Motherboard (MB-027-MS)
£76.50 £76.50
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
£89.95 £89.95
Antec TruePower 430W PSU (CA-001-AN)
£55.34 £55.34
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (CP-096-AM)
£89.95 £89.95
Microsoft Digital Media Keyboard - OEM (KB-045-MS)
£13.95 £13.95
Logitech MX510 Performance Optical Mouse - Retail (KB-024-LG)
£27.12 £27.12
Logitech X-530 5.1 70 Watts Speakers (SP-020-LG)
£40.90 £40.90
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 160GB 6Y160MO SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-026-MD)
£50.75 £50.75
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition - OEM (OS-001-MS)
£48.65 £48.65
Hyundai ImageQuest L70S+ 17" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-018-HY)
£174.95 £174.95
Coolermaster Centurion 5 - Black/Silver (No PSU) (CA-075-CM)
£37.50 £37.50
OcUK Value Floppy Drive - Black (HD-001-OK)
£6.50 £6.50
NEC ND3520 16x 16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-014-NE)
£38.95 £38.95
Leadtek WinFast GeForce 6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-050-LT)
£122.95 £122.95
Subtotal £873.96
VAT £152.95
Total £1,026.91

 

[Bahumat]

Item Quantity Product ID Description Price (inc. VAT) Price

Case 1 CSE-MID-MERC Mercedes Case - Silver £22.33 £19.00
Motherboard1 MBDD-ASUS-A7S8XM Asus A7S8X-MX Motherboard £34.08 £29.00

CPU1 CPU-A-XP-3000C AMD Athlon XP 3000+ £93.94 £79.95
RAM 2 MEM-512-DDR-270 512Mb PC2700 DDR SDRAM £82.25 £35.00
Hard Drive1 HDI-120-6Y120L0 120Gb Maxtor DiamondMAX+9 133/7200 £47.59 £40.50

Floppy 1 FLO-35 3½" Floppy Drive £5.86 £4.99
CDRW/DVD 1 CDRW-LG-52522416 LG 52x52x24x32 CDRW/DVD Drive £31.73 £27.00

Monitor 1 MON-TFT-1715 17" Digimate L-1715 TFT Monitor £137.42 £116.95
FAN 1 FAN-CM-HAC-L82 Coolermaster X-Dream II Socket A Fan £8.81 £7.50

Graphics Card 1GCD-NVI-FX52-128 nVidia GeForce FX5200 128Mb DDR £36.43 £31.00

LAN 1 Integrated Integrated £- £-
Sound Card 1 SCD-CRE-AUD2-ZS Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS (OEM)£52.82 £44.95

Speakers 1 SPK-ARIA-SP5910 Arianet 5.1 Speakers + Sub + Remote £29.32 £24.95



Total (Inc VAT) £582.55


depending on the graphics card and what you thihnk i may get the radeon 9800 pro but will have to see

 

[Bahumat]

Question 2

ok guys here's me next question.

my phone line is downstairs and my room is upstairs. is there any other way of connecting my pc to broadband without using a huge long cable connecting the phoneline to my machine?

i heard something about wireless routers, i know they create a connection without wires obviously but i was unsure on what other ways they could be used

if 1 wireless adapter was connected to the phone line downstairs could the other wireless adapter be in my room linking the broadband signal

sorry if i worded this poorly but can this be done and if so, how?

 

[Sycho]

Bahumat, do not get a XP cpu, go for an athlon 3000 winchester(socket 939) and neo 2 platinum socket 939 board, it's a lot faster and gives you more upgrade options in the future.I am not sure about wireless routers, i just use an extension phone lead and wire it around doorway edges/wall edges out of the way.

 

[Bahumat]

Bahumat, do not get a XP cpu, go for an athlon 3000 winchester(socket 939) and neo 2 platinum socket 939 board, it's a lot faster and gives you more upgrade options in the future.I am not sure about wireless routers, i just use an extension phone lead and wire it around doorway edges/wall edges out of the way.

how much would those 2 set me back?

althou its cheaper to use an extension cable i may not be playing in the same room all the time so having a cable going all round the house is gonna be a pain. could the wireless router do the job is is there a major flaw in this idea?

 

[Saggy]

You can get an SLI machine for that....but not all games support it currently, in other words you wouldn't get no fps increase compared to using one 6800 ultra when there is two inside.

Most (if not all) games will get fps increase regardless of the SLI support - the ones that support SLI just gets more out of it. If one gfx-card isn't slowing things down adding another one wont help at all though. You can see rather huge difference between 6600GT and 2x6600GT when playing most games at 1600x1200 while you can't notice the difference between 6800ultra and 2x6800ultra.

 

[Chilly]

Unless you live in a mansion a wireless router will do the job perfectly for you, youl need the router/adsl modem itself (thats 1 object) and also a pci card for your computer to pick up the signal, assumung you never put your pc too far awy form the router and that your walls arnt made of lead lined with uranium youl be ok to move it anywhere within your house.

 

[Bahumat]

Unless you live in a mansion a wireless router will do the job perfectly for you, youl need the router/adsl modem itself (thats 1 object) and also a pci card for your computer to pick up the signal, assumung you never put your pc too far awy form the router and that your walls arnt made of lead lined with uranium youl be ok to move it anywhere within your house.

aaah sh!t, my house has 400 floors you see and the phone is down at the bottom floor. im situated on the 400th floor. also i have gamma radiation lead panels all over the place. the only way i could counter this is if rub olive oil over the neighbours kettle...might help just a bit

hehe cheers chilly....now where's that kettle

*plods off*

 

[Void959]

Agree completely w/ sychos suggested spec, that's almost exactly what i've got (internal stuff at least) and it runs everything great, from 2 DAOC instances, to Doom 3 on high settings. A64 is the only gaming choice these days with 90mm being cheap enough now, and that MSI mobo is one of the best 939s. Geil ram overclocks great - I can get a 50-55% overclock with one stick, though it is a higher series. 6800 GT seems to be the best value choice for the top range cards - allthough its not needed for DAOC, if you plan to use it for other (and future) games, its a great choice. Also do make sure to get a good brand PSU as suggested, although they cost £50 more, in the long run a cheap PSU may end up frying all your components.

I do however think you could save on price, OCUK is reliable but generally one of the highest priced. That said, don't go to one of the ultra-large, ultra-cheap online stores such as Dabs or Microdirect, for reasons I'm sure you can guess. I buy most of my components from Kustompcs.co.uk, good prices, great service (they won't send you second hand components!). Theres also a chart of online retailers I used a while ago, ranking them on user feedback, dont have the link, but search for Romelus I think.

 

[Bahumat]

cheers void alot to take in hehe

1 thing i have trouble with is telling if a motherboard is either a Ferrari or a Skoda. what things should i be looking for on certain motherboards.

also other than the mb what determine 1 graphics card over another.

people may argue over 1 motherboard being better than the other but i have no way of deducing this.