Battlefield 4? BioShock Infinite? DOTA 2? Titanfall? World of WarCraft? If your eyes latched onto any of those game names we've just mentioned, then welcome - you've reached the right place in our 25 best laptops feature. Here we're interested in how many frames per second we can achieve in what contemporary games and at what settings - and everything else is a little less important. Accepting a chunky beast in exchange for a mobile gaming machine used to be the norm, but these days we're beginning to see much thinner yet incredibly powerful laptops trickle through right at the top end.
21. Alienware 14
£899/AUS$1,666/$1,494
Alienware's gaming laptops have vastly improved since the company was bought by Dell and the Alienware 14 is no exception. The style of Alienware products haven't changed much, the angular focus of their designs remains as too does the excessive customisable lighting, but they are very well-built machines.
The core specs of this 14-inch laptop are solid too, a 3.4GHz Core i7-4700MQ, 2GB Nvidia GTX 765M graphics and 16GB of RAM suggest that it will fly. The results, however, were slightly down on what we expected and in real-world terms it will handle the likes of Crysis 2 adequately at 1,920 x 1,080 on Ultra settings, but not perfectly.
In terms of day to day use, it's a heavy machine but it does offer almost four hours of standard battery life, a responsive trackpad and a nicely backlit keyboard. To get the best performance would require upgrading from the standard model and that's where Alienware products start becoming expensive.
22. Gigabyte P25W
£1,184/AUS$2,194/$1,967
The Gigabyte sports the same top-end Core i7-4700MQ processor as the Alienware 14, 8GB of RAM and Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M graphics, which means this will play the majority of current game at a high setting. For instance, you should expect Bioshock Infinite to run at around 60fps, but drop to roughly 30fps if you step it up to Ultra.
Overall, performance is good thanks to the core specs, but we weren't particularly impressed with the trackpad. In gaming terms it's irrelevant but for general use it's disappointing.
The battery stood up adequately at around two and half hours, which is good enough to make use of the included Blu-ray drive for a few episodes of House of Cards.
We were disappointed by the TFT screen, which is frankly a little weak, but If you're after solid gaming performance while still managing to maintain a little bit of style then look at the Gigabyte P25W.
23. Asus G750JX
£1,269/AUS$2,351/$2,108
The 17.3-inch G750JX is sold under Asus's Republic of Gamers (RoG) sub-brand, which was set up to compete with Alienware, and while this may look like an Alienware it's got decidedly less of the superfluous customisable lights and is bordering on a stealth design for gaming laptop.
It's not subtle in weight terms at 4.6kg though, but this is the kind of gaming machine that oozes raw power without having to shout about it.
The main specs are a Core i7-4700HQ running at 2.GHz, backed by Nvidia GeForce GTX 770M graphics and 8GB of RAM. It's also packing dual hard drives totalling 1TB. In gaming performance terms, this will run current titles, such as Skyrim at 1,920 x 1,080 at High Settings comfortably. But for Crysis 3, for instance, this drops to around 40fps at Medium Settings.
This is a superb gaming laptop, which stays incredibly cool on when being pushed to the max. Worthy then of your attention.
24. MSI G570 Stealth
£1,679/AUS$3,111/$2,790
A gaming laptop in brushed aluminium that's little thicker than an Ultrabook - what black art is this?
The build quality of the 17-inch MSI G570 Stealth is excellent, it even has quality speakers hidden on the base that offer clear treble and punchy bass.
The Core i7-4700HQ is used here again, as it was in the Asus G760JX, together with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 765M, which isn't as good as the GTX 770M used in the Asus. Again, storage is plentiful with a 1TB drive and there's plenty of connectivity, including 4 USB 3.0 ports.
In real-world performance terms, the G570 eased through Bioshock Infinite on Max Settings at 1,920 x 1,080. So far, so similar to a few of the other laptops we've mentioned, but bear in mind this is running in a sleek chassis that's 21.6mm thick and that also sports a nice TN screen.
If you've been yearning for a gaming laptop with slick design, then take a look at the MSI GS70 Stealth.
25. Razer Blade
£1,802/AUS$3,339/$2,994
Finally, we have the matte-black aluminium 14-inch Razer Blade - can it respond to the gauntlet that's been thrown down by the MSI G570 Stealth?
The Razer Blade has a much more compact design and it sports a lower-res but still sharp 1,600 x 900 screen.
Razer doesn't make design changes lightly, and has opted to reduce resolution to enable the discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M graphics and Core i7 4702HQ to offer as much gaming performance as possible.
In a sense the Blade achieves this, for instance, our Metro Last Light benchmark result was almost 23fps at Max Settings. That's an admirable result for a 14-inch gaming laptop but whether that appeals to gamers that want the best performance they can get from a game is another question entirely.
The Razer Blade is a beautifully designed gaming laptop that will enable you to play games like Call of Duty: Black Ops comfortably and in style, but you'll need to decide how much gaming performance you want for your cash.
Useful information shared. I am very happy to read this article. Thanks for giving us nice info. Fantastic walk through. I appreciate this post.
ReplyDeleteGaming laptops South Africa