How good do you think this laptop is?

i7 4700MQ
GTX 765M
16 Gigs RAM

I was wondering will this laptop will be good for the next 4-5 years? I'm not a hardcore PC gamer, console's more my thing, but for something on the go, do you think this laptop can last for this time? I love ultra settings on any game, but I'm looking for 60FPS high settings mostly with sub-1080p resolution if needed on games because I really can't have a desktop right now. I already have a PS4, but do you think this setup will be better than a PS4 or not?

GPU info

Seems too run BF4 on high with no AA at sub 1080p at around 40fps. If you can get yourself a laptop with an 860m instead you'd be golden it matches almost toe to toe with the 770m.

GPU info

Seems too run BF4 on high with no AA at sub 1080p at around 40fps. If you can get yourself a laptop with an 860m instead you'd be golden as it matches a 770m in most cases and has far less power draw and heat. If your ordering one give a price range.

But there are no 860m laptops here at the moment which are 14" except Razerblade which is seriously overpriced.

That's some good specs, you'll be able to run modern games on medium.

To run games with a laptop and to be able to run them on nice settings you'll need much more GPU power that this if you wish it for the next 4-5 years such as SLI 880 or something

If you're looking for something small, here:

$1099 for 13.3" 1080p i7 GTX 860m

http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_info&model_name=NP7338

If you have to lower the res, upscaling won't be that blurry (if any) on the smaller screen.

Good price, but 13.3 is smaller than I'd prefer, and people I know who have Sager recommended me against it, terrible after service.

I've heard most games can be maxed out for 40-50 FPS on these settings, only Crysis 3 runs on Medium without AA at 30 FPS, also I'm waiting for Alienware to release their 14" 800m series, those computers might be VERY overpriced, but the heat dissipation and display quality is top notch. I'd get the new 14" Razerblade, but I can't trust them with my money, Dell on the other hand listens.

The new Asus ROG G750 got 880M and 4700HQ CPU, they should release sometime in the future the 880 SLI version.

My wife has had Sager laptops exclusively since 2003. She hasn't really needed to use Sager's tech support except maybe once. But, the laptops themselves are top notch compared to say, the HPs and Toshibas I've owned.

I myself have an ASUS 14" RoG G46VW since last year. It has a so-so GTX 660m. But, it's plenty fast for the 1366x768 resolution screen.

it can't be worse than HP's support... they used customized switchable Radeon-based GPU in their laptop wich requires custom drivers, and they never updated them. my laptop has good GPU wich is stuck with 3 year old drivers lol

i'd get Sager simply because it has propably the best price-performance-ratio.

17"? The point of a laptop is pure portability, 17" is cumbersome and I'd rather buy a desktop than go so big.

Even if I ignore the fact that they got bad support, their 14" laptops are a joke. And very few retailers got Sager around here, and those are the 15.6" mid-end ones.

17' is not much more than 15'.

And today standart is 23-24' monitors on PCs.

When did I ever say I wanted a 15" laptop? I want a 14" one, and there is a 3 inch difference between 17 and 14, which to most people, is quite big. And the monitor I use is 21", I don't care what today's standards are. And why have we gone so off-topic, I just wanted to know whether the computer is decent enough to outpower a PS4 or not, I didn't come here for people to throw advertisements at me.

Outpower PS4? you can find an easy 500$ PC that can do that, the problem is developers keep optimize their games more to the consoles and less for the PC, that's why you always need to upgrade your PC during 3-7 years while a console wouldn't change anything.

So in terms of outpower a PS4 you'll want to invest much more than you thought.

Again wait for SLI 880.

That sucks man, it means some dual core users won't be able to play Crysis 3 while on the other hand, PS3 which is 8 years old gets to run it. I'll wait for the 870 or 880m, they seem much more powerful than 765m.

Depends on the resolution as well. Using the GTX 660m and 1366x768 res plus hyperthreading dualcore i5 2.6ghz (with turbo boost of 3.2ghz) of my 14" laptop, I can play Crysis 3 with Medium preset at the grass levels and High (Med textures) at the other levels.

@jun_aka_pekto said:

@LordTrexGuy said:

That sucks man, it means some dual core users won't be able to play Crysis 3 while on the other hand, PS3 which is 8 years old gets to run it. I'll wait for the 870 or 880m, they seem much more powerful than 765m.

Depends on the resolution as well. Using the GTX 660m and 1366x768 res plus hyperthreading dualcore i5 2.6ghz (with turbo boost of 3.2ghz) of my 14" laptop, I can play Crysis 3 with Medium preset at the grass levels and High (Med textures) at the other levels.

That screen looks really good. How well does it run under stress (eg. the Hydrodam destroying) and what FPS would you expect with AA enabled and textures maxed out? Also, does the 1366x768 resolution look sharp on that screen, because the below-720p on my 47" TV with the PS3 really made some fantastic visuals look like PS2 era graphics.

The screen I posted was on the last level which is in the underground caverns (aka tight quarters) which means it's not so taxing on the laptop. I have Medium Textures and High Details for settings with FXAA or maybe 2xSMAA.

The dam and hydroelectric areas aren't quite as taxing as the grassy areas. But, the settings I use for outdoors are usually Medium Textures and Medium details just to guarantee my minimum framerates stay at at least 30fps. The average framerates are usually in the upper 30's to mid 40s. As for quality on the LCD screen.... Remember that I'm gaming on a tiny 14" screen. 1366x768 doesn't look too shabby especially when my eyes are around two feet away. It might look bad if I pipe the video signal out to a regular 24" PC monitor or bigger HDTV. I haven't tried it though. The desktop equivalent of my GTX 660m is a Radeon HD 5770 which is at its best if the res stays below 1080p.

Forget about AA greater than 2xSMAA. That'll drive the framerates down unless I lower the Texture and Detail settings down to Low.

On Low, Crysis 3 doesn't look too bad either again due to the tiny screen I'm gaming on.

Other games:

Far Cry 3: framerates stay at least in the upper 30's with either the High Preset (3rd from highest setting) or a combination of High to Ultra plus 2xMSAA.

Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3: I can pretty much max all three games with framerates staying near 60fps.

Bioshock: I can max it out with a steady 60fps.

Bioshock Infinite: I turn off Ambient Occusion and leave Dynamic Shadows on High. Framerates stay at at least 60fps, often more.

Metro Last Light is pretty taxing as well. So, I just forced DX10 which is fine for me and maxed it out with that DX version. I think the screenshot below is still with DX11.

Crysis 2: I stuck with DX9 and maxed it out using that DX version.

Considering I was originally shooting for a laptop that can play Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars smoothly, I'm quite satisfied with the GTX 660m.

Edit:

The latest driver (335.23) seems to have improved framerates a bit for Bioshock Infinite. Maxed out, the scene at the bottom used to be around 34fps. Now, it's up to 40fps. That same scene in Crysis 3 now show an FPS of 58fps (up from 45fps).

@jun_aka_pekto said:

@LordTrexGuy said:

That screen looks really good. How well does it run under stress (eg. the Hydrodam destroying) and what FPS would you expect with AA enabled and textures maxed out? Also, does the 1366x768 resolution look sharp on that screen, because the below-720p on my 47" TV with the PS3 really made some fantastic visuals look like PS2 era graphics.

The screen I posted was on the last level which is in the underground caverns (aka tight quarters) which means it's not so taxing on the laptop. I have Medium Textures and High Details for settings with FXAA or maybe 2xSMAA.

The dam and hydroelectric areas aren't quite as taxing as the grassy areas. But, the settings I use for outdoors are usually Medium Textures and Medium details just to guarantee my minimum framerates stay at at least 30fps. The average framerates are usually in the upper 30's to mid 40s. As for quality on the LCD screen.... Remember that I'm gaming on a tiny 14" screen. 1366x768 doesn't look too shabby especially when my eyes are around two feet away. It might look bad if I pipe the video signal out to a regular 24" PC monitor or bigger HDTV. I haven't tried it though. The desktop equivalent of my GTX 660m is a Radeon HD 5770 which is at its best if the res stays below 1080p.

Forget about AA greater than 2xSMAA. That'll drive the framerates down unless I lower the Texture and Detail settings down to Low.

On Low, Crysis 3 doesn't look too bad either again due to the tiny screen I'm gaming on.

Other games:

Far Cry 3: framerates stay at least in the upper 30's with either the High Preset (3rd from highest setting) or a combination of High to Ultra plus 2xMSAA.

Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3: I can pretty much max all three games with framerates staying near 60fps.

Bioshock: I can max it out with a steady 60fps.

Bioshock Infinite: I turn off Ambient Occusion and leave Dynamic Shadows on High. Framerates stay at at least 60fps, often more.

Metro Last Light is pretty taxing as well. So, I just forced DX10 which is fine for me and maxed it out with that DX version. I think the screenshot below is still with DX11.

Crysis 2: I stuck with DX9 and maxed it out using that DX version.

Considering I was originally shooting for a laptop that can play Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars smoothly, I'm quite satisfied with the GTX 660m.

Edit:

The latest driver (335.23) seems to have improved framerates a bit for Bioshock Infinite. Maxed out, the scene at the bottom used to be around 34fps. Now, it's up to 40fps. That same scene in Crysis 3 now show an FPS of 58fps (up from 45fps).

Man I love you, thank you for taking so much of your time for just a trivial question, forgive me for such a late reply. I think I'm pretty satisfied with all that info., if the 870m is affordable, then I'll certainly aim for that, but as your computer just showed me, even a 660m is good enough and 765m should give me the same graphics at a slightly higher resolution.

By the way, what is the difference between DX 9, 10 and 11? I know that the latest one has some fancier effects like tessellations and stuff, but could you please elaborate? Does using a higher DX version mean lower FPS or is there something I'm missing? And how do I choose which DX will I run my games at?

Also, if you have Skyrim, can you tell me what settings can you play it with and what graphical mods can you use along with it? And does a 14" ever feel too small for playing games on? And if you have ever overclocked your laptop, what FPS and graphics can you expect?

Remember, the resolution I game is only 1366x768. The GTX 660m is just adequate enough for Medium/High in current heavyweight games. As beefier games show up, I'll probably have to settle for Medium or even Low to keep playable framerates. Still, it's way better than what Intel graphics-only owners have to settle for. That 870m should last a while especially if you're willing to lower the resolution a bit.

The DX versions differ in their feature set. Obviously, the newer versions have more features that are not in the older set. The newest versions are usually compatible with the older ones. But, it's not necessarily the same the other way around. Depending on the game developer, they may support all three DXes or only the latest version.

The version of Windows also dictates what version of DX you can use. Windows 8.1 supports the latest DX 11.1. Windows Vista and 7 supports up to DX 11. Windows XP usually supports just DX9.

Using a lower DX version normally helps with framerates at a cost of some image quality. For example, the Crysis 2 screenshot I posted is running at DX9 although I can also run it at DX11. But, at such a small LCD and resolution, I probably wouldn't notice the enhancements in DX11. It's the same for Metro Last Light. I forced DX10 (rather than DX11) to get better framerates.

The size of the laptop LCD is a matter of taste. I'm fine with the 14" LCD. Others may not be especially if they crave 1080p and top notch graphics. Me? I wouldn't have any problems setting games like Crysis 3 and Far Cry 3 to Low so long as they're fluid enough to be playable. If you do a lot of sniping with a very distant target like in Crysis, It might be hard to get a head shot which is why I don't have that game installed on my laptop. It's hard enough even on a 24" 1080p monitor. But, most other games (and their text) are fine.

I don't overclock unless there's a dire need to.

Honestly I will take 1366 x 768 any day of the week on a laptop over anything higher.. Because in the end of the day the biggest hit in visuals is lowering resolution on a lcd, you stretch the pixels making the image look like crap.. Having a resolution like that means when you do have the horse power you can crank up the AA anyways to increase graphic fidelity.. Moving from that resolution to something like 1080p is huge demand for a laptop and your slaved to that resolution inless your ok with your image looking like crap with stretched pixels on a lower one.

What 14 incher do you have btw? I currenlty use the Asus 46vw Republican of Gaming laptop my self when I am not using my desktop.. And I love it.

I also have an ASUS ROG G46VW. Mine is the lower end one with i5 3230m (2.6Ghz with turbo boost to 3.2Ghz), 750Gb SATA hard drive.

It's a good blend of gaming plus decent battery life when I'm not gaming.

I don't have one at the moment, I want to buy the Alienware 14 when it gets a GTX 800m update, I wanted to know whether I was getting the price's worth.

Another great brand is the y510 and y410 lenovo line ups... They seem to be one of the biggest bang for the buck ones out there in getting a good laptop under a grand with great specs.. The only thing I am worried about is the cooling on the machine because I have never personally used one and that always is a big issue imo when gaming on a laptop.. Hence why I love my 46vw so much, it's cooling solution is ridiculously good in which it never gets hot regardless of how demanding a game is and how long you play it for.

Good to know I'm not the only one who noticed the quiet and efficient cooling system of the G46VW. Some folks here were skeptical when I insisted there were no heat issues even with games such as Far Cry 3. That game would often raise my FX-8350 temps to 86C. The Intel i5 3230m in my G46VW never went above 68C at full load.

While an SLI GPU is appealing for many, I think a powerful single-GPU plus Intel graphics gives the best flexibility for both gaming and non-gaming use.The SLI GPU option is best if you intend to use the laptop as a desktop replacement. That is, the laptop is plugged in all the time.

The above is based from a year's worth of real-world use, especially in a student environment.

Seen some of them, they're damn powerful for the price but, as with most 'non-gaming' laptops, the cooling is not good compared to the Asus 46vw or any gaming laptop for that matter. Tried my friends' laptop with BF4 as high as the graphics would go with at least 30 FPS, and the fans blared out in less than 10 minutes.