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stateofmind

stateofmind

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Jul 16, 2007
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Ankeny
This should be fun. I'm looking for a good deal to buy my son for his 14th birthday. He will use it for Minecraft mostly, but I could see him graduating to other games. I wouldn't mind getting a flying simulator or driving game to run on it. But for now, it doesn't have to be high end.

Any recommendations on what to look for, and something that I won't have to mess with all of the time. He's playing Minecraft on an old Lenovo Yoga that I bought with a Pentium processor. It can't refresh fast enough for many of the maps he plays and it doesn't have an Ethernet port to help speed up his online play.

Where would you buy?
What would you say you have to have? (Processor? RAM? Video Processor? SSD HD?)
Would like to stay below $800, my wife will probably flip if I spend more.
 
I

IowaState1173

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Mar 14, 2017
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stateofmind said:
This should be fun. I'm looking for a good deal to buy my son for his 14th birthday. He will use it for Minecraft mostly, but I could see him graduating to other games. I wouldn't mind getting a flying simulator or driving game to run on it. But for now, it doesn't have to be high end.

Any recommendations on what to look for, and something that I won't have to mess with all of the time. He's playing Minecraft on an old Lenovo Yoga that I bought with a Pentium processor. It can't refresh fast enough for many of the maps he plays and it doesn't have an Ethernet port to help speed up his online play.

Where would you buy?
What would you say you have to have? (Processor? RAM? Video Processor? SSD HD?)
Would like to stay below $800, my wife will probably flip if I spend more.
Click to expand...
I would recomend the lenovo Y520. Pretty good price for a good graphics card.
http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptop...ries-laptops/Lenovo-Y520-15IKBN/p/88GMY500808

Gaming laptop prices have been dropping a lot lately so you might be able to find some good deals if you look hard enough.
 
Mr Janny

Mr Janny

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The last gaming laptop I bought came from ASUS, with their ROG line. I spent more than $800, but they should have several options in that range. I wasn't 100% sure what to expect with ASUS, but it's been pretty awesome. I would definitely recommend checking them out.
 
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Mr Janny

Mr Janny

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Mr Janny said:
The last gaming laptop I bought came from ASUS, with their ROG line. I spent more than $800, but they should have several options in that range. I wasn't 100% sure what to expect with ASUS, but it's been pretty awesome. I would definitely recommend checking them out.
Click to expand...
I take it back. It looks like they start around $1000. Sorry.
 
stateofmind

stateofmind

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IowaState1173 said:
I would recomend the lenovo Y520. Pretty good price for a good graphics card.
http://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptop...ries-laptops/Lenovo-Y520-15IKBN/p/88GMY500808

Gaming laptop prices have been dropping a lot lately so you might be able to find some good deals if you look hard enough.
Click to expand...
That checks off like every box, but I'm nervous about another Lenovo. I have three of them in the house, and the battery on the one my son uses was impossible to get replaced when it died just outside a year. Their support was nil. Any personal experience with this? My work one is ok, but for some stupid reason they swapped the ctrl and Fn keys. I went into the bios to change this stupid design.
 
I

IowaState1173

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stateofmind said:
That checks off like every box, but I'm nervous about another Lenovo. I have three of them in the house, and the battery on the one my son uses was impossible to get replaced when it died just outside a year. Their support was nil. Any personal experience with this? My work one is ok, but for some stupid reason they swapped the ctrl and Fn keys. I went into the bios to change this stupid design.
Click to expand...
I have had great experience with lenovo's business laptops i just bought a new yoga a few months ago (and i agree the ctrl fn key swap is annoying). From my experience they have the best build quality and are rated pretty high on customer satisfaction. Ill admit i have never used their gaming line but i would trust it personally. The only bad thing about lenovo is that when stuff breaks under warranty its hard to deal with their support because they are based mostly out of china and they take forever to do anything.
 
MeowingCows

MeowingCows

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Sager makes some awesome laptops, but they are rather expensive. Lenovo and Dell make some cheaper ones. Of those two, I'd pry take Lenovo at this point. Lenovo Y-series are close to your price point with decent build quality. Dell Inspiron 7000 series are also near it, but I'm not sure if they have units with new GPUs yet.

Things you want in a gaming laptop: true 4-core processor (i5 or i7 HQ chip, not the -U variants -- they are dual core), a GTX 10 series graphics card (9 series cards perform much, much worse). 1050 is a minimum card, 1050ti is a step up from there, 1060 is a large step up. SSDs are nice, but they fill up fast if it's only 128 or 256GB - consider adding another HDD for game storage (can always do that after the fact, too).

Things that are gimmicky: 4K screen. The card won't push that resolution at reasonable FPS anyway; 1080P is plenty. Battery life isn't much on gaming laptop, even new... High-powered CPU and GPUs eat a lot of power and create a lot of heat. They'll drain batteries pretty quick in general. If your choices are an i5HQ or an i7HQ, and the price is substantially different, take the i5. The extra threads of the i7 will rarely be a benefit in gaming specifically. If there's little to no price difference, it won't hurt by any means.
 
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stateofmind

stateofmind

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Jul 16, 2007
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DeftOne said:
Does it have to be a laptop? You'll get more bang-for-your-buck and freedom in spec'ing parts if you go with a custom (self-built) desktop.
Click to expand...
I agree, but this would be something he would take to his friends and on trips with us, so I think the laptop is the way to go. He's not planning to be a YouTuber and play all day long.
 
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MeowingCows

MeowingCows

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DandyCyclone said:
I didn't realize CF had PC gamers. Who plays and what games do you guys hit up?
Click to expand...
Me. Ryzen 5 1600 + RX480. Play a lot of Rocket League, H1Z1, Overwatch, and Heroes of the Storm. Have a good chunk of other games too, but those are the big ones.
 
Cyclonepride

Cyclonepride

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A pineapple under the sea
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DandyCyclone said:
I didn't realize CF had PC gamers. Who plays and what games do you guys hit up?
Click to expand...

Currently playing the crap out of Divinity Original Sin 2, but currently rotate between:

Civ VI
Age of Wonders 3
XCom 2 (waiting on War of the Chosen)
Hearthstone (my in-between time killer)

Among others (my Steam library is fairly ridiculous).
 
Dandy

Dandy

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Oct 11, 2012
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Cyclonepride said:
Currently playing the crap out of Divinity Original Sin 2, but currently rotate between:

Civ VI
Age of Wonders 3
XCom 2 (waiting on War of the Chosen)
Hearthstone (my in-between time killer)

Among others (my Steam library is fairly ridiculous).
Click to expand...
You play games I feel like I wouldn't really like.

I've been really into Rust lately. Don't know why but I can play that for hours and stay entertained the whole time.
 
C

carvers4math

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Mar 15, 2012
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Nephew has some probably outrageously expensive Alienware products both in desktop and laptop. Probably why he is on sixth year of undergrad degree.

My kids seem fine with a Dell Inspiron 15.
 
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