Gaming Laptops

Best Gaming Laptops

UPDATE : Gaming laptops are fitted with powerful desktop processors, large and impressive high-res screens, powerful graphics chips, and loads of memory, so that you can play any game currently available.

Gaming Laptops news from CES 2011

If you want to buy a gaming laptop and are wondering which are the best ones to choose then here is the list of the newest as announced at CES

Acer 8950G-9839 which features AMD’s new Mobility Radeon HD 6850, and a Core i7-2630QM, 8GB of RAM, 750GB hard drive, and 18.4-inch LED-backlit display - around $1599.

Toshiba Qosmio X505 offers the i7-2630QM and 18.4" screen, with Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics (also available with a Core i5-2410M processor.) $1,300 or $1,900

Asus G73SW-A uses the GTX 460M card (and Core i7-2630QM), with 17.3-inch LCD, 8GB of RAM, backlit keyboard, this “Republic of Gamers” notebook will be available February starting at $1,849.

MSI GT780 with either the GTX 460M or the brand-new GTX 560M, 17.3-inch screen, room for 2 hard drives or solid state drives, and LED-backlit keyboard. No price as yet.

What is a Gaming Laptop ?

A gaming laptop computer is basically a small computer designed specifically for playing computer games. Any laptop can be used for games, of course, but the best i7 gaming laptops have the distinction of using high-end hardware. This high-end hardware is an absolute necessity in gaming laptops to provide the performance you need for the latest process-intensive games, games are notoriously power mad.

Gaming laptop computers therefore often cost more than basic laptops used for more mundane tasks such as word processing. They can in fact they can cost two or three times more. At this moment in time you can get a decent laptop for around $500-$600, a decent gaming laptop however will cost in the region of $1500. So unless you absolutely need a laptop for gaming then stick to ordinary laptops.

Gaming laptops also are high on style, and endeavor to be visually striking, more so than ordinary laptops. The gaming community are notoriously trivial and love metallic finishes, bright colors, or features such as ridges to give a hi-tech look.

There are 5 main requirements for gaming laptops

 processor
the operating system
screen size
RAM
processor

The processor is the most important feature. Games require a lot of processing power.

The OS is important for the simple reason that games are released for a variety of operating systems, so if your gaming laptop runs under the wrong operating system you may not be able to play certain games.

A large screen size is important so that you can see everything.

The amount of RAM is important as games require a lot of memory.

The graphics card should preferably be the best available if you want all the visual effects.

Other factors to consider are RAM speed, hard disk speed and battery life.

Gaming laptop computers also must accept a headset, a wireless mouse etc..., usually using USB ports and Bluetooth cards. It also needs to connect to the internet and to LANs, usually via WiFi and Ethernet.

Gaming laptops have their critics who point out that desktop gaming computers are better. Gaming laptop components are less advanced and more expensive than those used in desktop computers. Gaming laptops are however portable which is, after all, why people buy them.

One of the fastest gaming laptops available is the Alienware Area-51 m17x (until recently - this may have been superseded now - see the update above re. gaming laptops announced at CES 2011).

Specifications
CPU: Intel® Core® 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
Hard Drive: Hard Drive: 1TB in a high-speed RAID 0 configuration
Memory: 4GB† Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 2048MB
OS: Windows Vista 64 bit,
Graphics: 512MB NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 3600M
Display: 17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with
Clearview Technology
Weight: 10.5 lbs

In March 2009 NVIDIA, announced four new mobile GPUs at CeBIT.

The GeForce GTX 280M, is claimed to be "the fastest laptop GPU on the market, with up to 50% more performance than previous generation enthusiast laptop GPUs."