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Looking for a laptop on a budget.

josephinec

By josephinec
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josephinec

josephinec

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Hey guys.

 

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, as my current one runs SWTOR okay, but not very smoothly. I sometimes take two or more minutes to load into a flashpoint or operation, and have been kicked out of warzones because it takes forever to load. I currently have a HP, and talking with my boyfriend(he's a tech geek) and a coworker(another tech geek), I'm leaning more towards Asus, but being on a budget, I want to make sure I pick something I'm going to be happy with.

 

I'd like to stay under $850. In case you're wondering why I want a laptop and not a desktop, it's because I prefer the mobility of a laptop.

 

So what's a good laptop that can run SWTOR smoothly and is affordable?

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Rion_Starkiller

Rion_Starkiller

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nb4 icy

 

Hey guys.

 

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, as my current one runs SWTOR okay, but not very smoothly. I sometimes take two or more minutes to load into a flashpoint or operation, and have been kicked out of warzones because it takes forever to load. I currently have a HP, and talking with my boyfriend(he's a tech geek) and a coworker(another tech geek), I'm leaning more towards Asus, but being on a budget, I want to make sure I pick something I'm going to be happy with.

 

I'd like to stay under $850. In case you're wondering why I want a laptop and not a desktop, it's because I prefer the mobility of a laptop.

 

So what's a good laptop that can run SWTOR smoothly and is affordable?

 

http://a.co/bYAtTIy @ $865 /// Pros: 1060m graphics, 16 gb ram Cons: 6th gen intel processor, slightly over budget, mechanical HD

 

http://a.co/98nuHv3 @ $800 /// Pros: SSD, 7th gen intel processor Cons: only 8 gb ram, 1050m non-TI graphics card.

 

I wouldn't go lower than a 1050 TI graphics card. A lot of people say that you need 4 ghz processor for pure smooth swtor gaming, but you won't get that in a budget gaming laptop unless you are willing to spend over a grand.

 

Good luck.

Edited by Rion_Starkiller
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ObsidianBones

ObsidianBones

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I've been searching for one myself and found an ASUS (can't recall the exact model) on Amazon for around $550, and it had the 960 Nvidia GeForce card. Ran SWTOR on my husband's ASUS with the 940 and it ran really smooth, even on the fleet and especially in FPs.

 

Also, sometimes your Internet connection can be the cause of the slow loading problems or even server population. Kept getting kicked off the server for a while and it was due to some ********* hackers.

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orangenee

orangenee

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I've been searching for one myself and found an ASUS (can't recall the exact model) on Amazon for around $550, and it had the 960 Nvidia GeForce card. Ran SWTOR on my husband's ASUS with the 940 and it ran really smooth, even on the fleet and especially in FPs.

 

Also, sometimes your Internet connection can be the cause of the slow loading problems or even server population. Kept getting kicked off the server for a while and it was due to some ********* hackers.

 

She's not wrong.

 

I notice I can get super slow at times due to less than spectacular wi-fi signals.

 

Everything can be smooth as butter if I'm on less popular planets. Apart from Zakuul which busy or not is 20 FPS if I'm lucky, but Zakuul sucks so I don't go there anyway. In fact most of the expansion stuff tanks.

 

Crappy engine is crappy too. Even people with monster rigs have performance issues.

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JediQuaker

JediQuaker

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I sometimes take two or more minutes to load into a flashpoint or operation, and have been kicked out of warzones because it takes forever to load.

You might simply consider replacing your laptop's hard drive with an SSD. That would basically halve your load times.

That doesn't mean you need to get a 1TB SSD (or whatever size your hard drive is) - take a look at how much actual hard drive space you are currently using and get an SSD (probably 240-500Gig) that's large enough. One of your techie friends should easily be able to transfer your OS, etc, to the new SSD, (Depending upon the laptop, you may be able to add an SSD and retain your HDD.)

 

For a laptop, at this time, you might want to wait and see what comes out soon using the new AMD "Ryzen with Vega graphics" chips.

If you can't wait, keep in mind that SWTOR is very CPU intensive, so look for a laptop with a fast CPU (generally Intel - but if it's Intel, be sure to get one with a discrete graphics chip. Intel's on-chip graphics suck.).

Edited by JediQuaker
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Andryah

Andryah

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Hey guys.

 

I'm looking to buy a new laptop, as my current one runs SWTOR okay, but not very smoothly. I sometimes take two or more minutes to load into a flashpoint or operation, and have been kicked out of warzones because it takes forever to load. I currently have a HP, and talking with my boyfriend(he's a tech geek) and a coworker(another tech geek), I'm leaning more towards Asus, but being on a budget, I want to make sure I pick something I'm going to be happy with.

 

I'd like to stay under $850. In case you're wondering why I want a laptop and not a desktop, it's because I prefer the mobility of a laptop.

 

So what's a good laptop that can run SWTOR smoothly and is affordable?

 

ASUS is a good producer of gaming laptops.. but they also have a lot of completion now days given how compact and generic the chip sets are now days. That's good though.. because completion drives down prices and drives commonality of approach and hardware parts used.

 

I would say there are a wide range of laptops in the $900-1200 range that have very current designs for the most modern games. Then again... this particular MMO DOES NOT NEED the full power of one of the current generation gaming laptops either. The biggest issue I have seen in reviews of recent gaming laptops centers around the actual display panels.. which is where companies seem to want to cut corners. They are all using the same chipsets for the most part and same memory and hard drives or SSDs... but some of the lower cost gaming laptops really do have inferior displays.

 

A current 7th or 8th generation I5 processor with a current Nvidia chipset will likely run so well you never see any real performance issues. And NO.. you do not need the 10xx series Nvidia chips to play this game.. the newest mobile chipsets from Nvidia (like the MX150 series) would work fine unless the manufacturer pairs them with lousy video ram. In other words.. you do not need an actual "gaming laptop" but rather a multi-purpose multi-media laptop with a recent generation I5 processor and a current generation Nvidia chipset in it, 8+ gigs of memory, and either a fast hard drive (7200) and/or an SSD. There are a truck ton of these on the market between $600-900 that will run this game fine. They won't run some of the newest video games well.. so you need to factor your total requirements into any final choice you make. But if you plan on doing the most modern games on your PC... then you will need more headroom and should go with an actual gaming laptop.

 

Basically.. you need to look at your total range of needs for the laptop.. including any and all games you want to play or plan to play in the future in order to decide what level of graphics chipset you need.

Edited by Andryah
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Andryah

Andryah

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Here are just a few to look at josephinec that are in your price range (and these, or very similar, will be available in local retail stores like Best Buy, Frys, etc.) There are many others as well in the market....

 

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-Gaming-15-6-Inch-Screen/dp/B071JPYP1Z/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1519424853&sr=8-1&keywords=laptop+with+discrete+graphics

https://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-15-inch-i7-7700HQ-15-cb071nr/dp/B071L1VCV6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1519424853&sr=8-2&keywords=laptop+with+discrete+graphics

https://www.amazon.com/FX503VD-Powerful-i7-7700HQ-Quad-Core-Processor/dp/B076H2J8ZV/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1519424853&sr=8-18&keywords=laptop+with+discrete+graphics

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074Q54GSR/ref=psdc_13896615011_t3_B076H2J8ZV

 

Personally, I would never buy one that I did not have a chance to actually see and use in person (ie: in a local retail store) ... because ---> Displays are the current weak link in this area of the market. And you can google for reviews on the internet for any laptop you find.. which is precisely where you can get performance and display analysis.

Edited by Andryah
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Andryah

Andryah

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A 1050 ti should run this game just fine at 1080. If your frame rates drop, lower some of the settings a bit.

 

 

I run the game at 1080 on a 3 year old 760, with most settings at maximum. This game is NOT graphic intensive in any state of the art sense. Nor does it have to be run at maximum settings to enjoy, nor more then 60 fps.

 

But the OP does need to consider what other graphic intensive things they may want to do on the laptop besides play SWTOR.

Edited by Andryah
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Celise

Celise

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i've been looking for a laptop for over a decade, but always looking at the stats, it has this but lacks that everytime for every laptop.

 

one laptop has this perfect stats, an nvidia 1060, quad core i7 @ 3.7ghz, and 16gb of ram, 1tb hdd @ 7200rpm and 128gb ssd but lacks an optical drive.

another laptop has an optical drive and good stats elsewhere but the hdd runs @ 5200rpm, no matter how good the rest of the machine is that hdd is a real problem, it is very slow.

 

for a change i would like to see a laptop with no drawbacks for once. :rolleyes:

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Andryah

Andryah

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i've been looking for a laptop for over a decade, but always looking at the stats, it has this but lacks that everytime for every laptop.

 

one laptop has this perfect stats, an nvidia 1060, quad core i7 @ 3.7ghz, and 16gb of ram, 1tb hdd @ 7200rpm and 128gb ssd but lacks an optical drive.

another laptop has an optical drive and good stats elsewhere but the hdd runs @ 5200rpm, no matter how good the rest of the machine is that hdd is a real problem, it is very slow.

 

for a change i would like to see a laptop with no drawbacks for once. :rolleyes:

 

Well.. in given segments of the laptop sales market... they are getting more and more clone like in how they are configured. I am currently shopping around for my next computer and in looking over the current laptop market 3 things are clear to me:

 

1) the biggest difference in each segment of the market to be careful about is the choice of display panel... as some are pretty good for their segment and others are clearly deficient.

 

2) CD/DVD drives are largely gone in the laptop market... for two reasons (cost, size). A lot of new laptops cannot even support old USB ports and have to use the new C versions because the laptop is too thin (which is a big direction companies are focused on. And more and more content and software is no longer delivered on disk, but rather is via download... so there is less compelling need for CD/DVD anymore. And if someone needs one..the market is saturated with portable versions that plug into a USB port for the occasion when a person needs one. This is market force driven.

 

3) they all use the same chipsets for their market segment, so the largest variation of internal hardware other then the display will be the hard drive. More and more are abandoning hard drives in favor of larger SSDs as SSDs are getting very price competitive. The biggest change I see this driving is there are a lot less 7200rpm HDs being offered in laptops... as they either go with a hybrid setup or just go SSD and be done with it. The low end of the market though is saturated with 5400rpm drives and small SSDs to cache the hard drive for performance comparable to having a good 720.

 

That said.. even in the current market.. you can in fact get everything you want... but it will cost you as it drives you into what I call the "specialty market" that serves high end laptops as true replacements for a desktop.

 

Keep in mind.. there are a number of companies now that can and will configure a laptop exactly the way you want it. They have done this for years in the desktop market and are now doing so in the laptop market.

Edited by Andryah
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JediQuaker

JediQuaker

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I believe swtor doesnt make use of more than 2 processors, so keep that in mind if you get a max 3.2ghz processor with 2 cores vs 4 cores (if i understand it right). 2 cores will net you thr whole 3.2ghz in swtor, whereas 4 cores only nets you 1.6ghz due to the limitation.

Umm, no. If the game or app you are using doesn't use all the cores, the other cores just idle. The active cores still run at the full clock speed.

 

But yes, SWTOR does only use 1 or 2 cores, so it can work well on dual core CPU such as an (older) i3 or Pentium. However, having more cores allows you to run other tasks such as a browser, voice chat, mp3 player, etc, while playing SWTOR, more easily. Overall, a quad (or 6) core CPU is best.

 

Also, SWTOR loves clock speed. Often, laptops, no matter how many cores, run at a relatively low clock speed.

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olagatonjedi

olagatonjedi

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Umm, no. If the game or app you are using doesn't use all the cores, the other cores just idle. The active cores still run at the full clock speed.

 

But yes, SWTOR does only use 1 or 2 cores, so it can work well on dual core CPU such as an (older) i3 or Pentium. However, having more cores allows you to run other tasks such as a browser, voice chat, mp3 player, etc, while playing SWTOR, more easily. Overall, a quad (or 6) core CPU is best.

 

Also, SWTOR loves clock speed. Often, laptops, no matter how many cores, run at a relatively low clock speed.

Thats essentially what i said without mentioning other apps that may be running outside of swtor.

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