Wont this processor be a bottleneck for this video card?

[vemalas]

I'm building a laptop for mid-end gaming for about 400 pounds. This build is the best i could come up with. I know that games require more graphic processing, thus the configuration.
I know i can buy a better pc for that price, but i need it as compact and portable as possible.
I'm just wondering if the B980 processor wont be too weak for the GT 650M video card?
Should i take an i3-3110M? Will i notice any difference?

I'll glady accept any suggestions as to how you would build your laptop for that price range for gaming.
Thank you very much.

 

[UniversalTruth]

May you give us a link from the site where you want to buy the configuration from?

Honestly, I like nothing in your configuration. Intel+ nvidia+ WD.

 

[swaaye]

It's this site
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/enigmaIV/

Swing for the lowest Core i5 if you can because then you get Turbo, hyperthreading, more cache and some other things. That's worth ~60 pounds I think.

 

[UniversalTruth]

So, there is no choice for anything different than... Wow, that sucks.
I would prefer to go for Seagate Momentus XT HYBRID 750 GB 7200 rpm; and a matte display.

I know i can buy a better pc for that price, but i need it as compact and portable as possible

If you know, then don't sacrifice one thing or the other. That's people's mistake. Don't go for one device for everything but instead buy two or three which can meet your requirements. Everything else is just a compromise and it sucks.

 

[Grall]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with WD harddrives. Your personal experiences are of course totally insufficient to establish any kind of pattern... WD is the largest manufacturer of HDDs in the world, or was at least up until the thai floods, I dunno now. You don't get there by putting out bad shit on the market...

 

[UniversalTruth]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with WD harddrives.

Except probably that they are more expensive than the corresponding models from Seagate.

WD is the largest manufacturer of HDDs in the world

As an argument doesn't mean anything. Coca cola puts shit on the market but uses people's ignorance to make tons of money.
The same with Intel and nvidia who use dark unfair anti-competition practices.

You don't get there by putting out bad shit on the market...

If you have any data on defect rates...

 

[vemalas]

May you give us a link from the site where you want to buy the configuration from?
Honestly, I like nothing in your configuration. Intel+ nvidia+ WD

Wel actualy i dont WANT to buy from there, i just can't seem to find any other good place which would let me configure my laptop (i want it barebones).
And whats wrong with Intel + Nvidia? AMD mobile cpu's are really bad, and i don't think i can get 30 fps+ on newest games on mid settings with an APU. Nvidia just a bit more costy, though i would prefer AMD video card as i'll use this laptop mostly for gaming. \\\

If you know, then don't sacrifice one thing or the other. That's people's mistake. Don't go for one device for everything but instead buy two or three which can meet your requirements. Everything else is just a compromise and it sucks.

Take a chromebook and use 300£ for PC? I dont have a monitor, keybord or extra mouse, That would cost me extra 100-150£. Unless i sacrifice PC performance, but then i'd get similar performance to my 500£ laptop Nah.

That's the best i could do. Not a pence more. Will it be enough to play newest games on mid settings at least? rocessor and video card now matches really good? (no one is too weak for the other, talking in gaming sense?). Is 8GB ram not an overkill?

I would appreciate some input on that. Also, if you have any other good website where they let you configure laptop (in UK), please feel free to share. And if anyone has a better configuration than this one. Thank you very much!

 

[Rurouni]

Except probably that they are more expensive than the corresponding models from Seagate.

Nope.. Not in my country. At least most of the comparable models, WD is cheaper than Seagate.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's the best i could do. Not a pence more. Will it be enough to play newest games on mid settings at least? rocessor and video card now matches really good? (no one is too weak for the other, talking in gaming sense?). Is 8GB ram not an overkill?

I would appreciate some input on that. Also, if you have any other good website where they let you configure laptop (in UK), please feel free to share. And if anyone has a better configuration than this one. Thank you very much!

On a laptop 4 GB of ram should be plenty. If you can save some money by going to 4 GB, I'd probably do it.

Regards,
SB

 

[swaaye]

I would go for 8GB. I've seen some games cause disk swapping on a 4GB setup. It's pretty easy for Windows and other stuff to eat up 1GB and some games will definitely eat up 3GB of RAM. Upgrading to 8GB is surprisingly pretty cheap from that place anyway.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Yes, I'm like scarred of having only 2GB in my desktop (two fried slots.. but I'm finally about to get a used 2GB stick for really cheap and have 3GB)

Running out of RAM is the worst that can happen nowadays, and the ddr3 is real cheap (the makes suffer massive overproduction).
There's room for a second disk drive there? then great so, someday you can add a SSD there (or just another HDD)

 

[Blazkowicz]

Take a chromebook and use 300£ for PC? I dont have a monitor, keybord or extra mouse, That would cost me extra 100-150£. Unless i sacrifice PC performance, but then i'd get similar performance to my 500£ laptop Nah.

On a desktop PC you can get say a GTX 650 : it's actually about twice faster as that GT650M, because the gddr5 is hell of a lot faster than that ddr3, plus higher gpu clocks.
The new Athlon X4 750K is an interesting proposition on the CPU side (a cheap unlocked quad.)
Get a 350W bronze PSU with that (ain't that cheap), an old pentium III case because you can't afford any better, then either cheapest LCD or old CRT, and bend over to pick up a PS/2 keyboard.

That works (doesn't make economic sense if you pay for an OEM Windows license)

But what's your mobile device then? A 7" tablet with Android 4.0, 512MB ram and 4GB flash. Good for reversi and fapping material IMO.
Though, you quite get there with £600 for a desktop (w/o OS) + a chromebook. The desktop will run high end games at 1366x768 (stuff like Far Cry 3, Crysis 1) and will encourage you to sit at the same desk in the same place for hours on.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Wow there's a negative option for the OS. No OS required == £79 shaved of the price .
The "optimus" laptop gets semi-affordable then.
But : on the good side, either laptop's hardware will be supported for Steam on Linux.
on the bad side, there will be absolutely nothing to play other than the Steam selection of Linux ports.

 

[Blazkowicz]

*ahem* but if you wanted to spend a lot of money you'd just have to get the "Optimus IV" laptop.

So I've written a lot of rants for nothing.
This idea of "buy two PC" is pretty stupid, unless you like the reliability and serviceability of a desktop.
Hell you could probably keep the Celeron (dunno if there's overclocking software for the +5% BCLK? dunno at all), and even, buy 1x4GB and add the second stick later is an option. Though I don't know what to think, do you limit yourself to old and lightweight games or do you try for the heavy ones with the i5. (with reduced detail)

If you have any data on defect rates...

WD green are pieces of crap but they are 3.5" drives, and sold in tiny USB enclosures without breathing air that make them die.
So not the same thing. 2.5" drives are pretty different. And they must think they can get away with 3.5" drives dying more easily, we just cough it up. If you have any data I'll make you a smiley too..

 

[vemalas]

Thank you for your reply
Sadly Optimus IV is too costy for me. I think the setup i posted in my previous post (configured from Enigma IV) is the most efficient for that price (516£). If anyone had any comments about the setup i would really like to hear them. Should i take stronger cpu, weaker cpu? Is this processor too good for GT 650M? Will it not stall?

Probably the biggest concern for me is if the cpu and gpu combo. Is it good or not. Is this setup is as efficient as possible? (i'm all about efficiency).

What about taking an APU laptop with SLI/CF dual GPU?

Thank you!. (Probably gonna buy in next few days if no new info comes up!)

 

[Blazkowicz]

it's pretty decent and the strong CPU, it's useful for games.
When you see someone on a laptop playing quite smoothly a game you just can't run on a crappy old desktop, that's strong CPU + weak GPU + gobs of RAM. As far as laptops go, your i5 + GT650m is not bad at all.

 

[HMBR]

it looks well balanced, the b980 seems to have the exact same specs as the desktop version of the Celeron G530, as for the 650, it looks like probably a lower clocked GT 640,
so apart from games like BF3 MP (with lower settings) were the CPU is going to struggle (low clock, only 2c/2t), I think it's a nice well balanced config

 

[vemalas]

I thought i'd give you a summary of how the laptop fared in games, fps / settings wise, but it seems they had problems with HDD, as they didn't have any of them in stock. So.. i have still nothing to show you, my laptop is still in facility. The good news (i hope) is that i've phoned pccpecialist helpline and changed the HDD for what they had in stock right now (i didn't want to wait hell knows how long).
I've gone from:

750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT SATA 3Gb/s 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

to

750GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 6Gb/s 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)

It's the first time i'm going with HHD (as it was closest Hard Drive in stock to my price range, didn't want to get 5,400 rpm as it would've impacted quite negative on games).

Basically i've wanted to ask if anyone here had real-life experience with HHD? How are they? Any tips and tricks about the "learning" function with NAND flash? Is there any app that would allow to manually "lock" applications? (ie - i want to play Far Cry 3, so before i launch it, i would just "lock" this game to use the NAND flash?). I hope the question is understood, because i am not really fond of waiting for HHD to "learn". Also, as i've researched i've found that NAND flash is 8GB. Is that enough for a game tu use it fully?

Thank you for your answers!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

After you launch an application for the first time it should start to cache things it feels might be frequently used. After multiple launches it'll have a pretty good idea.

If you switch applications frequently, then it may not be as noticeable. If you use certain applications more frequently you'll tend to notice it more on those.

Regards,
SB

 

[swaaye]

I have a couple of generation 1 Momentus XT 500GB drives. They are my preferred HDDs right now when you don't need a huge capacity drive.

This speaks for itself. They rock at repeatable access patterns.