Hey Duders,

So i've been putting away a little bit of money every month for the last year or so and now with my massive pile of coins rolled and cashed i finally have enough in the PC fund to get a computer. Now, you may call me crazy but i'm leaning towards a gaming laptop because portability is somewhat of a necessity. The model i've been eyeing is the ASUS G75VW. It comes just within my price range and seems powerful enough, but seeing as i'm no expert in the world of PC gaming (my primary machine at the moment is a macbook after all) i decided to appeal to you fine folks for advice.

The specs for the machine are as follows:

Coming in at just under 1,400 bucks does this machine look worthwhile?

@Donkeycow: I could move my desktop around and call it portable. If you're planning on doing something portable with this machine--oh, like lugging it around for multiple hours a day, on a commute or around campus--I would say by all means that you are crazy to be looking at something so massive.

The hardware itself is fine, I suppose.

Yeah, the specs seem allright, but I can't imagine that thing being anything less than a beast in terms of size. Yeah, it's a laptop, that doesn't mean that it won't really weight you down if you walk with it while it's in a backpack or something. My run-of-the-mill 17" laptop could do that if I had a book and a binder in my backpack with it.

Well the issue is i'm constantly going from place to place, i already have a smaller laptop to lug around campus but i don't have the money to cash out for 3 monitors to cover all the places i spend extensive time at (as in days at a time), so the sheer size is acceptable. My main question is if its powerful enough to last the next few years while still providing competitive performance, though you folks seem to think it is up to the task in the specs department. My only concern with it was the processor clocking in at only 2.3 ghz, is that acceptable for a modern quad core gaming machine?

Well that's better my PC. I'm all for gaming laptops. Its nice having a powerful laptop, plus you could play in th go and anywhere. but to answer your question your laptop should be goooood.

@Donkeycow said:

Well the issue is i'm constantly going from place to place, i already have a smaller laptop to lug around campus but i don't have the money to cash out for 3 monitors to cover all the places i spend extensive time at (as in days at a time), so the sheer size is acceptable. My main question is if its powerful enough to last the next few years while still providing competitive performance, though you folks seem to think it is up to the task in the specs department. My only concern with it was the processor clocking in at only 2.3 ghz, is that acceptable for a modern quad core gaming machine?

It's clocked down because it can't be cooled very well. It's all right, I guess. Really, that's the whole way I would feel about this gaming laptop. Yes, it would run pretty much everything these days at medium-high (not ultra high, and you'll have to make more concessions next year and even more the next) but every bone in my somewhat computer-literate body is screaming out to tell you that if you think you can get by with a desktop, then get a desktop. You've already got a laptop, and if this thing is going to stay in one place then desktop. This laptop isn't going to be much lighter than a desktop anyway. I know, you made it clear that you think a desktop just won't do, and for the money that doesn't seem like a bad gaming laptop, but there's still the big, glaring issue of gaming laptops still not performing anywhere near as well as a good old fashioned desktop at the same price point will.

So, yeah, if you've made absolute certain that there is no way you could live with a desktop, then this will be fine. You've just got to accept the sheer performance difference between a laptop and a desktop. I just built a computer for a $732 and it pretty much measures up to your laptop - and next year I'll put a GTX 670 into it and it will run circles over and over again around this.

Here, have a look at this. (type "gtx 670m" into that search bar.)

I can't bring it to mind, but someone covered 4 laptops, I do believe an Asus among them. In fact one was both amazingly weight respectable yet powerful enough for modern gaming...AAA tittles. Good approach to engineering, parts match for the job. etc. Your cpu..idk. I'm not real knowledgeable and go by the old bias of above 3.0 dual core or quad included. Which probably puts me in the wrong. Also your cpu have a peak usage of or above 3.0 for bursts if designed for it. Somehow I remember battery vs. plug in mattering more than length of time...

Just to say it, desktop for me. I built my first machine a long year(and a 1/2) ago. My poor choices that jacked up the price now at least are starting at least to prove their headroom, in that I got a machine for the years, upgrade-nothing needed for a good while. I could have made better value choices and been in the same ballpark though...I learned.

At this price range you should check out MSI lineup as well. They build some solid laptops. Blacklit keyboards are always nice to have. Plus, I have heard nothing but praises of speakers on their laptops.

I should also note that while your price range is your price range, if you were able to add about 400 more to your budget you would get a very nice boost in your graphics department by virtue of getting a laptop with 7970M. I checked around a bit and it seems 7970M currently is only available in Alienware M17xR4 and Clevo machines. MSI a few months ago unveiled its own laptop with 7970M (GX 60) but I don't think its out yet.

Edit: Check this MSI model out. within your price range and comes with 675M.

@Donkeycow: For 1400 bucks you could get a desktop and a 300 dollar laptop. thats what I did.

You already own a Macbook. Having two laptops seems a bit... odd. If you own a 15" Macbook with the Radeon GPU, it'll do some pretty decent gaming if you boot into Windows. The HD4000 in the Airs and 13" will have you playing some Skyrim in a pinch.

The gaming laptop is going to be -heavy-. It's going to be bulky. It's going to have a really bad battery life. It's going to depreciate like there's no tomorrow. Every component in the laptop runs slower than its desktop counterpart. You'll hate every minute you have to carry that thing around.

You could have a small form factor PC built for much less and upgrade it as time goes by. With that gaming laptop, once it starts to get slow, it's done for. No SSD or Ram upgrade is going to help when your GPU starts to get dated.

There is no reason to waste money on a gaming laptop unless you don't mind being plugged in all the time. Seriously, that battery will be lucky to last an hour and a half with those specs. Plus, there is no comparing a mobile part to a desktop part. A GTX 670m runs a lot closer to the desktop version of a GTX 460 (Was a $120 video card until Nvidia stopped production a year ago). Personally I believe that gaming laptops are a scam.

What is the scenario for your use? You say that you have to split your time between three places and school is not one of them. What are the three places? Cuz three monitors and a better desktop would cost the same money as the gaming laptop you suggested. Plus, if you are doing something like splitting up your time between, say, your moms house during the weekdays and your dads place during the weekends, why couldn't you just bring one monitor to multiple places?

Edit: Even though I hate overpriced Apple products, from my experience their laptops have a fit and finish that is unmatched in the tech industy. If you purchase a new laptop there is a good chance that you will feel like you wasted money after a few weeks or so.

Speaking from personal experience those G7x Asus laptops are beasts. EXTREMELY heavy, EXTREMELY hot, but good machines for playing

They do have a reputation for having issues though. MoBo and GPU's seem to go pretty frequently. But then I work in the service end of laptops so realistically people don't come in and tell me how great their laptops are. That being said at one point I remember seeing 4 Asus G73's come in in one day.

Just my $0.02

You could probably build that exact same system in a desktop form factor for around half of that price. If portability and a shitty battery life are worth around $700 to you, then by all means, but you can build a much more affordable rig for much less than that and then buy a netbook with the money you "saved" and still be under that $1400 asking price.

You guys seem really down on the gaming laptop thing :p If i did in fact choose to go desktop what would you guys suggest? Keep in mind i don't have an interest in building my own machine (i know the basics but it's a hassle i don't want to get involved in) and if i switched to a desktop i would pull back from the 1,500 dollar price range (CDN) to something more in the $900-$1100 range monitor not included.

I've been laptop gaming for a few years now. The original system you posted is definitely viable, and will be at least until the new consoles come out. It's much better than mine, and I can still run all the games currently coming out on high settings.

Also, just a quick question concerning video memory. A lot of the desktop's i've been looking at actually have less video memory then their laptop counterparts but boast faster speeds, is the amount of video memory no longer as important as it was say 8 years ago (that being the last time i purchased a computer with the intent of gaming on it)?