Stylized Fire using Particles

Maybe it's just here in the UK, they always seem to chuck about �200 onto the price just for it being a laptop. If you buy sub-�400 laptops they're usually good enough for gaming if your collection doesn't extend far past Solitaire.

It's probably not much different where you live. What you need to do is find a warehouse store that sells them from various brands.

I have one a few miles from me that sells laptops of all brands (Gateway, Dell, Etc) at a greatly reduced price. They could be open box items, but generally aren't used at all or are brand new.

I also should mention, I get a discount through my job of 15% on any electronics if it's for work.

Hope that helps?

EDIT: I realize that isn't the norm for most people, but I wasn't suggesting it was. I only said it cost me half the price.

Yeah, it's mainly the high street retailers that seem to over charge for the portability of a laptop.

And my point is that because of how few programs support multi-core still, you could have 100 of the best gpus on the market and it still won't match the potential of your CPU ... see what I'm saying?

I'm 100% sure I understand what you are getting at... are you saying the GPU i the bottleneck in the system or the CPU? I know the CPU is the bottleneck since it is not being used properly YET. I bought it because software will grow into it... I have owned a computer store or at least worked in one for the last 12-13 years, so I'm pretty up with what is going on in terms of hardware advancement. I bought now because we are half way through the 7 year technology phase... this PC should last an easy 3 years without any upgrade and still play whatever the latest game is no worries.

I ran Crysis on a quad core CPU versus a dual core, with the same clock speed. The results for me were that the fps were the same 90% of the time, until a lot of physics occurred at once, leading to the quad core giving around 5 fps more.

Yes same clock speed I'm sure the quad is better, but typically duals are a much higher clock speed and will generally perform better at, well, anything at the moment. This is why I want to "downgrade" for now ince the hardware is so far ahead of the software, my quad is wasting away with 3 cores doing pretty much nothing.

I don't support blowing a lot of money on a computer because A. it will be outdated in 6 months and B. companies won't utilize it for much longer, making the technology cheaper by the time they do.

So, when do you stop waiting? What you just stated happens all the time. If you thought like that, then you would never buy anything new...ever. I have bought like 10 computers in the past, and I always spend a mediocre amount on my parts... and in 18 months it's like "awww I can't run XXXX because it's too phat and my computer sucks.", yet all of my friends who spent like three times the amount can still run the latest crap at full graphics with enough juice spare to run at least 2 more copies at the same time at full graphics.

Partly the reason why I just do everything on a laptop now. It cost half the price of a good desktop PC, plays Crysis on high at 30 fps and is portable.

I don't know what kind of laptop you have, but my MSI GX600 (512gb GeForce 8400M, core 2 centrino, 4gb ddr2 800, etc etc...) doesn't run Crysis at 30fps... at least, not on anything over Low settings. D:

More power to you if you're Bill Gates in disguise - I guess I'd have 100 PC's for no reason then if I was.

I just have one PC and one laptop :/

~Sol

I'm 100% sure I understand what you are getting at... are you saying the GPU i the bottleneck in the system or the CPU? I know the CPU is the bottleneck since it is not being used properly YET. I bought it because software will grow into it... I have owned a computer store or at least worked in one for the last 12-13 years, so I'm pretty up with what is going on in terms of hardware advancement. I bought now because we are half way through the 7 year technology phase... this PC should last an easy 3 years without any upgrade and still play whatever the latest game is no worries.

I guess I'm saying you didn't need to buy the extra GPU power ... yet.

So, when do you stop waiting? What you just stated happens all the time. If you thought like that, then you would never buy anything new...ever.

I generally skip every other generation of hardware and take a look at upcoming releases. DirectX 11 is coming and they're talking about 12 already.

The cycle doesn't end, and as far as gaming goes, I gave up on PC for the most part. Xbox 360 and PS3 will last 5-6 years and cost tons less. There's a few PC exclusives left, but not nearly enough to blow a huge sum on a PC.

I don't know what kind of laptop you have, but my MSI GX600 (512gb GeForce 8400M, core 2 centrino, 4gb ddr2 800, etc etc...) doesn't run Crysis at 30fps... at least, not on anything over Low settings. D:

Core2Duo 2.4ghz, 3 gigs of ram and an 8800M.

I just have one PC and one laptop :/

I'm down to just this laptop and nearly every gaming system on the market. I will never buy a desktop PC again. I used to do exactly what you did, and I guess I just don't care anymore.

I guess I'm saying you didn't need to buy the extra GPU power ... yet.

I generally skip every other generation of hardware and take a look at upcoming releases. DirectX 11 is coming and they're talking about 12 already.

The cycle doesn't end, and as far as gaming goes, I gave up on PC for the most part. Xbox 360 and PS3 will last 5-6 years and cost tons less. There's a few PC exclusives left, but not nearly enough to blow a huge sum on a PC.

Core2Duo 2.4ghz, 3 gigs of ram and an 8800M.

I'm down to just this laptop and nearly every gaming system on the market. I will never buy a desktop PC again. I used to do exactly what you did, and I guess I just don't care anymore.

Yeah the second card was waaaaay overkill... I just did it becaue I would have used the spare money for something way less, er, cool otherwise.

I haven't bought a computer since DX9 just came out... so it was time. Besides DX11 is just DX10 with a few extra features that cards don't even support. DX9 is still being improved on, and game are only just starting to break into DX10... I think DX11 and upwards will be one of those things that Microsoft bring out and it will fail (kinda like Windows Me).

Your laptop explains why you can run Crysis at least... having said that, something like that here would still set you back a good $2300ish AUD.

This is the first time I have gone all out on a PC and believe it or not, I did it mainly for graphics work and video editing. Working with high def video clips and cutting them together in premiere is suprisingly hefty on the resources. I noticed a big improvement adding the second video card when using jog/shuttle functions on several Gb's worth of 2 second clips. I also own many consoles as I enjoy those for the pure gaming side of things... but sadly I haven't bought a current gen console because the 360 is a piece of junk (hardware reliability-wise) and the ps3 is too far ahead of its time, and by the time game developers figure out how to use it the ps4 will be out. :/

~Sol

PS I still want a PS3 lol... eventually

*EDIT*

Sorry if I missed a lot of "S" letters... this laptop keyboard is a bit wonky and the S key is behaving badly.

It's cool man. As I mentioned I used to blow a lot on a new PC too. The PC exclusives just aren't abundant enough anymore ... and man do I hate Spore lol. *cough*

360 isn't "junk" anymore, they're all on 65nm chips now and don't have many issues anymore. I bought one at launch and it never died, I got a new one however because a friend spilled beer on it ... yay.