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Old 2012-01-23, 07:15 PM   [Ignore Me] #1
Ailos
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Why you shouldn't plan on playing PlanetSide 2 on a laptop


Came across this article on Tom's Hardware earlier today, and thought I'd post it here since I see quite a few questions that run along the line of "Do you think my laptop will be ok?"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...tion,3118.html

I personally strongly urge any potential gamers to instead buy a desktop instead of a laptop if they really do plan on playing PS. There are quite a few college students out there that like to use laptop because they are easier to manage while in college, but a $400 laptop will do everything you ask for college and more. But that same $400 laptop will cry if you even show it something like PS2 installation file, and what the article talks about is a reason why.

So for those of you that are in college, but still want to enjoy PS2, here's my recommendation:

Ailos' guide to enjoy PlanetSide 2 for the price of a Macbook Pro

Macbooks are becoming very popular with college students these days, but they're not exactly the cheapest piece of hardware you could have. Also, since PS2 isn't being developed to run on Mac, you'd have to trick it to run PlanetSide 2 by using boot camp and the like, which is annoying at best. With that in mind, let's see what other options do you have, especially if you have a fixed budget.

An 13" macbook pro starts at $1199, which will get you an Intel HD 3000 integrated card and only 4 gigs of RAM. Though enough for most daily computing, any mildly-informed buyer will recognize this won't be enough to run any recent games. For that, you'll have to splurge out and go for the 15", 2.2 GHz version that has ATI Radeon HD 6750M graphics, and that's a whopping $1799.

Source: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...URE-MACBOOKPRO

Some of you reader might also point out that Alienware (DELL) make gaming laptops in a similar price range, starting at $1499, and that come with seemingly better hardware: http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-M17x-r3/pd.aspx

However, while both Macbook and Alienware laptops offer impressive every-day computing ability, it does come at a price. My goal with this post is to show that for the same $1800, you can buy a laptop for mobility, and a fully-equipped desktop to enjoy games without compromising either task.

Let's start with the simple part: the laptop.

I recommend a simple laptop for creating and editing your documents and managing your school life, something like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834157819

Its hardware isn't quite on the same level as the macbook or the alienware monsters, but it's more than enough to browse the internet, edit documents, and even play older games without much sweat. Plus, you'll get the battery life of the macbook, without the price.

That plust $30 shipping takes $410 out of the $1800 budget, leaving us with $1390.

At this point, there are two routes you can take:

1. You could buy a manufactured desktop (such as an HP or Dell) and upgrade one or two of its crucial components. This will result in a slightly worse value-for-money deal, but is easier than option 2:

2. You could build your own desktop from scratch.

If you're planning on going with option 2, this article is probably not for you. So I will concentrate some more on option 1.

Modern games' performance depends on many factors, so it is important to provide ample headroom to prevent have enough memory and avoid CPU bottlenecks and allow the video card to have ample power to handle the incredible battles that surely await us in PS2.

I recommend starting with a system similar to this:
http://www.dell.com/content/products...corp&~lt=popup

You will have to spec it somewhat from the website when ordering to make sure you get the right stuff.

First, you'll want to go for the highest processor, and in this case, the Core i5 should be more than capable to handle anything PS2 throws at it (that processor will give you 8 threads at 3 GHz speeds, and that's plenty). A Phenom II X4 would be the AMD equivalent (only 4 threads, but much more bandwidth).

Hard drive size is somewhat arbitrary, since almost any desktop in this price range will come with something like a 320 GB 7200 rpm SATA drive. What this means is that you may not be the first to load on a continent, but if you spec everything right, you will never experience any other issues.

RAM is something that you do want to max out on - for the Dell model I mentioned above, that will be at 8 GB (some other manufacturers may allow you to go up to 12).

The last important bit is the graphics card. I advise against picking any upgrades from the base in this section, because these will almost always be overpriced, and rarely a top shelf-option. I recommend going for the most basic option here because this is the only part that you will manually upgrade post-purchase.

However, there is one thing that needs to be paid attention to when we decide to upgrade the video ourselves: making sure there is enough space for it. Manufacturers like to load up their motherboards and power supplies with a lot of (frequently unnecessary and useless) extras, so I recommend foregoing any other options, such as wireless cards or TV tuners. These can always be added later on in the same way we will add the video card.

If you've followed my recommendations, you will have arrived at a build with specs similar to these: 3 GHz Core i5, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, DVD R/RW, Intel HD graphics. Throw in a Dell 21" full HD screen and some speakers and your total comes to $790. And crucially, we have one PCI x16 2.0 slot open in this system. This also means we have $600 to spend on upgrading this rig's video card, more than enough to get a true monster.

There is a potential issue that must be addressed when selecting a card here: the power supply. The Dell model I listed comes with a 300 W PSU, which is well below what is recommended for most cards (500W min). Thus, you arrive here at another choice. Upgrade just the card, or upgrade the PSU to support a more monstrous GPU.

The first option will be easier and cheaper to accomplish, but will mean your PC will have a pretty short lifetime as a gaming rig (you'll feel like you'll have to buy a new one in less than a year).

If you go this route, you have to stick to relatively low-end cards, which won't be much better than simply having selected the upgrade option when you were originally speccing the PC from the manufacturer.

For performance and value, then, you will be needing to go the second route, which means you'll have to swap out the PSU and add the video card.

My recommendation here is to lean towards nVidia cards simply because they tend to be less power-hungry (and will consequently dissipate less heat, which will create less potential for cooling issues with this type of a rig). Plus, at this price range, there really is no graphical performance difference between the two cards (ATI cards tend to fare slightly better on the lower end market).

My recommendation is a GeForce GTX 570: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130593
Listed on newegg for $340. This card will give you flawless performance even in full 1920x1080 HD. This card is also the highest card you should even consider buying due to power concerns and space concerns - you are unlikely to have the space to fit any heat sinks necessary to keep anything more beastly in a quiet enough shape.

This also means you'll need a supply much beefier than the 300W that the dell PC came with, and I recommend this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341018
for $90.



The actual process of installing the card and power supply is relatively straight forward. Simply connect the new powersupply's wires in exactly the same places the old one's went. The card will fit into one slot on the motherboard, but will take up two bay spots (which is why I recommended no other PCI addons or extras), and will also need to have a 4-wire cord connected to one of the power supply's outlets. If you install the power supply first completely first (and boot up the computer to make sure it works) before doing anything with the card, you should be fine. Just remember that nothing in a PC ever requires a hammer to install.

So the final price of all components as I listed them here:
  • HP Laptop - $410
  • Base Dell tower, with 21" HD monitor and speakers - $790
  • GeForce GTX 570 - $340
  • PSU for the video card - $90
    Total: $1630

So at the end of the day, you'll be left with:

A very usable laptop for your every day mobile computing needs, a very decent gaming PC, and an extra $170 in your pocket.

Those of you with experience building your own PCs will realize that the final cost of the PC came in at $1220 - that's and that's enough money to make a rather well-equipped home gaming PC (you might be able to even throw and SSD in there for that price), that will likely have specs even better than the ones you get from the dell-based build I mentioned above, and crucially, give it much more upgrade potential for the upcoming years. But as this is already a very long post, I'll leave that for another discussion.
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Last edited by Ailos; 2012-01-23 at 07:18 PM.
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