Best gaming laptop: 8 reviewed
Is the golden era of laptop gaming a goner? Let's consider the past a second. Wind the clock way back to September 2005 and Nvidia had just launched the GeForce 7800 GTX Go. It was a big, bad 24-pipe beast.
What's more, the mobile and desktop iterations were absolutely identical, save for a small gap in clockspeeds. Finally, mobile machines could go toe to toe with their desk-bound buddies.
Sadly, it was but a temporary anomaly. Nvidia did manage a follow up with the closely related 7900 series but since then, there hasn't been a pukka mobile graphics chip hewn from precisely the same silicon as the very fastest desktop GPU of the day.
Ultimately, there's no getting round the constrained thermals, packaging and power capacity of a portable, even one with pizzabox proportions. That's especially true now that graphics chips are massively parallel monsters with hundreds of fl oating point processing units.
The grunt gap
The bottom line is, you're not going to be able to achieve true desktop performance with any machine that can truly be described as portable. Graphics performance is critical for gaming grunt and without access to the fastest video chips, laptops are always going to be second string.
But that doesn't mean gaming on the move is futile. Lordy, no. The best mobile graphics chips may not be as quick as the very finest desktop fare. But by any sane metric, they are incredibly complex bits of kit, capable of astonishing feats of 3D rendering.
The fact that PC graphics in terms of game engines has somewhat stagnated helps, too. Partly that's because prevailing games consoles tend to set a fixed target for cross-platform developers and current consoles are getting on a bit. More to the point, there are mobile graphics chips that thump seven shades out of any console. But exclusive-for-PC titles haven't exactly raced ahead, either.
Meanwhile, the old will-it-play-Crysis adage seems more irrelevant than ever. All of which means you can have your portability pie and eat your gaming gateau.
Take laptop gaming, simmer over a low heat and reduce to its core components. You'll be left with three things. Graphics, graphics and graphics. Okay, it is possible to spoil a mobile gaming rig by plopping in the wrong CPU or slapping on a shonky screen. But without a shadow of a doubt, the most critical single component is the graphics.
That may seem obvious. But there are shed loads of serious sexy looking multimedia laptops out there. It would be awfully tempting to gloss over the mediocre graphics in return for a shiny screen and a slick looking chassis. But trust us on this. That would be a monumental mistake.
The first rule of mobile gaming, then, involves discrete graphics. Put simply, you need a separate video chip. No ifs. No buts. Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. Just ensure any laptop you buy with a view to gaming has a discrete GPU.
Integrated graphics
Admittedly, both Intel and AMD offer much better integrated graphics today than ever before. AMD in particular has upped its integrated game with the Llano APU, which packs no fewer than 400 stream shaders, making it massively more powerful than the 80 shaders of its past best.
The problem is, even with 400 shaders Llano's performance is only on a par with a fairly lowly discrete graphics card. More importantly, the in-game experience with the latest and most demanding titles is miserable.
This isn't going to change any time soon and a big part of the reason why involves memory bandwidth. Good GPUs have superwide memory buses of 256-bit or more. They also pack crazy-fast GDDR memory with effective data rates north of 5GHz. Put the two together and you have a recipe for bandwidth bigness measured in hundreds of gigabytes per second.
And before you ask, yes, even mobile graphics cards have pretty quick memory chips. The current state of the mobile graphics memory art is good for around 100GB/s of bandwidth. Now consider a modern CPU with on-board, integrated graphics. AMD and Intel's mainstream processors have memory controllers with just two 64-bit channels. Even Intel's LGA 1366 beasties only have three 64-bit channels. Meanwhile, you'll be lucky to hit 2GHz data rates for main system memory.
All in, an overall bandwidth result measuring 20-something-GB per second is a great result for a CPU. In other words, discrete graphics chips have orders of magnitude more memory bandwidth. And don't forget, what little bandwidth is available for the CPU must be shared with the integrated graphics core.
At low resolutions and detail settings or paying ancient games, the impact isn't too awful. But who wants to play old or ugly games? It almost doesn't matter how powerful AMD and Intel make their next generation integrated graphics cores. It's actually the memory interface they need to sort out first.
Unless you're happy restricting yourself to five-year-old titles or jaggy pixel vision in newer games, then, the advice regarding integrated graphics remains the same. No touchy. So, now that you're convinced your gaming portable needs a proper graphics chip, the big question is which one.
As it has been, is, and seemingly shall ever more be, it's the AMD-Nvidia duopoly that owns performance laptop graphics. A quick browse of their product lists will throw up a lot of very familiar looking brands, monikers and product numbers. Simply a stick an 'M' for mobile on the end of any given desktop graphics chipset and you have its laptop equivalent.
Processing power
Sadly, however, all is not quite what it seems. For instance, Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M is not a 512 stream processor powerhouse like the GTX 580 desktop chip. Instead, it packs 384 processors.
The same goes for AMD's top Radeon HD 6990M. Not only does it not pack dual GPUs like the desktop 6990M, but the single GPU it does have is from a rung down in AMD's GPU hierarchy. If that sounds confusing it's because it is.
But once you get over the disappointment of the misleading product names, there is some consistency. For starters, both AMD and Nvidia are up to exactly the same game. And as a general rule of thumb, and just like the examples above, mobile graphics chips are based on the GPU one below the desktop chipset of the same name.
From the very top and kicking off with Nvidia, then, we get the aforementioned GeForce GTX 580M and its 384 stream processors, 64 texture units, 32 ROPs and 256-bit memory bus. Clearly, what we have here is the GPU known internally at Nvidia as the GF114 and sold in desktop trim as the GeForce GTX 560Ti.
While it may not be Nvidia's top graphics chip, it still weighs in with a barely believable two billion transistors, making it massively more complex than the likes of a £800 six-core Intel CPU. As for clock speeds, the mobile GF114 loses around 25 per cent compared to its desktop sibling. The same goes for memory data rates.
Next up is the GTX 570M. Once again it's based on GF114 but with a few sectors disabled. The result is 336 processors, 56 textures, 24 ROPs and a 192-bit memory bus. Then there's the GTX 560M. As per the one-rung-down rule, this little beauty uses the chip formerly known as GF106. It's the GPU that powers the GeForce GTX 550 Ti on the desktop. Vital stats include 192 processors, 32 textures, 24 ROPs and a choice of 128-bit and 192-bit memory buses.
Below that, Nvidia does have further discrete mobile graphics offerings. The GTX 555M is essentially a slightly hobbled 560M and worth a look if the price is right and you're on a tight budget. But we wouldn't go any lower than that. The 550M, for example, makes do with just 96 processors and under 30GB per second of memory bandwidth. We really wouldn't go there.
As for AMD, the Radeon HD 6990M takes pole position with 1,120 stream processors, 56 textures, 32 ROPs and a 256-bit memory bus. It is, in other words, none other than Barts, the chip found in the Radeon HD 6870 desktop GPU family. Remember, however, that AMD and Nvidia's stream processors are far from equal. Despite what appears to be a massive advantage over the GTX 580M, the 6990M delivers very similar performance.
Drop a rung and you come to a pair of cut-down Barts GPUs with 960 processors, 48 textures and 32 ROPs each. The only difference between the HD 6790M and HD 6970M is a 100MHz core clockspeed advantage for the former.
Rounding out AMD's interesting mobile graphics line up are a trio of laptop chips based on the Juniper GPU: the HD 6870M, 6850M and 6830M. All sport 800 processors, 40 textures, 16 ROPs and a 128-bit memory bus. Again, it's the clockspeeds that set them apart. What's more, just like Nvidia, AMD does offer a number of more modest mobile GPUs. And once again, we wouldn't go there.
Pixel punch
Matching screen resolution with GPU power is another crucial ingredient for mobile gaming. More pixels make for sharper, more dramatic visuals and, just maybe, more immersive gaming. But they also ratchet up the workload.
It's also worth remembering that even a monster 17-inch lappy has a much smaller screen than a modern desktop PC. And that means you don't need full-HD resolutions to have a nice tight pixel pitch.
Of course, you're probably going to be using your get-up-and-go gaming rig for more than merely fragging. So you don't want to go too low. Unless you're on a seriously stingy budget, we'd therefore avoid 1,280 x 720 or 1,366 x 768. On the other hand, 1,920 x 1,080 is really too much for all but the most powerful mobile GPUs. In fact, if you want the best possible longevity of gaming grunt, we'd probably recommend you avoid 1,080p, period.
Instead, 1,600 x 900 is probably the best all round compromise between graphics workload, eye candy and desktop elbow room. Shame, then, that it's one of the more rarely offered resolutions.
While we're on the subject of screens, it's sad to have to report that laptop LCD technology hasn't been doing anything interesting lately. A couple of years ago, the switch was made from 16:10 to the slightly wider and more HDTV-friendly 16:9 format. The same thing happened on the desktop at around the same time.
For the most part, we'd prefer laptops had stuck with the slightly taller 16:10 standard. A PC is not an HDTV and whether you're on the desktop or in-game, the vertical pixels you lose with 16:9 are sorely missed.
Panel technology
Elsewhere, screen technology has stayed more or less static. The vast, vast, vast majority of laptops make do with TN panel technology. And not terribly good TN technology. If TN desktop monitors have mediocre contrast, colours and viewing angles, mobile TN screens are usually significantly worse.
However, since we're talking about gaming lappies, TN does at least offer good pixel response. Mobile IPS screens, by comparison, usually offer serious sluggish response times. The one exception to this litany of same-old screen technology is the wide adoption of LED backlighting.
Problem is, almost all laptops have cheap white LEDs rather than pukka RGB LEDs, so the benefit in terms of colour depth is slim to none. However, LEDs are more power efficient than boggo CCFL LCD backlights, which is obviously handy for any portable PC. They also tend to last longer before losing brightness, which is nice.
Now, we mentioned earlier that gaming laptops are all about graphics. However, you do need to take a little care with your choice of CPU. As things stand, we're not too keen on AMD's notebook processors. The Athlon II and Turion II mobile processor cores we'd say forget about, they're just not up to snuff for gaming. And as we've already established, anything based on the Llano APU isn't going to be fully fit for gaming purpose.
Bulldozing ahead
The Phenom II dual, triple and quad-core mobile processors are more interesting. But they're also pretty rare. If you can find one that perfectly suits your needs, they're worth a look.
But we certainly wouldn't compromise on other specifications in order to secure a Phenom II. All things AMD are subject to change when Bulldozer-based chips arrive, of course. In the meantime, your best bet is one of Intel's Core i3, i5 or i7 processors.
Clock-for-clock, Intel's processor cores have been gruntier than AMD's for several years now. That's a critical issue in the context of mobile machines running at lower frequencies.
Best gaming laptop: the contenders
Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G - £1499
Alienware M14x - £1779
Medion Erazer X6811 - £799
MSI GT780DX - £1497
Rock Xtreme 786 - £1799
Rock Xtreme 685 - £1649
Sony VPC-F21Z1E/B1 - £1589
Toshiba Qosmio X770-107 - £1499
Gaming laptop reviews
Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G
This out-sized Acer is all about the screen. Spanning an immense 18.4 inches, it's no surprise that it ponies up the full-HD pixel count of 1,920 x 1,080. It's about as big as laptop LCDs get. That makes the Ethos a very plausible desktop replacement system. With a panel this big, you won't feel constrained.
On the downside, it makes for a bonkers-big machine that stretches the concept of portability to snapping point. The biggest downer of all, however, is the quality of the panel itself. It just pips the Medion Erazer for the dubious accolade of worst on test this month. In fact, we're surprised anyone is manufacturing panels this poor in what is a pretty rarefied size and form factor. It's the worst sort of old-school TN panel, complete with feeble contrast, washed out blacks and narrow viewing angles.
And that's a shame, because in many regards this has plenty going for it. For starters, of our octet of silicon-powered slabs, this is probably the best looking beast. Acer has combined solid plastics with slices of bona fide brushed metal to deft overall effect.
Read the full Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G review
Alienware M14x
Proper gaming grunt in a portable package. Can it be done? If anyone can pull it off, it's Alienware – now backed by the might of Dell. Thanks to its 14.1-inch LCD, this is by far the most compact notebook here. At 2.9Kg, it's the lightest, too. However, at 38mm it's a chunky little customer.
Normally, that's undesirable. But we're talking gaming lappies here and we'll happily sacrifice some slim-line style in return for pixel-pumping prowess.
Thanks to solid construction and backlit keyboard, it's a pretty desirable physical specimen, too. Well, if you can live with the slightly adolescent design vibe. Alienware hasn't made too many compromises in return for that 14-inch form factor.
The screen itself packs 1,600 x 900 pixels. In our view, that would be plenty for a 15- or even 17-inch gaming lappy. Squeezed into 14 inches, the result is a tight pixel pitch and sharp visuals. That said, for nearly £1,800 the panel's TN technology and merely decent image quality are disappointing.
We're not convinced Alienware's choice of a matte screen surface behind a clear plastic cover makes much sense, either. Because the screen itself is matte, you don't get the heightened contrast of a true glossy panel. But thanks to that plastic cover, you do get the reflections. It's the worst of both worlds.
Read the full Alienware M14x review
Medion Erazer X6811
Despite a retail sticker roughly half the size of the next cheapest system here, the Erazer doesn't scrape the barrel in terms of graphics power. Or system memory: 4GB is likewise perfectly sufficient.
What's more, while the 1,366 x 768 native resolution of the Erazer's 15.6-inch LCD panel might seem stingy in an all-purpose multimedia portable, for gaming it makes sense. More pixels make for much higher workloads and chugtastic frame rates.
We don't even have an issue with the relatively pedestrian Intel Core i5 460M CPU. Okay, it's only got two cores, but they are Sandy Bridge. Anyway, few games can truly leverage the full performance of a multi-core processor: a couple of cores running at a fighting fit 2.53GHz baseclock (2.8GHz Turbo) should be a solid basis for gaming.
Of course, for well under £1,000, something has to give. Physically, there's no mistaking the Erazer's budget positioning. The plastic mouldings masquerading as brushed metal will fool absolutely nobody.
Read the full Medion Erazer X6811 review
MSI GT780DX
Someone's put some thought into the GT780DX. For starters, this isn't a badge engineering job using a commodity-spec whitebook as a starting point: MSI has commissioned a unique design.
The result isn't going to have Apple rethinking its approach to laptop chassis quality but there is at least a frisson of flair in the multi-coloured (and user configurable) keyboard backlighting, slices of genuine brushed aluminium and bevelled chassis edges.
That keyboard is the result of an alliance with peripherals specialist SteelSeries and is probably the most tactile and satisfying of all our gaming group. Unlike the slightly rattle-prone and spongey boards offered by, for instance, Rock and Medion, this one is solid of base and slick in action.
Speaking of partnerships, MSI has also teamed up with Dynaudio to sort out the sound. The idea is to project it carefully to the user, creating more depth and immersion. Put simply, it works. Although the sheer volume on offer is fairly modest, there's a richness and expansiveness to the soundstage none of the other laptops on test can match.
Another nice touch is the trackpad disable button. If you're serious about serving up some online devastation, you'll be using an external mouse. The last thing you want is accidental trackpad inputs. With the trackpad turned off, that's not going to happen.
Read the full MSI GT780DX review
Rock Xtreme 768
On no account should you consider the Rock Xtreme 786 a routinely luggable lappie. This is an unapologetically heavyweight beast that clocks the scales at nearly four kilos and offers 17.3 inches of liquid crystal goodness. Chuck in a power brick that lives up to the name and you have an ensemble few would want to drag around daily.
Better, then, to think of the Xtreme 786 as transportable rather than portable. The sort of rig that's perfect to take up to uni at the beginning of term or to haul to a friend's house for a special occasion. Just don't imagine you'll be whipping it out for five minutes on the tube.
Of course, Rock isn't entirely responsible for the Xtreme 786's gigantism. The chassis itself hails from none other than everyone's favourite whitebook maker, Clevo. For Clevo aficionados, what we have here is the P170HM model with a few added extras.
As tested, the headline specification is very impressive. Intel's Core i7 2630QM CPU is responsible for general computing duties. And very fit for purpose it is thanks to four cores, eight threads and an appetite to tear holes in computational conundrums.
Read the full Rock Xtreme 768 review
Rock Xtreme 685
See something familiar? That's right, the Rock Xtreme 685 is yet another re-badged Clevo whitebook. On the downside, that means the styling is about as exciting as a Conservative Party Conference speech delivered by the Undersecretary of Dullness.
For a 15.6-inch notebook, the 685 is a big old thing, too, with a hefty power supply. Put the two together and you have a dreary looking lump that's also a pretty unpleasant package in terms of portability.
Appearances, however, are deceptive. This thing shifts. Partly, that's because it's got the most powerful processor in this month's group. The Intel Core i7 2820QM is not only clocked a little higher than the quadcore competition with a 2.3GHz nominal clockspeed and 3.4GHz Turbo. It also packs 8MB of cache memory where the Core i7 2630QM makes do with 6MB. All in, it makes the 2820QM about 15 per cent faster than the 2630QM.
In store Rock has also made an effort regards storage performance in the form of a pair of conventional magnetic 500GB hard drives in RAID 0. We'd rather have a smallish SSD and a large conventional drive, frankly. But as spinning magnetic platters in laptops go, Rock's RAID'ed effort is about as good as it gets.
Read the full Rock Xtreme 685 review
Sony VPC-F21Z1E/BI
There's a spoiler in every group test. This time round, the prize goes to the Sony F Series. We wish we hadn't seen it. Actually, we're pretty peeved that Sony ever sent us the damned thing.
The problem, you see, is the F Series' screen. More specifically, it's the optional Premium LCD, yours for roughly £150. At 16 inches in diagonal, it's nothing special in terms of size. The 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution is nothing out of the ordinary, either. But the quality of the panel is positively to die for.
Sony in its wisdom doesn't deign to define the precise technology used. Our money is that it's some kind of funky VA panel. Whatever, it clearly isn't TN and it clearly is one of, if not the, most delightful laptop screens it has ever been our pleasure to behold. The colours are massively more vibrant and saturated than the others.
Similarly, it generates the sort of deep, inky blacks you normally only see on a high end desktop monitor. The viewing angles are outstanding, too.
Read the full Sony VPC-F21Z1E/BI review
Toshiba Qosmio X770-107
Dell's Alienware sub-brand aside, the big boys don't normally go after the gaming dollar. Put simply, you chaps are very hard to please and it's typically judged not worth the bother. Hats off to Toshiba, therefore, for having a crack at it. As it happens, we'd been hoping the X770 would mark a return to form for Toshiba.
Five or six years ago, it made some of our favourite desktop replacement systems, you see: quality items with fantastic screens, gorgeous chassis and top notch performance. Enter the X770, therefore, with its 17.3-inch form factor and totally in-your-face styling.
For starters the keyboard is backlit in a moody shade of red. Then there's the liquid-metal effect chassis. Like it or loathe it, it certainly isn't dull. The key specs are tasty, too. The familiar Intel Core i7 2630QM quad-core processor makes another appearance, backed up by 8GB of RAM and a pair of 500GB, 7,200rpm hard drives.
The optical drive is Blu-ray write capable, too. Oh, and the whole shebang is ready to pump out stereoscopic 3D in games and movies thanks to a pair of Nvidia 3D vision goggles in USB trim and 120Hz refresh support.
Read the full Toshiba Qosmio X770-107 review
Gamign laptop benchmarks
Making sense of an awful lot of numbers
PC games come in a wide range of flavours. So we've run each laptop through a few, the better to get a broad picture of performance. Dirt 3 is a console-port game with middling graphics quality. It serves as a baseline for any PC. If it can't handle Dirt 3, you're in trouble.
World in Conflict ups the ante and throws in some CPU load for good measure. Meanwhile, the Heaven benchmark gives a glimpse of the future and 3DMark 06 puts these laptops into historical context.
Finally, the Cinebench R10 test gives a snapshot of general CPU performance and we've tested battery life while playing back 1080p video.
And the winner is...
The best gaming laptop is... MSI GT780DX
We all began with the assertion that graphics is the single most important element in any gaming laptop. That's very nearly how it turned out. If anything, in the context of laptops with stereoscopic 3D support, good graphics is even more critical than we thought.
The key offender here is the Toshiba Qosmio X770. Unlike the Sony F Series, which is also 3D enabled, the Qosmio styles itself as an out-and-out gaming rig. In many ways, it's bang on target. But by slotting in the mid-range Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M GPU instead of a high-end 3D chip, Toshiba has ended up with a laptop that makes no sense at all. As a gamer, you'd be bonkers to spend £1,500 on such an imbalanced rig.
Wondrous screen
The Sony F Series is next to fall. Sony doesn't pretend that it's a full-on gaming machine. And we'll have a hard time forgetting that wondrous screen. But there's little else to recommend it.
As for the Acer Aspire Ethos, there are lots of interesting ideas going on, such as the pop-out track pad. The chassis is nicely designed, too. But thanks to an awful screen and weak graphics performance, it's not one we can recommend.
From here on in, things get a lot tighter. The idea of a compact, ultraportable gaming rig is right up our alley. Alienware's M14x mostly delivers on that promise. At nearly £1,800, however, it's painfully expensive. For that price, we'd want a much better screen and a more powerful GPU. As it is, you'd need money to burn to buy the M14x.
Excellent value
Next up is the Medion Erazer. In absolute terms, the screen is poor, the CPU a little second rate and the graphics performance middling at best. But when you factor in a retail sticker that's nearly half the price of every other laptop here, it starts to look like darned good value.
Rock's Xtreme 786, on the other hand, is hardly what you'd call cost effective at nearly £1,800 on the nose. However, it is a monstrously powerful system with one of the fastest mobile graphics chips you can buy, a huge screen and stereoscopic 3D support. With a better chassis, it would have scored even higher.
The same goes for Rock's Xtreme 685. Thanks to AMD Radeon HD 6990M graphics, it's clearly the fastest gaming laptop on test. If maximum performance matters to you most, don't bother with the rest.
But if you factor in other metrics including cost, design, value and sheer desirability, there can be only one winner in our best gaming laptop group test. It's not the fastest system. It doesn't have the best screen or the most powerful graphics chip. It doesn't even support stereoscopic 3D or have an SSD. But it is the best overall package.
It's the only laptop here with a design that goes the extra mile to give gamers a better experience. And it's a very worthy winner. Give it up for MSI's GT780DX.
 |  |
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment