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What's the best budget laptop ($700) range


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My son wants a new laptop for mild gaming and he is currently looking at a K55 asus model with the i7 processor and Intel HD video. There was recently a sale on another asus model with the amd a8 apu which had a higher graphics rating on windows experience index. We are in Canada so suggestions from our market would be helpful. tx

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You might be able to find an Acer Aspire with a GT 640m and an i7 3630QM for about $700. That's okay for gaming, especially with some overclocking.

Else anything with a high-end and current generation APU of AMD will be a very good choice when it comes to gaming in this price range.

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Thank svl7.

I was a huge AMD fan back when their CPU's were competitive with the Intel CPU's and it looks like AMD's APU solution is a good design alternative/idea.

I think my son wants to stick with Asus because I have a g75vw and his older brother has an Asus laptop (with the Intel HD graphics).

You might be able to find an Acer Aspire with a GT 640m and an i7 3630QM for about $700. That's okay for gaming, especially with some overclocking.

Else anything with a high-end and current generation APU of AMD will be a very good choice when it comes to gaming in this price range.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

if you're willing to pay slightly more (800-850). you can look into getting a lenovo y500 i7 3630qm gt 650m 2gb gddr5 15.6" FHD LED LCD. they always have sales for it on their website savings of 450$.. and you can find a cashback site that will give u another 6-8% cashback rebate ontop of the sale price.

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Similar to the Y500, the Y580 is also in that price range. The advantage over the Y500 would be its ability to use Optimus Technology, however the Y500 does have the option to run an SLi GPU setup. Depends on what you want. Again these two are a bit above your asking price, but are well worth it. I thoroughly enjoy using my Y580!

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as 'xcskiier23' says, using overclocked y580 with unlocked bios(and custom cooling pad :)) and games like Rage, Dishonored, Need4Speed, Deus Ex run surprisingly playable on mid to high details(well, it's 'only' lcd frame projection fps max, but it must be ready for every situation, when new areas are loading or in perforamce heavy momnet etc. - it will not drop fps).

my first though was to buy nb in similar price you are asking, but after a hour considerations, in these days, it comes one of the most.

wish you luck

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  • 2 weeks later...

Personally I recommend that you do not get an AMD APU. I tried to get an A10-4600m with a 7660g running well and I simply could not do it. The system had very bad stuttering that I simply could not fix. I doubt that the stutter was not just my system in particular since with the tweaks I did (locked NB frequency to max, locked CPU to 2.7GHz/3.2GHz, tightened memory timings including CAS)I was significantly outscoring a default APU, but the stuttering was still just as bad.

I think the main reason for the stutter was terrible driver management. With GPU-Z and afterburner you can see the GPU clocks switching several times per second between 324, 485, and 685. I tried to lock the GPU frequency to max, but disabling power saving features would lock the GPU to either 324 or power-on clocks (200).

The stuttering was so bad that I would definitely recommend an HD4000 over it even though in benchmarks the APU usually scores much higher. If you can get a dedicated GPU though in your price range then by all means get that over the HD4000 though.

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Going to tag along and vote for a Lenovo. To stay closer to your price range, you can pick on of the Y400 models.

Lenovo has had some pretty awesome sales on the Y-series lately. My friend has the Y500 and loves it.

Both the Y400 and the Y500 have a GT750M which is quite adequate for the price.

$719 Y400:

i5-3230M

$749 Y400:

i7-3630QM

both have 8GB RAM

14" 1366x768 display

1TB 5400 RPM HDD

Not bad at all.

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I bought this (Amazon.com: Acer TimelineU M5-481TG-6814 14-Inch Ultrabook (Gun Metal Gray): Computers & Accessories), the Acer TimelineU M5 14in from Newegg when it was $650 during Christmas Week in 2012. But now the price has gone up.

A few weeks ago my Acer was stolen so I went all out and got the Y500 (IdeaPad Y500 Laptop - Dual Graphics - 59371963 - Dusk Black | Lenovo | (US)). This has dual GT750M in SLI and an Intel 3630QM, with 16GB of RAM.

The one I got may be overkill for you, so the single GPU Y500 at $849 should be the one you look at. Choosing between Y400 and Y500 is easy. If you prefer to have full HD 1080p screen, go for the Y500, if not the Y400 with 1366x768 resolution is good enough. With the GT750M in it, it can handle most modern games just fine, prob not at the highest settings but mid high settings is no problem.

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