New Laptop

[brettt777]

Hello. I am wondering if I might get a few words of advise from some of you experts. I have a Dell XPS 710 and an old Inspiron 8500 laptop. I am wanting to replace both of them with one fairly high end (as high end as I can afford anyway) laptop for work stuff but also for gaming. I have been looking at a few different laptops but haven't been able to decide. Here's what I have narrowed it down to:

- An HP Envy 17 with an i7-720QM processor and a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD 5850 video card
- A Dell Alienware M17x with an i5-520M processor and a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD 5870 video card
- A Sony VAIO EC with an i5-540 processor and a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD 5650 video card

I have heard good things about Sony's VAIO. They are comparably priced but their best gaming machine doesn't have quite the horsepower I was wanting in a video card.
The Dell machine would be ideal and they certainly look pretty cool but it's a bit out of my price range.
I am leaning kind of towards the HP Envy. It has pretty decent power and is within my price range. But I have read a number of reviews talking about the problems it has with getting too hot and having issues with shutting down from the heat or at least being uncomfortable
to operate because it gets so hot.
I have also looked at some somewhat off brands like an MSI that is almost identical to the HP Envy as far as what it has in it, but There again I saw reviews talking about overheating problems.
If I got one of those cool pads or chill mats, would that be enough to keep the thing from melting down even during moderate to intense gaming?
If anyone has any suggestions of other makes/models I would be forever in your debt. I am certainly not dedicated to any of these machines although I have owned a number of Dells and they have been pretty much trouble free for the most part (and those Alienware machines look so cool!)<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

[txnetcop]

Hello. I am wondering if I might get a few words of advise from some of you experts. I have a Dell XPS 710 and an old Inspiron 8500 laptop. I am wanting to replace both of them with one fairly high end (as high end as I can afford anyway) laptop for work stuff but also for gaming. I have been looking at a few different laptops but haven't been able to decide. Here's what I have narrowed it down to:

- An HP Envy 17 with an i7-720QM processor and a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD 5850 video card
- A Dell Alienware M17x with an i5-520M processor and a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD 5870 video card
- A Sony VAIO EC with an i5-540 processor and a 1GB Mobility Radeon HD 5650 video card

I have heard good things about Sony's VAIO. They are comparably priced but their best gaming machine doesn't have quite the horsepower I was wanting in a video card.
The Dell machine would be ideal and they certainly look pretty cool but it's a bit out of my price range.
I am leaning kind of towards the HP Envy. It has pretty decent power and is within my price range. But I have read a number of reviews talking about the problems it has with getting too hot and having issues with shutting down from the heat or at least being uncomfortable
to operate because it gets so hot.
I have also looked at some somewhat off brands like an MSI that is almost identical to the HP Envy as far as what it has in it, but There again I saw reviews talking about overheating problems.
If I got one of those cool pads or chill mats, would that be enough to keep the thing from melting down even during moderate to intense gaming?
If anyone has any suggestions of other makes/models I would be forever in your debt. I am certainly not dedicated to any of these machines although I have owned a number of Dells and they have been pretty much trouble free for the most part (and those Alienware machines look so cool!)<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

Brett I test computer equipment at TechCorp in Austin. We thoroughly test everything that comes to us from mfgs and report to them only. We do not write reviews but I can tell of a laptop that we were all impressed with and yes you will need need a laptop rest with good fans, the cooling sucks by itself.
MSI GX740-079US NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 17.0" Wide SXGA+ 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. It cost $1400 but it is worth every penny. The beta copy had an issue with some of the lesser games but ran all the new games flawlessly and extremely fast. I ran FSX Deluxe just for kicks and sp1 sp2 did not have acceration...again excellent handling. Not earth-shattering but stutters were almost non-existant and I probably could have eliminated them entirely but we are not supposed to run benchmark tests with FSX.



The ASUS G73 came in second but we had two video card failures in row so that raised some concern as to GPU placement inside the unit. It also is extremely fast.

Hope this helps
Ted

[brettt777]

Brett I test computer equipment at TechCorp in Austin. We thoroughly test everything that comes to us from mfgs and report to them only. We do not write reviews but I can tell of a laptop that we were all impressed with and yes you will need need a laptop rest with good fans, the cooling sucks by itself.
MSI GX740-079US NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 17.0" Wide SXGA+ 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870. It cost $1400 but it is worth every penny. The beta copy had an issue with some of the lesser games but ran all the new games flawlessly and extremely fast. I ran FSX Deluxe just for kicks and sp1 sp2 did not have acceration...again excellent handling. Not earth-shattering but stutters were almost non-existant and I probably could have eliminated them entirely but we are not supposed to run benchmark tests with FSX.



The ASUS G73 came in second but we had two video card failures in row so that raised some concern as to GPU placement inside the unit. It also is extremely fast.

Hope this helps
Ted

This helps tremendously. Thank you very much. Yesterday I had actualy been looking at an Asus G series machine for about the same price, with the same specs only it had 8gb of RAM. Over 100 out of 169 reviews gave it 5 stars. I will take a look at the MSI machine. Thanks again. Oh and I love the JW quote. Have a blessed day!