Friday, April 26, 2013

(Cheap) laptop gaming

So what kind of gaming laptop can you get for around 450 euros? Apparently a decent one if you're lucky.

Last month I ordered a Fujitsu NH532 laptop that was on sale in CDON for 449 EUR.

Specs:
- i7 3630QM (2.4GHz, 4 cores & HyperThreading)
- 8GB memory (2x 4GB DDR3 1600@1333MHz)
- GeForce 640m LE GPU, 2GB memory, with 17" 1600x900 non-glare matte display
- 500GB 5400rpm HDD (Toshiba) / Blu-Ray writer
 - Windows 8

Decent enough, with a GPU that can actually play some current games.

So what's the kicker? The GPU, while "just" an LE model, overclocks around 90-100% for the core. Yes, that means that you can run the stock 500MHz core at 900-1000MHz (personally I have settled for 950MHz core / 1000MHz memory).

Just install Nvidiainspector and make a bat-file, while running either 310.90 or the new 320 drivers (anything between those cannot be overclocked).

That means this little cheapo laptop can run Guild Wars 2, for example, around 27-28fps in a window, and way past 30fps full screen with med-high settings (I run post processing at medium because I hate some effects it has) - with FSAA enabled, textures and animation on high, reflections on, etc, etc.

So after installing a cheap 128GB Kingston SSD I had in my old Ubuntu laptop in it, I'm more than satisfied.