<p>My suitemate did the best thing, he brought his mega-gaming desktop here then bought a cheap used laptop on ebay for in-class notetaking and using the internet around campus.</p>
<p>I admit that I have a rather powerful Dell 6000, but I don't expect it to last for games forever. (Which is why I have a console as well)</p>
<p>I know some one who likes his Dell XPS...starts at $899 on the Dell website.</p>
<p>No, in the elite pc market, most companies suck. If you understand computers at all (you sound like you do) Then just build your own. It is extremely easy. I built one and it is fantastic. Um, i think that pcgamer had a "how to build your own pc" issue a few months back. Get one of those, and look at newegg.com (the best website ever, tied with CC and wikipedia) Newegg is really cheap and really fast (wow i sound like an ad)</p>
<p>Dont try to build a laptop, that is stupid. Dont buy a gaming laptop, they suck (no battery life, wimpiness, heavy, stupid, expensive beyond belief)</p>
<p>Buy a cheap laptop and build your own computer, lol in the expensive game market, the money you save by building your own desktop, is sometimes enough to buy you a cheap laptop! i think i saved about $500-$1000 by building my own. Dont worry about not having a warrenty, in college, even if you mess it up, someone will be able to fix it for you.</p>
<p>Oh and it doesnt take very long, once you get the stuff, it takes about a weekend for your first time, or a few hours once you know how to do it (like your second time)</p>
<p>If your not sure if you are ready, then let me tell you this, if you have ever installed a video card, or a hard drive or even simply opened the side of your pc's case, then you are prepared enough to do this.</p>
<p>PM me if you need help with anything, pc's are my hobby and i have a ton of experience. (i built my own computer/helped a friend build his)</p>
<p>Oh and consoles suck when compared to a pc, but they are a lot cheaper!</p>
<p>(300-400$ for an xbox 360 vs 300-400$ for just a top of the line video card (graphics))</p>
<p>I'd imagine the new MacBook Pro would be good for games. If my iBook is okay, the one with the newer chip should just be better.</p>
<p>You can get a really nice gaming laptop for around 1000 bucks. Go buy a Dell 9300 right now on Ebay. Get the cheapest one (800ish) with a 64mb ATI X300 gfx card and the worst processor and ram. Then go buy a Nvidia 6800 Go on ebay and a 1.6 GHZ Pentium M 400FSB (400 is very important), like 1 GB of ram. That will cost you around 300 bucks. Now open up your laptop, carefully take out the X300 and replace it with 6800 GO. 6800 is the highest the power supply can handle, above that you will have to replace it which is a total pain. Anyway then install the 1.6GHZ CPU in there and rip out the old processor (most likely a 1.6GHZ, 533FSB). First go online and search for pin overclock guides. You can safely overclock a 1.6GHZ 400fsb to 2.1GHZ 533fsb. Then install the ram. Voila, you got yourself a very nice computer that can handle any games out there for a very very low price, lower even if you resell the processor that came with the computer.</p>
<p>That sounds like a good plan lixuelai. Do you have any overheating problems?</p>
<p>No as long as you are careful and use Arctic Silver paste to help dissipate the heat you should be find. The laptop is designed to be able to handle a 2.1ghz processor and probably even higher so over heating should not be a problem.</p>
<p>If you do what lix said, be very very careful when ripping out the innards. It can be done [quite easily, in fact] but is also quite easy to mess up.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Why not just buy a decent mobile laptop for $700-800 and then build yourself a nice desktop for around $400-500? I'm running on an AMD 3200 64bit, gig of ram, 120gig hd, windows 2000 pro ;) with a 6600 GT, and it only cost about $450.</p>
<p>falcon northwest ;)</p>
<p>gg.</p>