Guild Wars 2

Hi all!
I’m from a country called Malaysia and will be furthering my studies in the UK soon and I’m also a big fan of GW2. I’m not a hardcore gamer by any chance, but I really enjoy spending my time playing GW2 with friends who have already furthered their studies abroad to other countries like the US and UK.

I need to buy a laptop for Uni, as currently I rely on my desktop to do my research and assignments. I wanted something decently portable but able to play gw2 at medium to high settings, and I found the Alienware 13.

I know the GTX860m would be decent enough for GW2, but in my country, the laptop only comes with the i5 model, so I was wondering if the CPU will be good enough for mid-high settings.

I know alienwares are overpriced, but over here there’s no significant difference even with clevo brands.

I would recommend that you look at buying a laptop after you get to the UK. You’ll have access to a wider variety of product and cheaper too.

Azrael.4960:

I would recommend that you look at buying a laptop after you get to the UK. You’ll have access to a wider variety of product and cheaper too.

Thanks for the recommendation! I would be leaving in September, so I heard that the new Intel processors would be out by then.

However, because the currency in my country is pretty weak, everything over there is significantly more expensive ):

Decky.8912:

Azrael.4960:

I would recommend that you look at buying a laptop after you get to the UK. You’ll have access to a wider variety of product and cheaper too.

Thanks for the recommendation! I would be leaving in September, so I heard that the new Intel processors would be out by then.

However, because the currency in my country is pretty weak, everything over there is significantly more expensive ):

I presume you are getting a stipend from the government to study over there? I suggest doing some looking around to see what is available. I used to live in the UK so I can understand the worries. The biggest consumer electronics chain over there is PC World or Currys (same company) You can get an idea from their websites as to the cost of a laptop with game capable components

I personally play ALL of my games on a gaming laptop, ASUS ROG 750. I opted for the 32gb ram and more HDD space, 2 × 512 SDD;1 × 1tb HDD. I really enjoy the laptop even if it is 17.3in screen and kind of bulky… BUT the cooling on this thing is great and I can run all of my games on ULTRA or HIGH settings no problem, hours at a time. I think you can get a 750 right now, USA for 1200$.
Games I play: Diablo 3; warcraft 3; GW2; WoW (private server =P); BF 4(High – 70FPS); Counter-Strike; Tera(High – 65FPS+)… It is a beast. Good luck in your studies as well!

Dude, don’t do it. I was in the same position and forked out 2k for an alienware mx 14 laptop. It was the biggest waste of money in my entire life. Those laptops purely and simply cannot handle the game. They will overheat like crazy, have terrible FPS (remember to consider monitor refresh rates, my mx 14 only had a 40hz moniter which resulted in extremely low fps no matter how low the game settings were). The greatest irony is that is was advertised as being able to play GW2.

The brand ‘Alienware’ used to mean something when they were an independent company but since they’ve been bought out by Dell, they rely on the old reputation to sell what is essentially just a premium label. My laptop only lasted 2 years before the hardware completely failed and not even 6 months before it started becoming utter crap.

My advice is Alienware or not, don’t bother using laptops for gaming. Buy a generic consumer end laptop for studies, but invest in a custom build for gaming so you can ensure that every part of your pc is what /you/ want and need and it’s also infinitely cheaper in the long run compared to a premade build.

Maybe it’s just my experience that I have such a heavy bias against laptops for gaming. My boyfriend chips in that he used to have a Toshiba laptop that was only thing that could run Elder scrolls 4 Oblivion at the time. However he also says he thinks the only way you could have sufficient cooling in a laptop for gaming is if it’s a 17" or larger.

Hey, I just saw your post.
I’ve recently bought a Thinkpad T440s for my uni work, and while I hoped it would run games, it was not my priority in the least. In any event, it runs GW2 just fine, I do not think the requirements on the game are that high. I am just getting back into the game, and I have not yet done any world boss fights, so not sure how the laptop will handle that, but…

this little moster, with extended battery, can give you >10h of battery life with matlab/netbeans/chrome/firefox/a few OOffice files open, and the build seems solid, my experience with thinkpads has been good. Super useful for uni.

The touchpad is a disaster, but I’ve seen the new models (T450s with broadwell) bring back the keys.

Anyways, I am happy with my laptop, and it runs GW2, so I thought I would share : )

I have an Alienware 14, which is now discontinued, you can’t buy it directly from Alienware any more, but it can run GW2 on maximum settings. Im not sure if an Alienware 13 will though, because the specs are a bit below the 14 depending on which model of the 13 you get, but you’ll definitely get it pretty high.

Considering your going to university though, I would suggest buying either an external hard drive or a 2nd, bad laptop for doing your studies with, because who wants to clog their gaming rig with a load of school work?