Thinking of biting the bullet on getting a new PC as my last one wouldn't play W2 and with the new W3 coming soon maybe its time to get a new PC. My current rig is a desktop with Intel CPU i3 530 @ 2.93 GHz, 6 gigs of RAM with a Fallout CE Bobblehead sitting on top :)

Anyway, I am electing to go for a laptop due to space restrictions, two desktops just wouldn't work for me.

I'm kinda confined to Dell/Alienware for my laptop and monetarily sub €800 is all I can afford to spend on it.

Can it be done?

Thanks for any advice :)

Oh, yeah I think I would prefer win 7 as I play a lot of old games that probably wont work on W8.

<800€, Win 7 and must be able to run The Witcher 3. Pardon me for being skeptical. I would rather spend the money upgrading the desktop.

OK, thanks for that :)

Anyone have any idea of my cheapest Dell/Alienware option would be to run W3?

I would advise to sell your current desktop no matter how much it goes for and get a new desktop if there are space restrictions. Gaming Laptops are really expensive and that is what you'll need to run the Witcher 3 properly. A gaming desktop rig if you get individual components will cost you much less compared to a Dell/Alienware laptop.

Yeah but I want to keep the oldie for playing old games (still has CRT screen even ).

I cant find the specs for W3 which is kinda limiting my ability to choose something, hence the query here as it is a game that's pretty dear to everyones hearts here.

Ill probably have to look at some financing option I guess for a Laptop.

Thanks for the replies :)

No problem, if you are invested in getting a gaming laptop then you should check for other options then just Alienware like Clevo for example. Here is a link where you can see that Clevo is cheaper then the rest while having better or equivalent specs:

www.notebookcheck.net/Notebookcheck-s-Top-10-Gaming-Notebooks.98628.0.html

Cool thanks for the linkage :)

I want Dell/Alienware cos I always used Dell and I like them and like dealing with them, my other options here are Currys or PC World and I hate them both :)

I don't understand.

why would wish to play it on a laptop? W3 will be one of the graphically weighty games of he "next generation". already you are hampering yourself with a laptop, you certainly won't be able to do anything with $800. if your goal is to play it on low, or medium at the highest, then get a sub €800 laptop. it's far too early to be shopping for a laptop to play W3 because we have no clue what the system requirements are going to shape up like. we can't even ballpark anything because it's not being developed on an existing engine that anyone has any experience with playing.

if your goal is to play W3, this does not line up with your goal at all. you would be far better off to just spend less than half of your budget on a new GPU for your desktop.

I'm currently looking at Scan for a new laptop:

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/custom/professional-gaming-pc/form-factors

(You'll need to click in the options to specify laptops - won't let me link directly)

You must have more options available to you than Dell or PC World. Dell are basically fine, but they're not really any good for gaming until you get into Alienware territory - which are extremely expensive.

While I normally promote laptop gaming, in this case I have to agree with others.

My suggestions for a gaming laptop that could _possibly_ run Witcher 3 comfortably would have definitely been well over 1000€ (closer to 1500€), and even that would have been just guessing as we don't know yet how demanding W3 will be, and how well it will scale to slower PCs (including laptops). And anyways, buying PC hardware in advance for some future game is not a good idea overall (unless you really have to have the PC now). The longer you can wait, the more power you can get for the same buck.

That said, I was actually amazed how well I got e.g. Witcher 2 to run on one HP laptop last summer, which cost around 800€ if I recall correctly. Sure I had to lower lots of graphics options and run it in a lower resolutions, but even then it looked quite good and ran pretty nicely overall. I was expecting it to either be a slideshow on any settings, or even refuse to work at all.

So depending how well Witcher 3 will scale, maybe it will run pretty nicely even on a bit older and slower hardware. Highest end PCs are needed for the higher graphical options.

If one wanted to buy a laptop for running Witcher 3, or any higher end games, I guess you should look into something with NVidia Geforce GTX 880M graphics, for example ASUS 750JZ (much more expensive than $800 now, e.g. here in Finland it costs 1499€). Not sure if it will be enough to run W3 on the highest settings, but otherwise I expect it to be fully playable and looking great on it. I guess.

Oh yeah, and getting one with Windows 7 preloaded is getting harder and harder. I don't think e.g. ASUS ships any of their newer laptops with Windows 7 anymore, so you'd have to buy Win7 separately somewhere (more costly).

In my opinion backwards compatibility is not a major concern with Windows 8, compared to Windows 7. There are even some games which have (more) problems in Windows 7 than in Windows 8. I recall there is even at least one GOG game which is supported with XP, Vista and Windows 8... but not Windows 7, as there are some issues with it.

I would stay away from Alienware - they are overpriced for what you get.

Dell had some very good other laptops before (I use an XPS 17 L702x right now, I got modded Skyrim singing and dancing in HD, and witcher 2 runs smoothly, and it is over 4 years old(?) now). But Dell has gone downhill a bit the last couple of years, what I liked about them before was that you could customise the laptops - they no longer let you do so too that extent anymore.

You would get a lot more bang for your buck now from MSI, for example.

That's a good list, but I am wondering is their pricing up to date? They e.g. say that ASUS G750JZ prices start from $2249, and then they link to an Amazon offering for $2249 which comes with an uber-configuration (24GB RAM, dual hard drives with both SSD and HDD etc.). Is that really the lowest end 750JZ configuration one can buy in US?

Here in Finland you can buy ASUS G750JZ currently for under 1500€ (which I presume would be far less than $2249 in US?), but that means 8GB RAM (at this point I'd get 16GB just to be sure, especially for future games), one 750GB SSHD hard drive etc.

CDP didn't released hardware settings yet, so it's hard to predict which laptop can run W3 now.

Some great and helpful suggestions there guys thanks :)

I know bugger all about components these days, so theres a lot of really handy breakdowns for me there. As regards ram, apparently Win 7 cant handle 16gigs so Im kinda confined to 8.

So far it seems to be hitting the €1500 mark with alienware, which is kinda do-able if I finance it over 2 years :

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/alienware-17/pd.aspx

But I don't know if the €1499 components will do it and jeepers it only has a 500gb HD :(

Wait until W3 is out and then buy it. By 2015 there will be both new graphic card generation and new CPUs so you will get better laptop for same price, and laptop that will be able to run W3 will be cheaper.