A bold statement - Page 2

Several hundred thousand is a drop in the bucket for a company like IBM, see this article:
http://bellsouth.com.com/IBM+sells+P...3-5482284.html

When Lenovo takes over, the newly reconstituted PC division will have a sales of:
Asus is a wonderful company, every Motherboard I have bought in the last several years is from ASUS, they make real quality products. But comparing them to IBM is like a Tick to an Elephant. PLEAAAAAAASSSSSE.....

The XPS, of course I have, tried it at LAN parties where one of my friends owns one. That's why I mentioned it instead of an Alienware or something. The fellow who brough the XPS had the slowest computer in the room, but also the most expensive That's what you get with a gaming laptop.

OK fair enough, we at least agree that A64 is the best gaming platform. Your LT is a respectable machine, and if you really enjoy it, then who am I to tell you otherwise. At least the A64 laptops trounces the PMs in their gaming performance.

It would be really funny if he didn't set it up correctly, since he is a programmer for a local software developer working on a contract with the Defense Department.

Sorry for breaking the "end of" statement, but I have to respond to this.


You mean the Sager model. I know its existence, its specs, the fact that it has X800 (not the XT or XT PE versions, only the vanilla). No, I have never tested one, and I don't think too many in this forum have. The X800 is already almost 12 months old technology, has already been replaced by the X850, and is not even the higher version in its line (X800 XT and X800XTPE), all the more, from the graphics company that currently does not support SLI. Even dual 6800GT will have a field day this this GPU, not to mention 6800Ultra or the soon coming 6900 series in SLI.

I have friends who have hat X800XT since last May/June, and are itching to replace them already because they do not offer the best fps on the market any more, not to mentin the 9860 only has the vanilla version of X800. And I wonder How much this thing is going to weigh with 2HDDs in RAID. A Shuttle can't weigh that much.

Add injury to insult, this laptop costs well over 2k. And do you know my rig mentioned above will cost on open market? ~800 USD, about only 1/3 of your "dream machine" and will outperform it on most applications, including gaming. (5900U is slightly behind X800, but the faster CPU, 2GB RAM, lower memory latency, much higher I/O bandwidth at 2000MHz, and host of other factors will more than make up for that). And does that LCD even support >60 fps, even if the graphics can handle it on recent games. And how exactly will that Prescott perform in a small enclosed space for hours and hours (something I don't want to find out, one of my friends has a P4E 3.6 in a desktop with plenty of case cooling and robust HSF, but is registering over 85C when underload).

This is all comparing to a system that is obsolete in my eyes and one that I am trying to upgrade from. Laptops == not for serious gaming; Serious gamers == people who do not use laptops to game, except in transit.

IBM is doing it right, they really understand the market forces behind it, and what LTs are truly made up to be. And that's why we see the figures on their sales charts.

mheshan, I don't want to turn this into a protracted argument, but here are the facts about gaming laptops:

• Laptops sold in the market today are mostly for mobility and seldom exceed 10lbs. In fact, the laptops above that weight is exceedingly rare on the market:
  • Most people use laptops for businees, work, school, and casual email/surfing, but do not expect top-end performance.
  • Laptops over 10lb are a tiny fraction of the entire market and are usually not found through many regular retail channels.
  • Building heavier and heavier LTs run counter to the trend of today's mobile computing, which is going ever thinner and lighter
  • Facts about gamers, they are usually computer savvy and like to work on their own machines, and want to have the latest that tech can offer. They usually are not people who have an outgoing lifestyle, and bringing a desktop along for a LAN party is not going to stop them from gaming.
• They will see the multiple disadvantages of laptops as gaming machines because of its pricing and economy; most LTs cost about 1.5-2 times the comparable desktop, when taking into account of the monitor; but not gaming LT, which can cost >3 times the price, which means:
  • People who buy such machines are suckers for companies that snooker them into it.
  • or they are people who have so much dough that they don't know where to spend them.
  • or they are so religiously entrenched in LTs that the thought of a desktop makes them physically nauseas.
  • or their whole life purpose is to buy some cool new gadget, spend their life savings on something that does not really make economic sense; to brag on forums like this.
• There are numerous technical problems with LT being a good platform for gaming machines, these include many which are inherent for the very definitionof "LAP"top:
  • Laptops are routines behind the curves on CPU/graphics/HDD technology
  • LTs have small enclosures which prohibit excessive DTP of their CPU and GPUs
  • LTs will not have the thermal capacity to carry the newer techs later this year such as 4X GPU SLI. 2XGPU is already difficult enough to implement.
  • LTs have hard enough time fitting a 2x 7200 HDDs in RAID 0, not to mention the 15000 rpm SCSI RAID5 arrays that desktops can carry.
  • There is a lower limit on all of the laptops today in terms of the amount of max memory, for many desktops it's 4GB, and sometimes upto 16GB total.
  • Laptops have only LCDs, which do not allow higher fps that many high end first-person games require to play.
• IBM does not make these ridiculous machines for many good reasons, which is one of the reasons why they have such success in the LT business
  • They take quality seriously, which is what most LT customers care about the most, for they use them day in an day out for business, work, and school; over excessive performance, which most LT owners could do without.
  • They know that quality makes the customer come back, someone else can always beat you by putting in the latest CPU or GPU.
  • Their business is much larger than just such a small market segment is insignificant to them.
  • They know that the R & D into these designs have no guarrantee of recuperation, based on a few thousand sales figures.
  • They are an industry leader, and do not need to be the attention grabbers like lesser companies, who rely on stunts to market their inferior quality products.
• In conclusion, IMHO, IBM is doing this the right way, not bending to the pressure of a few who are reckless with their check books, know that in the long term, the vast majority of the LT users will make or break the market, and common sense will prevail.

I am not saying everyone who buys a gaming LT is wrong. But a person who is willing to spend nearly 3k for a gaming rig better be a serious gamer, or he would be someone not very intelligent with his finances. And buying even the best LT for gaming, already is placing your gaming at second-rate.