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Long ago I failed to understand the point of gaming notebooks. They never seemed fast enough to run the games I cared to play and I always had a decent desktop that I could either build real quick or use whenever the need for gaming arose. In the past few years however I’ve come to really appreciate them, mainly because of their portability and ease of setup.
Whenever I’d have an impromptu LAN party at my house the first several hours were always spent scrounging up hardware, installing Windows, configuring systems and dealing with silly problems that never cropped up before that night. I never had the space or spare hardware to leave gaming machines ready, and if I did have a system setup I’d eventually just start using it for testing as soon as our LAN party was over. My friends weren’t the biggest fan of this. Systems that were ready a day before were now running SYSMark.
And here’s where gaming notebooks really came into play. Mobile GPUs have gotten powerful enough that it’s possible to play games that are a generation old, quite well. You can even play the latest titles if you’ve got enough GPU horsepower or turn down the settings a bit.
Mobile CPUs are also easily comparable to desktop counterparts, so you’re not giving up anything in that department. And with the advent of SSDs you can actually equalize disk performance between your notebook and desktop as well.
So when ASUS asked me what I’d like to see in a gaming notebook, without limits, I got a bit excited.
Upgradability is terribly important with gaming notebooks; mobile GPUs can quickly get out of date, especially with major PC game titles coming out every 12 – 24 months it’s real easy for your gaming notebook to be lacking in the umph department. The problem with GPU upgradability in notebooks is that the thermals for these things are rarely designed to be forward looking enough to accommodate any GPU, but hey this is my dreamworld so I want a gaming notebook that can accept at least one to two generations of GPU upgrades. CPU upgrades are a necessity but we’ve got those already, so I don’t need to ask for too much here.
Display panel technology is particularly important, I’d like to see an IPS or PVA panel used in the notebook, preferably with a 1920×1200 display resolution. The TN panels that are oh-so-common on notebooks can be nice, but I’d prefer something a bit better for my dream gaming notebook.
Stylistically I’d point no further to the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro from Apple, they’ve got the best build quality out of any notebook I’ve used and look great. Just because this is a functional device doesn’t mean that it can’t be pretty too.
Given that gaming notebooks are generally large I’d like to see two 2.5” drives used here, a SSD boot drive using Intel’s X25-M for applications and main game installs, as well as a large (500GB
perhaps?) mechanical disk drive for game images, backups and all other data.
The final request would simply be for a healthy set of I/O ports. I’d like to see DVI or DisplayPort out standard for connecting to a larger monitor. I hate to mention Apple again in such a gaming focused discussion, but I believe it may have hit on something important with its latest 24” display. Apple includes a power connector for the MacBook/MacBook Pro on its 24” display, making it easy to keep your notebook charged and connected to an external display without using your cumbersome power brick (speaking of which, a more svelte power brick would be nice too). To get such a thing for our dream gaming notebook would obviously require some standardization and work between both the notebook makers and the display vendors, something Apple doesn’t have to worry about given its control of the entire platform, but a particularly optimistic PC OEM could easily deliver something similar.
There are my thoughts – how about yours? Did I leave anything out?
What would you like to see on your ideal gaming notebook?
Wouldn't a swappable bay (like with HDD/DVD drives) be a good solution for upgradable graphics? I mean instead of opening up your entire computer to replace the GPU, because if you're a gamer you'll be replacing the GPU more than anything else.
It would have to be a small bay though, a little bigger than an MXM card to keep the chassis down to size.
It would also be faster than all the external solutions because they run off of USB & Express Cards. Although the interface would have to be standardized and not proprietary (like MXM).
PVA panels are generally terrible for input lag, so go with S-IPS or TN for gaming.
Something like a "Mac Air" but with "Tablet" Screen (with touchscreen for drawing/painting with cool IPHONE-like touch interface) with a Recharging Dock that holds a more powerful GPU and Blu-Ray R/W.
The idea is so that you can have power at home (with simple quick connection) and lightness/flexibility when travelling.
Also the Touchscreen can double as input device (along with wireless keyboard & mouse) when connected to dock and large monitor.
Just 1 idea... External video cards. Solves the upgrade issue if you can just plug a new standard PCI-e card into an external housing and then connect it to your laptop. You also don't have to have an overpowered video card when your not gaming.
I would actually like to see an option with gaming notebooks to use Docking stations. Not USB wanna-be's. TRUE docking stations.
I haven't read all comments, but skimming over them I did not find any MXM solutions mentioned. Now this may be a technology that's virtually never been used in the past, but it does exist, remember the ASUS EAH3850 Trinity that had three ATI 3850 on MXM modules, connected to a single PCIe board that circulated the 'net in March '08?
In my opinion, a perfect gaming notebook should allow to use any MXM card, i.e. at least support MXM-HE (the biggest and most power hungry form factor). If this does not cover the amount of power that can be drawn from an MXM slot, it would be nice if the cooling solution supported that as well.
I realize that there are not many MXM cards, that ODMs have their reasons for not supporting MXM, and that there is only so much that can be put into a laptop because it doesn't make sense to use a graphics card which needs more power than a PCIe slot can supply. But as you said, we're talking about a dream laptop here, and GPU upgradability certainly is on the top of my wishlist. Since there are no other mobile GPU standards than MXM, MXM it is.
Helo Anand. Since you asked for feedback whether we like this kind of posts in future, i can tell you that i am delighted by your idea. I support your efforts in this because this is the way new technologies are created. From people experienced enough just like you. A modular gaming (and what else) notebook is my dream too. And this kind of idea will open a whole new era in game design where we can play the game story in co-op mode between let's say three people. I think if you continue with this kind of posts and we show strong support i am sure vendors will take your ideas in account for the next product design team meeting.
I wish you all the best and keep up the good work. If you want to comment this comment, please write me at mile@astronomija.com.mk
to mention the Apple laptops again. What if they invented ePCI-E and when you want to game with your 13" laptop, just bring an external GPU-case that will work in hybrid (think Macbook Pro) with your current graphics card.
Why can't my laptop be a keyboard, monitor and mouse for my gaming server? Please provide inputs and a KMM switch and allow me to reduce the amount of peripherals that I must carry.
Exchangeable optical and hdd bay would be preferable so you can insert second battery solution, i would prefer some sort of low graphic solution like nv 9300gt or ati 3200 gpu with external pci-e solution, so if you want to game carry external graphic with appropriate cooling.
60W is maximum on laptop that gpu can dissipate and that variant is only on 6+kg units which are nightmare to carry.
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