Be Excellent To Each Other

This is harder work than it should be I'm sure, so maybe the BEEXers can help me out.

Mrs Exhibition wants to get into WoW, which is good, her current laptop will run it reasonably well, but not excellently, and since WoW is a very nice looking game these days, I figure it's worth going the extra mile to get her something decent.

Current laptop is a Samsung R700 with a Core Duo (2.1GHz), 3GB RAM, 17 inch screen (1440x900), with an Nvidia 8400M GS graphics adapter. It's not awful as it has its own RAM, and it does make a reasonable fist of running WoW at the panel's native res, but shadows have to go completely, as does the full screen lighting effect, and other compromises.

The laptop is only a year old but it wasn't bought with any sort of gaming in mind, hence the relatively crap graphics adapter.

The replacement laptop has to be at least as good in several key areas, namely:

1) Screen size and resolution
2) Proper numberpad
3) RAM and CPU as good (it's a very snappy machine running XP 32-bit, pretty much as good as a desktop)
4) Quiet and cool when not working hard

In fact, basically, all I need is the same laptop all over again, but with a much improved graphics adapter in it. Ideally a Radeon Mobility 4850 or Nvidia 8800M/9800M (GS/GT/GTX).

Problem is, this laptop doesn't appear to exist.

Everything up to about £750 has all sorts of varieties of specs, but the one constant appears to be shit integrated Intel graphics or really low end mobility Radeons or crusty wank like the 9300M GS. Then all of a sudden you're pushing up to a grand or more to finally get into laptops with a decent graphics adapter, but everything else starts to get over the top.

The 17 inch screen is a problem too, the 17 inchers either seem to be relatively cheap (up to about £650) with wank graphics, or £1000+ powerhouses, I've specced up an Alienware laptop for £1050, which isn't far off what you end up paying for a 'mainstream' laptop once you've got the 17 inch screen and decent graphics card.

Am I missing something here? Can any BEEXers recommend a laptop they're using that I've not found?

I know WoW isn't the latest and greatest game in terms of graphic demands, but the new 'ultra' settings will tax even a decent desktop PC, especially at higher resolutions in Outland and particularly Northrend. The current laptop handles the old 'classic' WoW lands pretty nicely, but it all gets a bit flaky in Outland and Northrend.

It seems daft to be forced to spend £1000+ on a laptop just to get a £50 graphics adapter upgrade from a laptop costing about £600.

Advice and recommendations appreciated!

it might seen a daft question why not a gaming desktop. As you get more for your buck!

...and won't have to chuck it after two years.

Decent games on a laptop you say?

Heh, cool pic chinny...

I'm running on a similar laptop (Acer 7520g) with 8600M GS and 17" screen. It's been good for what I've done, WoW, EVE Online and stuff. Not on the highest details levels or anything but good enough...

If you decide to go for the upgrade, it will fail at the "Quiet and cool when not working hard", namely on the cool part as The problem of the more powerful laptops and graphics cards is heat, there will be plenty

Not an option, she does actually use the laptop all around the house, and we're on three floors too, so it earns its stripes as a laptop that gets used as a laptop, rather than a laptop that sits on the same desk 365 days a year.

Also, she often likes to settle down in the comfy chair with the laptop on her knee, pair of headphones on, and listen to music or watch a DVD, not easy to do with a desktop PC!

The 8600M GS is actually a fair bit more powerful than the 8400M GS, as is always the case with Nvidia, you have to completely ignore their branding and look at reviews/benchmarks to see how a graphics adapter will perform.

An 8600M GS would probably just about cut it, but of course there's no way to upgrade the graphics adapter in the current laptop.

With regards to heat, I'd have thought even a relatively powerful mobile graphics adapter shouldn't kick out too much heat when it's not doing anything? Although that Hybrid-SLI might help in that regard, where the puny on-board graphics do everything most of the time, and then the proper discrete graphics adapter kicks in when gaming - that technology doesn't seem to crop up in reasonably priced laptops though.

A DS?

Sorry to change the subject, but how much do you want for the old laptop?

fair enough. But i take it you will still be keeping the existing laptop? So you can have both?

Already sold to the in-laws (who are finally getting broadband) I'm afraid.

(£300, which I think is a fair price, it's a decently specced machine in pretty much mint condition, although I did catch my four year old daughter sat on it one day, it doesn't appear to have suffered any ill effects.)

I just ordered an XPS Studio 16 for £800 ish which is a smaller screen than you want but otherwise got a fair few decent components in it (including a 1GB Radeon HD 4670)

Tell her to sit closer to the screen and get her that. I'll email you the full spec from the order if you're interested.

have the good netbooks with a proper graphics card came out yet?

MSI won the group test recently Alex.

MSI GT725-210UK £1299.99

However don't kick Alienware out of bed they do a mean gaming lappy now with all kinds of options (SLI 280GTX for example).

Design & Display: Black Ripley Design
Display: 17-inch WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD (720p)
Graphics Processor : Dual 512MB ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 – CrossFireX™ Enabled!
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz (3MB Cache 1066MHz FSB)
Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium 64-bit - English
Keyboard Options: Non-Illuminated Keyboard - English
Memory: 3GB Dual Channel DDR3 SO-DIMM at 1067MHz - 1 x 2048MB + 1 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 160GB 7200 RPM SATA with Free Fall Protection
Optical Drives: 8x Dual Layer Writer (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless Network Card: Internal Realtek Wireless LAN b/g Mini Card
Sound Hardware: Internal High-Definition Audio with Surround Sound
Warranty: AlienCare 1-Year Free Phone 24/7 and Collect & Return
AlienContact: Added Bonus with any AlienSupport Selection
AlienContact - Remote Alienware Support
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mobile Binder
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Owner Identification Card
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mesh Cap
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mousepad
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Sticker
Alienware Extras: M17 Keyboard Diagram Overlay
Alienware Extras: M17 Protective Cloth Sleeve
Avatar: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Window Style: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Mouse Pointers: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Wallpaper: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Power Plan: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Automatic Updates: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Sidebar Gadgets: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
RSS Feeds: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems
Time Zones: This personalisation option is not currently available for Windows Vista® 64-bit operating systems


£1,176.20

forgot to add. the Alienware is modular IIRC and can be upgraded. They do mobile 260 and 280 GTX

A gaming laptop, you say?





More on-topic, I got a Toshiba Satellite P100 a couple of years back, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. Not sure how well they'll fit your budget, but the one I have ticks all the other boxes.

She'll get a bad back!

might be a bit steep, and no idea if it is anywhere near worth it!

http://www.maingear.com/boutique/pc/con ... roduct=537

Alienware do the same spec for spec as that for about £2900.

Here go. I even added a 3 year warranty. I didn't Raid it because it wasn't worth it.

Alienware M17x Gaming Laptop - Nebula Red edit
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9000 (2.00GHz,1066MHz FSB,6MB L2 Cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1(64 BIT)+ Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade Coupon-English edit
GRAPHICS CARD SLI™ Dual 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M edit
HARDWARE SUPPORT 3 Year Premium Warranty Support edit
LCD 17-inch Wide UXGA 1920 x 1200 - Beyond HD (1200p) Display edit
MEMORY 4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048] edit
HARD DRIVE 500GB (7,200rpm) Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Blu-Ray ROM combo (Blu-ray read only, DVD, CD read & write) Optical Drive edit
PRIMARY BATTERY 9-cell 85Whr Lithium Ion battery edit
Accessories
SECURITY SOFTWARE No Security/Anti-Virus Protection - English edit
ALIENFX COLOUR Mars Red edit
WALLPAPERS Alienhead 3D(Widescreen) edit
MOUSE POINTERS Standard edit
AVATAR Alienhead 3D edit
TIMEZONE (GMT + 00.00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London edit
WINDOW STYLE Window Style - Default edit
BLUETOOTH Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module - Europe edit
WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY Dell Wireless 1510 Half Mini Card (802.11n) European edit
Services & Software
ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE SUPPORT No Accidental Damage Support edit
Also included with your system
Gedis Bundle Reference N08W1701
Order Information Alienware M17X Order - UK
Shipping Documents English Documentation
Dell System Media Kit Alienware M17x Resource DVD
Power Supply 240W AC Adaptor
Cables UK 2M 250V Power Cord
Keyboard Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
Standard Warranty 1 Year Premium Warranty Support
AutoMatic Updates AutoMatic updates - On
Power Plan Balanced
Hidden NamePlate Engraving Generic Name Plate Engraving


Total £2,782.18

3000 pounds for a laptop. That is a silly amount of money!

Pfft that's nothing. Had I gone raid 0 C2QEE 8gb ram and so on I could have dumped about 5 grand.

Yeah, on a serious side it is a stupid ammount of money. Sadly that is what you get when you utter the words gaming and laptop in the same breath.

And of course the whole word gaming laptop is a complete oxy moron because there's really no such thing. There's a very very good reason I added the 3 year warranty. Because usually within 18 months you have either burned up the motherboard or burned up the video cards. There really is no such thing as a gaming laptop, yet these companies still continue to try and provide them completely forgetting about the heat problems (I mean FFS can you imagine what 2 280 GTX on your lap fucking feels like?). I bet you could roast marshmallows on the sodding vents FFS.

I really don't want to go over a grand, and even then I think it's a bit daft to pay that much cash. It's not that I mind spending the money in and of itself, it just seems to me that you pay a massive premium for anything considered to be a capable 'gaming laptop', when in actual fact there's fuck all difference between them and a 'normal' laptop except for a slightly faster CPU (sometimes) and a graphics adapter that, in its normal PC incarnation, would cost about sixty quid. (Instead of thirty quid.)

If they put some sort of uber heavy duty battery in there, or an extra special screen, or a super fast hard drive, then maybe - but everything else about them is the same, except some shitty 'flash' multi-coloured styling, a few LEDs that probably cost £2.57p, and a battery that still goes flat in 90 minutes if you dare to do anything other than look at the desktop whilst scratching your balls when it's not plugged in.

play.com have a massive selection, as well as THE WORST FUCKING WEBSITE in the world when it comes to looking at big long lists of stuff.

A variety of Acer Aspires have probably got the closest to ticking all the boxes up to now, but I've always considered Acer to be a bit of a cheap brand and not really one I'd trust, although 'cheap' becomes a relative term at a price point of nearly £1000.

I have to say, if I was going to spend around £1000, I would probably just go for an Alienware.

Well if you want a gaming laptop then entry level is a grand. I would pay the extra £100 or so and go Alienware.

For the very simple reason that they have been in the gaming laptop business the longest and know what they're doing. Companies like Acer, Asus and so on have not had true experience in that field and thus have no fucking idea of how quickly they overheat.

If it helps I will give you £15 for the cap

But it's bollocks though, it's not like it's unusual for people to want to play games on their computers, why the fuck should we be expected to pay such a horrendous premium for the privilege? I'm not talking about playing Crysis on high detail here, merely running a game based on an evolution of the Warcraft 3 engine at a decent resolution and with high detail settings, something that a PC with a £60 graphics card in it can manage perfectly well.

I know there are more challenges involved with the architecture of laptops (mainly heat dissipation), and would reasonably expect to pay a bit of extra cash for that, but not the hundreds of extra pounds any modicum of decent graphics performance seems to cost when provided in a laptop.

It has been a most frustrating evening, I'm still no closer to ordering anything really.

Would this apply to someone (not me, ossifer) who was thinking of emulating retro games on his new laptop?

I ask because I was googling 'SNES laptop' to see if I could do one of those 'gaming laptop, you say?' replies (I can't. Will leave it to the pros). And I saw someone emulating SNES on his laptop, and was all 'ooh, me too!'. So yeah. If I can play Super Mario World on my MacBook, I will be happy. I've looked at MacScene and stuff just now; I'm merely a tad concerned about things burning out.

Has anyone said Macbook Pro yet? No?

[throws petrol around forum and lights match]

A PC magazine did some benchmarking about a year ago and found the fastest laptop to run XP on was a Macbook Pro using Bootcamp.

If you are going to spend serious money on a laptop why spend your money on a pimped out Vauxhall Nova when you can have a Ferrari?

Not with a budget of a grand..

I think we have a different definition of gaming, fair play to JC he knows his stuff and helped me get my PC.. but his idea of gaming is lot higher than mine and a lot of folks..

It is like asking for a family car and JC suggesting a F1 car and a trailer... bless him

You're going to struggle to get anything good (or, perhaps more importantly, anything that's still good in six months) for less than a grand. TBH, I think you'll struggle for less than two grand.
Is there really, really no way you could run a desktop for gaming, and a laptop for doing "normal" stuff on? It would work out cheaper, and you'd get a better PC.

Gaming laptops are expensive because no bugger wants them, because they're so expensive.
Go fig.

Well when you say gaming computer you usually mean gaming computer. Like, top end as fast as you can go for the money. AFAIK that's always been the consensus when speccing a gaming machine.

It's only recently that you can say the word gaming and not crawl away with a sore bleeding bum tbh. Which is cool of course.

damn too late...

Because tbh they're kinda stupid and pointless. Some kid on the Alienware forum just dropped $4k on a laptop, a gaming laptop.

When I challenged him as to why the fuck you would want a bollock toaster (I mean SLI 280 in a 1" chassis?) his excuse was "I want to be able to take it to different rooms !".

Whoah... Hang on.. You just spent $2000 too much to be able to play a game in a different room. My rebuttals were.

1. You are not going to be able to have this thing on your lap unless you want to develop elephantitus in your gonads from radiation. (was a joke tbh).
2. You could have built two gaming computers with identical specs and had one in each room.

Of course he had no reply.

The reason people don't want gaming laptops is because they're fucking stupid . They're usually huge, heavy monstrous things that you can't have on your lap. So what's the point?

I have one 280GTX in my computer. I fucking hate it. I would hazard a guess and say it has stopped me gaming 60-70% of the summer because within twenty minutes my room is so fucking hot I have to shut the PC down, turn on the large oscillating fan and vacate for an hour or so.

I cannot even begin to imagine how much heat two of them in a 1" deep laptop generates.

You're right of course Grim. Very few companies provide genuine proper R&D'd gaming laptops. And of those that do? none have had the experience that Alienware have.

When you price them up Alienware usually offer the cheapest too, and as I say in laptops you need experience. The new M17 has none of the flaws the old M15 had (burn baby burn, laptop infernoooo yeah, burn the mother down) and is their best to date. It kinda winds me up when companies like MSI et al stuff some uber performance gear into a laptop without doing the research.

As an example about four years ago my ex wife brought a Sony Vaio. The spec for the time was stonking. Radeon 9200 pro (proper one, not mobile), P4 3.2ghz etc. It was hailed as a "desktop replacement". It cost her $1499. A complete and total bargain right? WRONG !. Within about 10 minutes of playing an N64 emu it would overheat and slow to a crawl and literally scald your bollocks. It was utterly and totally useless for gaming and thus all she did with it was surf the web.

That's what happens when a company with no fucking brains tries to build a gaming laptop.

In Alienware I trust (but having said that even I wouldn't trust their SLI 280 model TBH).

It's absurd though, I could build a very capable desktop gaming PC for under £500, that would kick the shit out of a £2000 'gaming laptop'.

I do accept that there's an inherent technology cost premium when this stuff is crammed into a laptop chassis, but the mark-ups that are being demanded are quite blatantly in the category of deliberately taking the piss, especially when the one single thing that would be required to make any £500+ laptop into a decent gaming laptop is the inclusion of a half-decent graphics adapter and maybe a bit of extra cooling.

It is making me wonder if retiring my second PC to different room and replacing it with a new desktop PC for the missus for WoW, with her retaining her current laptop, wouldn't be the best all round bet.

Only problem is my in-laws were dead chuffed about getting the old laptop and they've already given us the cheque for it (even though they don't have the laptop yet), TBH I don't have the heart to tell them the deal's off, so I'm going to have to get a new laptop for the missus anyway.

I may just have to breach the £1000 barrier after all, I've shopped with laptopsdirect before so may end up going for something like this.

#top">http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/ASUS_N70 ... D=1348#top

Dude, don't do it. Seriously. Is it modular? can it be (dare I say) upgraded?

At least the M17 is fully upgradable. Everything from the CPU to the GPUs, hdds, ram and so on.

And, with a Xfire setup the Alienware is actually cheaper.

I know I'm a big AW fanboy. And I know that makes me somewhat blinkered. But they have been building modular laptops that are fully upgradable* for years.

*OK I know that a good GPU for a laptop is £300 or so at least. However, that's £900 less than having to replace the entire fucking laptop.

Oh and depending on taste they're nowhere near as ugly as they used to be*

(*if you didnt like them before). This is the new ripley design

Well I'm not ordering anything tonight, it is true that we're in Alienware price territory now I suppose, would arguably make sense to go with a company that has some experience in the field.

Stupid laptops.

Alienware have recently dropped their prices like crazy. They are now becoming a Dell company and it really shows. Their upgrade prices are not as preposterous (sic) as they once were either.

I mean let's face it, a gaming laptop is 90% going to be about the GPU/s.

Xfire 3870 is more than enough tbh. And Xfire is pretty good now, with 90% of recent games all supporting it. I think as time goes on it will become more commonplace in all computers to have more than one GPU.

Also, going a bit OT.

Would 2 graphics cards working not so hard actually generate less heat than one straining it's bollocks off?

BTW. The single GPU M17 is £899. Not sure how good the 3870 is? wasn't that top of the pile before the 4850 and 4870 came along?

Or if you prefer something slightly smaller and better looking:

Yeah the 3870 is pretty high end for mobile GPUs, a single one should cope with WoW fine, I'd go for the lower res panel (1440x900), which would be a good match for the GPU.

I specced an Alienware up and it came to just over £1100 with delivery, pretty much base spec but upped the RAM to 4GB, the hard drive to 250GB, and got the illuminated keyboard.

Will sleep on it and make my mind up tomorrow

Not far off a MacbookPro there which you could dual boot into Vista or whatever. Just a thought x.

Well as long as the laptop is well designed then of course any laptop these days can play SNES games or even N64 games. But then they're not true 'gaming' laptops (if there was such a thing). A true gaming laptop can run all of the modern PC games.

Times are indeed a changin'. Because now (as we have proven recently) you can actually own a Gaming Machine (tm) for about £340 hehe. The problem is (as has been pointed out) a gaming laptop will run you 3x that spec for spec.

Let's face it. A PC has a million billion uses other than playing games. Thus it's only a tiny niche of PC owners who want to be able to play games on the go, thus, will pay the prices wanted.

The problem with 99.9999999% of laptops is they don't have proper graphics cards in them. they have that manky M before the model. For example a Geforce M8600 gets it's head ripped off and a shitting on by a real Geforce 8600. It's very very rare for a laptop to have a 'real' GPU in it, usually some cut down onboard pump that eats a fair chunk of your ram. And that's fine of course, because they are totally not intended to be gaming items.

It is very misleading though. A friend of mine got a lappy for about £800 last year and was boasting to me about how it was specced the same as an Alienware. It was.. All apart from the GPU. He fell for the Mobile Geforce 8600 and got a rotten suprise. IE - it was shit. He tried to install regular Nforce Forceware drivers only to discover the hard truth, his card wasn't a true Geforce 8600 it was a shite mobile edition that was actually fuck all like a real 8600.

Thus he couldn't play fuck all games even at their lowest settings and thus wasted £400 on that laptop because a regular olde truste lappy would have been about £400.

Bringing us right back to gaming laptop and why I would always choose Alienware (even if it meant buying a second hand older model for the same cash as a new shit laptop). Not that I would, because I would never, ever buy a used gaming laptop.

[puts on black polo neck and engages the special smug chip that came with his Mac]

Exactly. All those Alienware machibes look pig ugly and huge. I really wouldn't swap my MBP 15 inch for anything.

Yes it does get hot but it doesn't slow down and even with the skin I have on mine its still sleek and gets used. And you have the advantage of Windows for games while you use OSX for everything else. I'm even running Parallels at the moment while editing HD footage as I prefer to do my audio editing in Cooledit under XP.

That keyboard is fuckin sex dude

You do realise they offer an upgrade service right? and don't charge for anything but shipping and the parts should you decide at a later date to add another GPU?

BTW. Get the 3 yrs warranty. It's fuckin ace because they offer a like for like part replacement.

Drool.

It's a gaming laptop. It'll be out of date in 6 months. What makes you think it'll even be worth running in 3 years?

I have an idea.

Put an X-Box in every room of your house. It'll be cheaper and not as joyless.

It won't even run in two years. It'll probably burn up. Thus, you send it back to Alienware who then have to replace part for part like for like LOL.

Which usually means they send you the latest current model haha. Seen it happen loads of times on the Alienware forum. People coming on who didn't clean their fans and vents regularly with no display on the screen. Back it goes RMA, back it comes to them as a new laptop because AW don't stock the parts any more

Of all the complaints of dead laptops on there?

1. They're usually 13 months old or slightly older.
2. The person complaining didn't take out the 3 yr warranty.

A good gaming PC has a 3 year shelf life, so I can't see any reason at all why a gaming laptop wouldn't be the same. Thus for what you're paying it's well worth protecting your investment IMO.

Just to add. Over two years ago I brought a cheapo PC in parts and built it myself. It was a core 2 duo Allendale 1.8ghz with a radeon 1650 pro (that was always shit, I paid $59 for it) and 2gb ram.

TBH? if I still had it (gave it away) it could still run new games (all be it on low settings). It ran Fallout 3 on medium. Sadly the draw distances were utter plop. IIRC though the 3870 was absolute bleeding edge when I got the 1650, the 1650 was always a budget uber low end card.

So yeah, I'm pretty stupid. Just over a year later I dropped £500 total on a quad core phenom/9800GT PC and then a year after that I dropped £530 on this Alienware.

However, I don't drink and don't have a car etc so £500 a year is what I shall spend on PCs. Mainly because they're my hobby. I mean sheeeet, if I had a drug problem, drink problem (or even social drinking) or a car I would spend a lot more per year on those.

Infact come to think of it the sport package I just got on Sky will cost me £400 a year and I only watch that at the weekends.

Well if you enjoy PC gaming then fair play to you. The people I know who gamed on their PC's got locked into an endless cycle of expense and stability problems. Last PC game I played was Vice City which I enjoyed on a Athlon 1800 with GEForce oooohhh, 4 was it?

All ran fine for me. I didn't feel compelled to run the game on its highest setting. Half the problem with the PC gamers I know/knew were they felt compelled to run every game at the maximum settings.

Well I never, EVER buy what is considered bleeding edge hardware Chinny because I think people that do are cupid stunts TBH.

The reason? bullshit. You are absolute bullshit bound.

Take my pal Ryan in the USA. Last year (quite early last year) he decided to build a blistering PC. An absolute barn stormer. He ordered himself an EVGA 790i SLI ultra board (running the new uber DDR3 or DDR£ as I call it), a $400 sound card, etc, etc.

Set it all up, booted it. BSOD. Tried again. BSOD. Phoned EVGA who then said "sorry, even though we said in the manual that it was compatible with the ram you have and probably why you spent top fucking dollar on that ram it isn't, so you need to downclock the ram". He's still waiting for a bios update because even though it doesn't BSOD anywhere near as much as it used to it still does, right when he isn't expecting it.

That's what happens man, it's fucking STUPID to buy the absolute latest hardware because they usually rush it out without ironing out all of the creases.

Even my video card (which I do consider to be somewhat cutting edge) has been around for a year. However, I clearly remember a year ago reading all kinds of rancid horror stories about BSODS due to early drivers being buggy. I wait a year, Nvidia make TWO cards better than my 280 and I paid 1/3 of what it cost last year. Hilarious part is that no new games have even made it break a sweat.

£500 a year is nothing really for PC gaming. Next year I will get a Phenom 2 (I am kinda leaning that way as they're supposed to be very good) and some DDR£.So, next year should only be a £250 tops expenditure for PC gaming