I'm thinking of scrapping or selling my old laptop to buy a new one, due to its age (its model, HP dv6-6135dx, isn't made anymore) and to have a machine with better performance (i can run RAGE and alien isolation, but both are on the slow-to-fast radius, whereas I can run human revolution director's cut and borderlands 1 & 2 extremely well with various settings)

I'm thinking of getting an Alienware computer, as they've always appealed to me aesthetic-wise and performance, but want to get one for a proper price (major contender is the alienware 13).


Add to the fact that fallout 4, mad max, and We Happy Few are coming to pc, and this adds to my need for a better machine.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Notes:

I need a laptop whose cards and processors work well with ports as well as made-for-pc games (RAGE has issues with AMD, whereas nvidia is perfect.)

The laptop i'm looking for has to be able to work with old games without me having to uninstall drivers every time (e.g. TRON 2.0 and Ghostbusters both lag when drivers are installed, but run perfectly when they're uninstalled)

I need a laptop that won't overheat so much.

You could get this one :P

I found a place called xoticpc, Their base laptop is pretty much the same as the Alienware 13, but $100 cheaper. It doesn't look like an Alienware (which do look really cool though) but it looks like they have the same performance.

EDIT: I might go with the Alienware just because of that "Graphics Amplifier" if it only works with Alienware. You can use a full Desktop GPU on a laptop. It's a bit pricey but it could extend the use of the laptop by a few years if you decide to get it later.

I swear by Asus ROG laptops. I have no idea if they have one that small though. I usually buy a 17" one.

I looked at laptops a year or so back, found alienware to be quite pricey for what they were, and various other models out there better and cheaper. My suggestion is to look at every computer website you can to see various comparisons and reviews of each possibility, maybe make a sheet with all the data on. Also factor in those companies who custom build for you. There is so much choice, and different styles/requirements its hard to narrow down for you.
Me, I ended up buying a desktop, whilst a portable gaming machine sounds great, the ones I looked at were way heavier than normal laptops, so put that on hold for the time being.

I have good experience with ASUS ROG laptops regarding that (ASUS G75VW in my case), they seem to have designed the ventilation system quite well. I've had the ASUS in active use, even took it to Thailand, for many years and haven't even dusted it off once yet, still it works fine without overheating problems, even when stress-testing it by running The Witcher 3.

The fans naturally get louder the more I stress it, but that is to be expected. It doesn't overheat. Do you mean the graphics drivers? It is hard to make such guarantees that all old games will work on machine X with graphcis drivers Y. My solution to this dilemma is to keep several PCs from different eras (and maybe different GPU families) around, increasing the likelihood to be able to run my old games at least on some of them. This is also a point for laptops: it is far easier to keep e.g. five (old or new) laptops around, than five old desktop PCs.

Oddly, lately it has seemed that my Intel HD4000 powered work laptop has the best success rate for running old Windows games. It used to be problematic with some games (like Empire Earth) but upgrading the GPU drivers to the very latest ones from Intel web site fixed even those problems. The older drivers were merely one year old, so I wasn't expecting that newer drivers would actually fix many older games. Often it seems the opposite at least for NVidia, newer drivers may introduce more backwards-compatibility problems with older games.

Naturally my test range is limited, but one GOG game that I use as a yardstick for backwards-compatibility is Gorky 17 (because it tends to have issues on different PC configurations), and it now works great on that Intel HD4000 laptop. At the same time, it has issues on that ASUS G75VW which has NVidia Geforce GPU.

Checked the Alienware-page and it seems that the 13er uses an undervolt processor, which means it's better for battery life and heat but means also a slower processor. No surprise, as it's really tough to keep 13" inch notebooks cool.

Let me ask you one question here: Do you need that notebook for the road or whatelse is important to you? If you really want a small notebook for the road, something quiet for work and good battery likfe, check the Asus Zenbook series. The UX303LN and UX32LN offered a good mix for gaming (also undervolt processor, medium ranged nVidia gpu) but also battery life and and low fan noise. If your focus is more on gaming, better go with 14" or 15". As example, the Gigabyte P34G v2 is a good 14" notebook for gaming and still portable. It was also used as basis for Schenker and I believe Clevo notebooks. That was last year, so things may have changed. But yeah, a 13" "gaming" notebook isn't in my eyes a good decision.

Edit: There is always a trade-off between horsepower (gpu&cpuj) and portabilty (heat, noise & battery life). Smaller notebooks are more problematic to cool down.

And sell a kidney or two for one in the process. =P I've been particularly taken by their Tiki desktop PC. At the same time, one can get a bigger equivalent desktop PC for less, which would also be better for user upgrades. Still... *drools*

I want new pc too.
But I have already sold my eyes and kidneys for iPhone. :P

Jokes apart but there are some pc & laptop which cost less than alienware. Also I think a gaming PC is better than a laptop.

Depends. If you are a lot on the road then no. If you play games only at home then yes.

I think there is a gaming system which looks like a small brief-case.It should work as both.

ASUS ROG

And even if I play mostly at home, I still like it how easy it is to relocate a (gaming) laptop at home. Sometimes I might want to move it to living room (e.g. connect to the TV, or watch TV while I use it), sometimes to the bedroom, etc.

Plus, as I mentioned before, if one wants to have several PCs around (e..g. because your older PC(s) have a better success rate running older games), it is easier to achieve with laptops, than with desktop PCs. I currently have 5 laptops (4 of which can be used for Windows games of different eras; one is an old non-gaming laptop running only Linux Mint, I'm right now using it for e.g. downloading all my GOG games with gogrepo.py), and one old desktop PC (also for running older Win9x and XP era games).

It is just so much easier to just close and put away a laptop, until I decide I want to use it again.

That's true, my parents still bug me to throw away the old PCs that I keep around at their place :)