Crysis/Crysis Warhead

What specs on the M14x would you guys suggest for these two games? I'm on a slight budget and need to spend under $1500. Some friends have told me to go for the i7 instead of the i5 and upgrade the memory from 4GB/1333MHz to 6GB DDR at 1600 MHz. How much of a difference would that really make? I'd like to run these two games smoothly at a nice frame rate and decent settings. Not sure how great it'll be on this laptop though as I've heard some mixed things.

I would also like to upgrade the video card from 1.5 to 3.0 but I heard it's pointless.

 

Damn, my bad, meant to put this in the M14x section.

 

The i7 would help out a lot more than the RAM. My M15 has a whopping 4 gigs and can do Crysis comfortably in medium-high at native res iirc. The biggest issue with the M15 is that Geforce 555. I have the Radeon 5850 which does very well for me.

You'd imo be better off hoping and praying for a M15 with decent kit or an M17 with decent kit in the outlet store. I picked up this M15 for a little over $800 including tax, best I can figure it was probably around a $1300 computer when new in box.

 

i would definitaley ogo with the i7 over the i5. 4gb to 6gb isn't really gonna make much of a difference. if i was to increase ram i would go to 8. the 3gb video isn't gonna help much unless you connect your laptop to a bigger monitor or television and even then i dont think its gonna make much difference. i got the 4gb ram, i7 2630, and 3gb video on mine.

 

Well, i'm happy with 6gb in mine. esp as its the faster 1600mhz RAM. got the 3gb GT555m as part of a deal, but its not faster than the 1.5gb one. so get it if its bundled, but dont bother paying to upgrade!

i7 2.20ghz is a must. its a cracking processor! i've been whizzing through BF3 in high on my own, and medium/high on multiplayer! its brilliant!

If you're worried about frame rates and things on ultra mega mega setting, get an M18x with SLI. If you want a blend of portability and gaming, go for the M14x!

 

Get the i7, don't bother with the 6 GB upgrade, get 8 GB when you feel like you need it (upgrade down the line). And, don't get the upgraded GT 555m unless there is very little price difference or it's a free upgrade, more vRAM is only really going to help if you are outputting to an external display with a higher resolution.

 

Lowest i7 series processor 2630QM is sufficient enough for any modern games as GPU is the bottleneck in M14x. Dont really bother to go beyond that unless you do some hardcore programming, video rendering or number crunching stuff.

Instead of moving from 4gb to 6gb. just get 4gb ram which is also sufficent enough to run these games. but incase you require extra performance, purchase 1600Mhz RAM as these RAMs are 1300MHz clockspeed , overclocked to 1600MHZ. But again, this would be your personal choice.

3GB is total BS. dont go for it. Hardly any game will use 1.5gb+ of GPU memory. Instead use that money for better ram or SSD or any other customisation.

 

Ditto. I7 over the i5. Though it's not necessary, it's the single upgrade that will benefit you the most. Pick up 8 gb of ram, 1600mhz, from new egg. The 3.0 gb gpu won't really make much of a difference. People could argue that games would take advantage of the extra memory, but when it comes down to it, the differences in fps are negligible. Crysis 1 and warhead and really demanding games for any notebook. Maybe some gtx mobile cards can max it out. The gt555m can, but it would be 20-30 fps. Some would accept that, but I like more room incase things get heavy in battle, the fps tend to dip a lot. I played it on medium, and it was still great graphics, with around 40-60 fps. Can tweak AA, filtering, shadows, etc to get it where you like it. Can always over clock the gpu like i do to get a small boost.

 

The 3.0gb GPU upgrade can increase performance, but if you have a strict butdget the i7 is a much better buy. Honestly a good m14x is i7 2630QM (or base i7) + the 1600x900 HD+ screen.

 

I'll be 100% honest with you. There is little that you can do to this laptop in terms of performance upgrades that will give you 60fps in highest settings on Crysis.

Its one game that will test its little GT555 too far. Its playable on lower settings. 3gb over 1.5gb makes little to no difference in terms of frames per second.

Over clocking the gpu with the standard i7 is as good as you are going to get. The m14x is what it is.

Upgrades I would recommend, The screen and a better wireless card. The rest can be purchased cheaper later ( ram, ssd, HD etc )