Gaming... Laptop? Ew? Bear with me, life advice needed!

[D4ng3r]

Hey guys. I've been around for a while, but not super active.. I'm having fun on my current rig at home, chugging along in BF3 and keeping up with my competitive teams in Call of Duty 4.

I am about to go through a life-changing period here; just got accepted to a school just outside of Beijing, China, for full-time mandarin lessons for 6 months. I aim to become conversationally-fluent, come back to Canada, and get a job on a police force somewhere.

I can't bring my rig with me, and I have a basic laptop (i3, 4gb ram, 15.6") that I use in front of the TV. I want to have a "home comfort" while I'm overseas, and as gaming is such a large part of my life right now I wanted to bring something with me that I could still connect with my friends on back home. That leaves gaming laptops in the mix.

Right now, I see a couple options:

Bring my standard word-processing laptop, sell my current rig (it will depreciate past the point of use by the time I get back, may as well just buy a new rig then). Save up for when I get back... and just try to get by.

Buy a gaming rig that comfortably handles BF3 on, say, high graphics... something that I will be able to use for a while after I get back until I get my feet under myself and sell/upgrade to a desktop again (<3 24" monitor...). Sell current desktop (see note above).


Do you guys have any suggestions, being gamers that leave their rigs for school or whatnot? How did you fare in an unfamiliar environment? Would it be worth going for the upgraded laptop so I will have something to hold on to while I'm over there?

That all being said, I have specced out a barebones MSI 17" with a GTX 570m, 1080p display, 12GB of ddr1333, 500gb hdd, room for my 120gb SSD, and the upgraded backlit steelseries keyboard for around $1400ish after tax.

What are your thoughts guys? I KNOW desktop rigs are a better bang for my buck, but this is more about paying the premium for a gaming laptop so that I can play with my friends while overseas for 6 months.

Thanks.

Dan

[Adzsask]

I'd say selling the current rig before it loses 2/3 of it's value is genius. I would just build a basic gaming system when you arrive, I used to own a $3800 laptop, in the end I got $450 for it(3 years later) and I must say that scarred me for life losing that much money and I would never buy/recommend any laptop over $700 or so.

[D4ng3r]

Thanks Adzsask. I'm not going for a $3800 laptop (how... wut. thats super expensive).. I do have another option of buying a laptop around $700 with a 560m in it to play things on medium graphics.

[JMCD]

Originally Posted by D4ng3r

Thanks Adzsask. I'm not going for a $3800 laptop (how... wut. thats super expensive).. I do have another option of buying a laptop around $700 with a 560m in it to play things on medium graphics.

That's a great price.

I'm in the same boat as you, moving to Germany to teach English for a year later this summer. I contemplated the gaming laptop idea for a while but eventually dropped it. I plan on bringing most of my PC parts over (without the case of course) and just reassembling my pc there. I have an older i7 rig so my stuff has already depreciated in value. I also scored a 420m laptop a year ago for $500 which plays most games fine. Honestly, if you can get a 560m laptop for $700, that is a safe way to go.

[Paul88]

I was in this situation not too long ago. I moved to Australia and spent a year there. Here is my solution.... make an ITX gaming computer and take it with you as your carry on. Then buy a monitor once you get there. It would be alot cheaper then the laptop and alot more powerful. Thats what I did.


Also you can reuse most of your parts to build the itx computer.

[Razamatraz]

I was under the impression that computer parts were fairly cheap in China. Could you build one there?