laptop

[Chris79]

I'm in the process of upgrading my older work laptop to a new one. Does anyone have any suggestions pertaining to a reasonably priced laptop that could run AH3 as we'll.

[Gman]

Some type of laptop with a dedicated gaming video card.  I haven't seen a new one with an AMD card in years, but nVidia still equips over a dozen brands that I can think of off the top of my head.

MSI, Asus, Razer, Lenovo, and so on - find one with at least a 960 video card, and if you want to use most/all the graphics features one with a 970 or 980.  You should be able to find a 15 or 17" screen laptop with a 960 for 1000$ and a 970 for 1300$ without any trouble.  You can find a really good 980 equipped one with SSDs and Gsync for 2000$, even less if you look around.

Sort of like this -

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-17-3-inch-i7-6700HQ-Geforce-Windows/dp/B00YFK06J6/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&qid=1453416361&sr=8-11&keywords=msi+laptop+960

http://www.amazon.com/G751JT-WH71-WX-17-Inch-GeForce-Version/dp/B015QZVAF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453416487&sr=8-1&keywords=asus+laptop+970

[Chris79]

I am unfamiliar with gaming specs, but from what you previously described I trust "Graphics ProcessorNVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M - 4 GB GDDR5 SDRAM" wound be sufficient?

[Gman]

Yep, that`s the ticket.  If you can post the complete specs here before you buy it, just to make sure you get the best bang for your $, there are lots of people here versed on video card performance.  The CPU/Processor is important as well, but the GPU/video card is more important in terms of gaming performance, with AH3/beta, and with many other games.

Either way, a 980M is one of the fastest cards you can get in a laptop right now, so if you chose that, you should be good to go IMO.

[Chris79]

Asus

ASUS ROG G751 FullHD 17 Inch Laptop (Intel Core i7-4720HQ, 16 GB, 1TB HDD, Black) with NVIDIA GTX 965M Windows 10

This thing is pretty much at the top of my price range.
 
 
 
 

[Gman]

Shop around, you should be able to find a similar Asus model with a 970 for close to if not the same price as that one.  The 965 is an "ok" video card, but the 970 is superior, and that's the most critical thing for this game.  Still, that 965m will play the game/beta pretty well, but the 970 will be 15 or 20% better results IMO, and again, just spot checking a few places, most of the 970 equipped Asus laptops aren't much if at all more expensive than the 965M ones.

If you found that laptop on sale, or for some reason you can't match the price with a 970 equipped system, it'll probably play the beta fine, you MAY have to turn down a thing or two here or there, hard to say, but it WILL work, and pretty well at that.  I just know from experience that the 970 and 980 equipped laptops are a large step up from everything else, and that unless you found a great sale/deal on that 965M Asus, you should be able to get into a 970 one for the same $ right now.

[Skuzzy]

Here is a screenshot from an ASUS ROG laptop with an NVidia 970 in it.  This was taken with the Beta set to defaults, except the FOV was 90.

[Chris79]

ASUS ROG G751JT-WH71(WX) Gaming Laptop 4th Generation Intel Core i7 4720HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 17.3" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

Found this for $1119.99 u.s.

[Gman]

If that falls into your price range, then it's perfect.  There are some newer CPUs out, but that will more than do the trick especially with the 970 - also, compared to the 960 the 970 is actually 50 to 70 percent faster according to various sources, I'm not sure on the 965 but you won't be sorry moving to the 970, that's for sure. 

That picture Skuzzy posted looks pretty much exactly how the game looks on my desktop with everything on full blast, and essentially you'd be buying the system that he posted it from. 

[Skuzzy]

ASUS ROG G751JT-WH71(WX) Gaming Laptop 4th Generation Intel Core i7 4720HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 17.3" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

Found this for $1119.99 u.s.

That is exactly the laptop I was using.  It belongs to my Wife.  I am not crazy about the backlit keys of the keyboard, but it performs well.  The IPS monitor panel in very nice.  Runs Autocad well for my Wife.  She paired it with a Microsoft Bluetooth mouse, which works well.