This one from BestBuy is a gaming monster (because it has a Radeon 7970M GPU) and is rufly in your price-range:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/MSI+-+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+8GB+Memory+-+750GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/6928053.p?id=1218814314301&skuId=6928053#tab=specifications

I think for ~$100 more you could have gotten the one with the AMD 7660 graphics card, which is much more capable if you're looking to do a bit of gaming.

How much of a improvement would that show compared to what I currently have?

If I am running Skyrim on Ultra @ 30-35fps and 35-40fps on high, what could I expect from this laptop?

Edit - Is this similar to PS4 specs?

When looking into that MSI laptop it seems that while the GPU is indeed very nice, the CPU is rather weak compared to the i7-3610qm in my current laptop.

I know my current laptop can't take full advantage of the i7, but in the case of the GX60 it looks like due to the CPU it won't be able to take full advantage of the GPU.


Can anyone shed any light on this?

Thanks.

In most games that CPU will have no problem feeding the GPU, but in CPU heavy games like Sim City, Skyrim and RTS-games it would bottleneck to some degree.

Yes, it's very similar to the PS4, not just purely spec-wise but also in that the components are balanced with the exact same mentality - combine a comparatively weak CPU (but who is still able to do his job in 95% of all gaming scenarios) with a strong as possible GPU for an overall best bang for your buck for gaming.

In general, that GPU (Radeon 7970M) will run games with 100% higher FPS than the Geforce GT650M, but since Skyrim is also very CPU bound, I wouldn't expect a crazy increase in performance, but probably at least a 20-30% increase in FPS.

Alright, because I was watching some videos of Tomb Raider running on my laptop with high settings and one of Tomb Taider running on the GX60 with Ultra setting.

With my laptop it seemed the game ran fine, with some slowdown when things got hectic or when inside caves, but with the GX60 the game dropped to unplayable levels, even when dropped to low settings. Supposedly the CPU holds it back big time.

I just want to know I can handle CPU and/or GPU reliant games without much issue for the next 2-3 years, even if newer games need to be mid settings.

So what did you decide to do?

Nothing yet, been too absorbed with Bioshock Infinite.

However, I am still on the fence about turning it in, especially after finding out that if I am playing games and unplug it the battery can not deal with all the power coming through and it shuts itself off... This is a total bummer, and while NVidia say they are looking into fixing this issue (It seems to be widespread), I d just don't know...

I am seriously considering exchanging it for the MSi GX60 w/ A10 processor and the Radeon HD 7970. Just unsure how the CPU will bottleneck my unit, especially on CPU reliant games.

Edit - Yeah, every review on the GX60 that I read shows similar or worse gaming performance than a laptop equipped with an i7 processor and a GT650m graphics card. It seems that A10 processor is a real kick in the nuts and ruins the overall package.