Advice on a laptop that can run CoH in Ultra Mode

Hi all,

Hoping someone can point me in the direction of a reasonably priced laptop that can handle CoH in Ultra Mode or at least have the ability to upgrade to a vid card that can. Looking to stay in the $500-800 range if possible. I've only owned desktops so I don't really know how easy it is to switch out Vid cards or add RAM to a laptop. It seems like most of the laptops I've looked at have integrated cards. Father XMas where are you?? ;-)
Thanks in advance.

There's pretty much no laptops out there that you can switch the video cards out (not counting before you order it you 'customize' it). Most of them can have their RAM upgraded, but you might have to replace the chips instead of adding more, as well as doing some disassembly.

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220695

Not as cheap as you want, but this is what I use and the only lag I ever get is that one spot in the Vanguard HQ. You know what I'm talkin' about.

Buy this and you most likely won't need a new laptop for three or four years. I've had NO problems with it yet, ATI drivers and all. Runs perfect.

As far as I can tell, the only way you'll get a gaming laptop for $500-$800 is to buy it used and/or from a pawnshop.

Laptops are rarely upgradeable, and the upgrades that can be done are usually just replacing memory chips and/or replacing the hard drive.

For a good gaming laptop that will serve you for years, you're going to have to shell out $1200 or more.

Most of what needs to be said has been said.

Mobile chipsets are generally way down on power from their desktop cousins. For example, the Mobile GTX 285 from Nvidia only does around 38,400 Megatexels. In shader performance, that's less powerful than a GTS 250.

Of course, performance in a GPU is more than just the theoretical limits of how many Texels or Pixels a graphics card can push. What matters is how efficient a graphics card is. How much of that theoretical power can the card actually tap. Case in point: the RadeonHD 4850. It's on-paper rendering power is quite a bit below the GTS 250, with a slightly lower Pixel fill-rate and nearly half the Texel fill-rate. Yet, in actual games, the RadeonHD 4850 can keep up with and best the 9800 GTX / GTS 250.

As of right now, from a purely theoretical performance point of view, the only laptop GPU's that could run CoH's ultra mode would be:

GTX 260m
GTX 280m
GTX 285m

RadeonHD Mobile 4850
RadeonHD Mobile 4860
RadeonHD Mobile 4870

RadeonHD Mobile 5830
RadeonHD Mobile 5850
RadeonHD Mobile 5870

You won't find any of these graphics chipsets under the $1000 mark new.

You can find a Recertified system with a GTX 260 if you look around.

For something new that will run Ultra Mode? You'd be looking at $1400+ for a Radeon, and a lot more for a Geforce card as they've been pulled from the market.