Cheap laptops that can run games like LOL and Diablo III?

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I will be returning to live and work in China soon and although I have some friends there...it will be a little lonely because I will be leaving my best friends and family behind for a few years or probably a lot longer this time. I decided I will purchase a second laptop for the sole purpose of playing PC games on. I don't want to buy a fancy laptop specifically built for PC gaming that costs over a grand. I am looking to get a laptop that isn't really made for PC games, but can still run them smoothly if you want to play them on it. The games I plan to play the most are League of Legends, Diablo III and Starcraft II. I might play more here and there, but I will most likely be alright with just these 3 for a while. I was looking into maybe getting an Asus, Acer, or Lenovo. Can anyone on here recommend something cheap, yet good for me? I have checked the specs and I know what it recommends, but I just feel more comfortable getting some personal opinions on the matter.

For f***s sakes. I'm going to say it ONE MORE TIME.

CHEAP and GOOD are mutually EXCLUSIVE when talking about computers. ESPECIALLY for GAMING.

If you want games to run well, you need a GAMING laptop. Not some little $299 special from Best Buy or the like.

That being said, you can probably find something for less than a grand, but not a lot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834230236

This one should run your stated games fairly well. But understand that fairly well and smoothly are relative terms.

way to be hostile and overreact

he is however mostly right when talking about laptops, i have had everything from cheap netbooks to 3000 dollar proffesional laptops(for officework), oddly enough the best for gaming(considering price) were the slightly lower end laptops with a dedicated graphics card in proportion to the power of the hardware, because in a laptop your main bottleneck will almost always be your GPU, you should shape you system after that, AMD cards give a little more bang for the buck in my experience, but since it has been a while since i got a new laptop with a dedicated gpu i wouldnt know on modern hardware.

a decent desktop could be had for around that price i could guarantee would play those games (maybe not at a flawless 60 all the way through, but definately playable) excluding screen.

Didn't mean to be hostile, but I see this question all the time. Everyone seems to think that less expensive computers are just as good as more expensive ones and that the more expensive ones are just a ripoff.

the most expensive computers are a rip off concerning how much you get for oyur money but that is the price of having the latest and greatest in hardware.
though with laptops it does get a lot more pronounced.

I love how "everyone" asks this question, yet I get drilled for it lol. Yeah that was a little hostile. Anyway, I am not rich so I can't afford all those fancy laptops specifically for gaming. Guess what though? I like games! That is why I asked...politely by the way. Thanks Oodain.

Huh... what's cheap for you?

I've got a three year old Toshiba Satellite, with the Intel Chipset every gamer seems to hate. It runs League of Legends just fine, although I don't use the best graphic settings. I wouldn't know about Diablo III though, and I know it doesn't run Mass Effect because of the chipset,.

All in all, you should get a laptop with a dedicated graphic card. That should be the first step.

Just a clarification, this may be the case with laptops, but not desktops.

probably a better way to put it.

i would look for some of the mobile radeon HD cards, they usually provide a decent bang for the buck even in laptops, when you find one make sure it has 4gb of ram, 6 or 8 wont give you much but someitmes the price difference is non existant, the processor should be an i3, they give a good performance for the price as well.

if you make sure those 3 points are somewhat in line you should get a fairly decent laptop under a thousand bucks, as said the bottleneck will be the gpu.

Yes, Alienware and the like cost quite a bit of money. But for that money, you're getting a powerful gaming system with a large OEM behind it for warranty and support.

I build my own desktops, and that's always going to be cheaper than buying pre-built. But on the other hand, I'm also providing the warranty and support. If I screw up an overclock, it's on me, not some big computer manufacturer. So don't forget to factor in that when you're looking at cost.

My point is that you can't get Ferrari performance on a Honda budget. If you want to play games smoothly on a computer, you need a computer capable of doing that.

not every game needs to run at 16x MSAA all the time.

my old desktop only got upgraded because i had to use the credit i had at the shop, was 2 years old or so and still ran everything at close to full.
i reused the GPU untill it burned out or it would have served me well to this day
i dont know why but i think we have hit a slow rising plateau of game requirements, they dont seem to jump quite as much as they did when crysis oblivion and the likes just came out and when they do jump the actual improvement usually doesnt warrant it, but i digress

you are right one wont get a laptop capable of playing crysis at 1600x1200 with all the glitter but for strategy and top down games like LOL and starcraft 2 that shouldnt be much of an issue
i havent tried Diablo 3 so i cant say anything about its general performance but blizzard usually aim their games at the broad market meaning it wont be on the level of some other modern games, or at least it wont have to.

Ok I found that the Acer Aspire is $479.99 and my dad has the same laptop. I installed and played LoL on there and it ran smoothly on there. It only lagged a few times, but for a second. Here is a link where you can see the specs:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/BrandSubCat ... -_-NA-_-NA

Acer Aspire AS5750-6866 Notebook Intel Core i3 2350M(2.30GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel HD Graphics 3000

Here is a link to the required specs to play Diablo III:

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article ... quirements

I am wondering if an Acer Aspire would be able to play this smoothly (with graphics turned all the way down if need be)?

I am trying to avoid paying over $500 for my new laptop. I know that is pretty cheap, but I need to save my money for other expensive things. I appreciate everyone's help.

I also found this link:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Acer+-+Aspi ... &cp=1&lp=1

AMD Athlon™ II dual-core processor P340*
Features a 1066MHz frontside bus.

3GB DDR3 SDRAM
For multitasking power, expandable to 8GB.

ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics
Feature up to 256MB dedicated video memory for lush images. HDMI output with HDCP support for flexible connectivity options.

The system requirements read that I need either one of these: Intel Pentium® D 2.8 GHz or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4400+
Would an AMD Athlon II be able to handle it?

hmm its a shame its only intel graphics (not dedicated as such) in the top one since it looks like good value for money.

i dunno much about amd maybe someone else would know more?

To play high end games, you're going to need something with at least an I5, and probably an I7 processor, as well as a GPU with dedicated memory. It won't be cheap, but you can still same cash by buying a Barebones, or near barebones system and completing it yourself.

You might want to check these out:

http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php

Also, Considering the fact that you live in China, there is the possibility that you might be able to get a Barebones system cheaper in China considering the fact that most laptop computers are made in either Taiwan or China.

Here's a link with Diablo III benchmarks for the Intel HD 3000.
They were able to get 44 FPS running at 1024x768 with minimum settings. Should be playable.