With the announcement yesterday, I have 2 months to get something that will play D3 on the highest settings. I am sure the current machine will not be able to do it, so I have been on the hunt for the last month or so. I have considered an Alienware, but I have read posts on here that seem to put them in a bad light. I have read alot of reviews about them, and the vast majority were good or great. The price tag is insane for a laptop, and some of that is buying a name. I have also been looking into the Asus G74SX-A2, which is a pretty damn good machine as well. I am not going to say that money is not an object, but I can talk myself into dropping a good bit of change on what I want.

I have went back and forth about buying a desktop or laptop. I like to be able to move to different places in the house to play, so a laptop is what I would rather have. I planned on getting a dual N band router to help speed things up, but would I be better off connecting by wire? I guess it would not be the end of the world to make a place for a desktop and just stick it out there. I would probably need to put a exhaust fan above me to suck out all the cig smoke. I have considered building a desktop, but I dont want to run into compatibillity issues and messing around with drivers, or possibly frying something.

So, I guess what I am asking for is an assist in the direction I need to go, or bringing to light something I am overlooking.

I have a laptop, dell xps i5 4gb ram with an nvidia GT525m at 1366x768 I play beta on lowest setting "which still look amazing" and get 60-70fps in beta but only 20-30 on high settings, so if you want to play on high you'll need an i5 or i7 with a GTXm card "expensive"
Asus do make good gaming laptops but the alienware/dell stuff is good despite all the negative comments, I've never had a problem with mine.

From my experiance in beta you need to have 60fps or it lags with so much going on the screen.
I think you'd be happier with the performance of a desktop if you want high setting "which don't look much different than low"
I like closing the lid and putting my laptop away after a d3 session xD with no bulky desktop and cables everywhere !

With the announcement yesterday, I have 2 months to get something that will play D3 on the highest settings. I am sure the current machine will not be able to do it, so I have been on the hunt for the last month or so. I have considered an Alienware, but I have read posts on here that seem to put them in a bad light. I have read alot of reviews about them, and the vast majority were good or great. The price tag is insane for a laptop, and some of that is buying a name. I have also been looking into the Asus G74SX-A2, which is a pretty damn good machine as well. I am not going to say that money is not an object, but I can talk myself into dropping a good bit of change on what I want.

I have went back and forth about buying a desktop or laptop. I like to be able to move to different places in the house to play, so a laptop is what I would rather have. I planned on getting a dual N band router to help speed things up, but would I be better off connecting by wire? I guess it would not be the end of the world to make a place for a desktop and just stick it out there. I would probably need to put a exhaust fan above me to suck out all the cig smoke. I have considered building a desktop, but I dont want to run into compatibillity issues and messing around with drivers, or possibly frying something.

So, I guess what I am asking for is an assist in the direction I need to go, or bringing to light something I am overlooking.

Go for laptop man :-)

And do yourself a favor, buy this pad. I have been using it for more than six months and they cooling, comfort + sound improvement is really great!

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:P9gwK1ej3OwJ:www.logitech.com/notebook-products/cooling-pads/devices/6564+&cd=7&hl=cs&ct=clnk&gl=cz

You are right Dells are overpriced , but asus are good dont buy some crap like acer though...

I am suggesting MSI, Asus..

try looking here

http://www.bestgaminglaptop.net/articles-guides/top-10-gaming-laptops/

When you say you like the idea of being able to move to different places in the house to play, what do you mean exactly ? Because the term "laptop" for these machines is probably not appropriate : don't expect to be able to play with these (like the Asus notebook you mentioned) on your laps while watching TV in your living room. If what you want is to be able to play in 2 different rooms, on a desk, then yes they are an option. But you will need to bring the huge power brick with you too. If these are like my M1730, the performance drops a lot when you are on battery power, and since the power consumption is very high, you won't be able to use it for a long period of time unplugged anyway. So basically, these notebooks are good for desktop replacement, that you can more easily move from one place to another, but you don't get the same portability as a "standard" notebook. If this is what you are looking for, I would personally lean a bit more toward the MSI GT780DX-406US : http://www.msimobile.com/level3_productpage.aspx?id=337. The most important aspect in any gaming rig is the video card, and this one has a GTX 570M and is cheaper than the Asus. It seems more balanced for gaming.

But for the price you obviously want a desktop, since you could have better performance for almost half the price (only the tower though, not the monitor).

Think about that and if you have any more questions let us know.

If you've got the space go with a desktop. Way more bang for the buck.

By moving around the house I mean to be able to set the laptop on the coffee table, bar, or kitchen table, and also keeping it plugged in. Battery life is not an issue and not very important really. I have never checked out a MSI laptop, and for the price, it seems pretty good. In the laptop review that BohemianStalker linked, it came in 4th behind a Clevo and 2 Alienware setups. I know this has little to do with the most important part of a gaming rig, but the MSI has Dynaudio speakers. This is cool because I was into sound quality car audio for a good while and I had Dynaudio speakers. They were hand assembled in Denmark and the cost was stupid for car speakers. To this day they are the best speakers I have ever heard. I know laptop sound leaves alot to be desired, but it would still be cool, to me anyway.

I guess the need for a little mobility comes from not turning into a hermit. I could see myself taking up a corner of my room and not ever coming out if I was tied down by a desktop. With a laptop I can move to the living room and at least be in the same room as my wife, even though she cant stand to hear me clicking so much on the mouse!

Is a wireless connection reliable enough to play D3 on? I have only played single player D2 and have never went on Battlenet, so I dont really know. Thanks for the links guys. I am going to look into MSI a little more. For 1700$ its not enough to break the bank. Everytime I go through and start adding options to an Alienware, I get up to the 2,500$ to 3,000$ range, and that is just absolutely crazy, and I dont think necessary to play D3.

For 1700$ you could build 2 decent desktops for the price of one laptop

(the above will not include a new monitor, so you'd have to be happy with your current monitor and that is what you'd have to move from one desktop to the other)

you don't need a beast to run D3 all blizz games run on low end machines, if you could see beta running on my dell xps with a 525m you'd be impressed. Alienware with 4gb ram and a gt540 will run great

By moving around the house I mean to be able to set the laptop on the coffee table, bar, or kitchen table, and also keeping it plugged in. Battery life is not an issue and not very important really. I have never checked out a MSI laptop, and for the price, it seems pretty good. In the laptop review that BohemianStalker linked, it came in 4th behind a Clevo and 2 Alienware setups. I know this has little to do with the most important part of a gaming rig, but the MSI has Dynaudio speakers. This is cool because I was into sound quality car audio for a good while and I had Dynaudio speakers. They were hand assembled in Denmark and the cost was stupid for car speakers. To this day they are the best speakers I have ever heard. I know laptop sound leaves alot to be desired, but it would still be cool, to me anyway.

I guess the need for a little mobility comes from not turning into a hermit. I could see myself taking up a corner of my room and not ever coming out if I was tied down by a desktop. With a laptop I can move to the living room and at least be in the same room as my wife, even though she cant stand to hear me clicking so much on the mouse!

Is a wireless connection reliable enough to play D3 on? I have only played single player D2 and have never went on Battlenet, so I dont really know. Thanks for the links guys. I am going to look into MSI a little more. For 1700$ its not enough to break the bank. Everytime I go through and start adding options to an Alienware, I get up to the 2,500$ to 3,000$ range, and that is just absolutely crazy, and I dont think necessary to play D3.

Wi-fi will do just fine. And your wife will surelly appreciate no wires around house (I know my family does).

By the way, Diablo3 does not have to communicate with server as often as other games, in other words it is a pretty stable game. Most of lags and spikes which are happening now are cause by unoptimized beta servers.

The only moment I would hesitate is you telling me you are a hardcore player. I think I would go for wire here(but meh, that is propably just superstition, WI-fi is ok even in this case :-)

Yea a wireless connection for DIII should be sufficient. I don't know what is the layout of your house / kitchen / bar, but if you want wired connection speed / reliability you could use powerline Ethernet. Linksys has some nice products, you can either buy a 1 port or a 4 ports adapter (http://home.cisco.com/en-us/promotions/powerline/compare). All you would need to do is to plug in one adapter next to your router, link your router to the adapter with an ethernet cable, plug in the other adapter in a wall socket where you want to get access to your network / internet, and use a short ethernet cable to plug it to your notebook. I don't know how elegant it would be though, if you can't hide the short ethernet cable.

And just so you know, the model I linked will allow you to completely max out DIII. I chose it because the initial Asus notebook your talked about was even more expensive so it seemed to me that you wanted something in that price range. Otherwise there are also cheaper options that would allow you to ~max DIII too but obviously this model is pretty neat and it has great features (I love backlit keyboards). If you decide to go for the notebook option I would highly recommend you to use a laptop cooler (something like the Zalman ZM-NC2000B).

Otherwise if you need some advises for a desktop, we'll help you out.

It seems you're pretty set on a laptop so here's some additional thoughts for you:

1) Do you want glossy or matte screen
2) Do resolution and/or screen quality matter to you?
3) Do noiselevels, size and weight matter or not?
4) Will you be using the laptops keyboard and/or trackpad? Do you want a specific style (chiclet,..) and backlight or not?
5) SSD or not? Maybe combined with mechanical HDD?

1) Do you want glossy or matte screen


I don't know why anyone would want a glossy screen.

I don't know why anyone would want a glossy screen.

Hahaha :) I know, but for some reason some people like brighter colors with screen reflections better than accurate colors... go figure.

I am pretty set on a laptop, but I cant rule out the possibillity of a desktop. Noise, size and weight are not a big deal. I have been doing some homework on SSD and how one of these drives would effect D3 play. I have think the developers of D3 had in mind the vast majority of people that will play this game will have a standard mechanical drive. I am sure in the future, the mechanical drive will go the way of the dinosaur, as less moving parts is always better and it would seem to me less hard drive failures. Adding a SSD will make a laptop more expensive no matter how you look at it. Gonna keep on grinding till I find what I want I guess!

Hey Tilitoon, do you know if MSI is made or assembled in the USA? Even if they were just assembled in the USA, I would buy one for sure. I am just about sold on them.

Hey Tilitoon, do you know if MSI is made or assembled in the USA? Even if they were just assembled in the USA, I would buy one for sure. I am just about sold on them.

Most of the electronic stuff is made in Asia, MSI is a Taiwanese company. Not sure if they are assembled in the US, I doubt it. I haven't used their support yet, as I only bought motherboards from them and they never failed so I don't know how good it is. They are all around the world and in the business for more than 25 years (longer than Asus).

I didn't figure they were made or assembled in the USA, but it would have been cool. I am a union worker so I at least try to buy things made in America. It's a rare thing actually. I think MSI would be a good brand to go with, but I had never heard of them, and I am trying to find out what I can about them. Thanks.

For what it's worth, I don't know of any major laptop brand still manufactured or assembled in the US.
MSI is on of the biggest motherboard companies (they sell to big pc builders like Dell or HP) and they're originally from Taiwan. They manufacture in mainland China like everyone else now. Their laptops are generally known as good value for money, especially the gaming models.

About the SSD: It will not help D3 specifically but I advise SSD's for an overall more pleasant experience.

OK, I got a chance to play the beta for 2 days from the site. I was curious as to how my current laptop would handle the game. I have DSL for my Internet and it's probably not the fastest in the world by no means. On the latency bar I was averaging between 110 and 160 ms latency, which is probably not very good.
My issue is the game was running slow, as in my character kinda seemed like she was on downers or something. It wasn't so bad in a small place, but out in the world it was bad. I wasn't getting any skipping or anything, but during the skeleton king with all kinds of stuff going on, it would skip around some and slow down more. I download the latest driver for the ATI mobility radeon 4850 that's in my laptop but it didn't seem to help. I was also playing with wifi connection. I went into the options and tried to lower the settings but I never could tell any difference.
My question is this: was the problem my laptop not being up to par, or the Internet speed not being fast enough? I found out I only was at a 3 mb download speed and switched it to 12 which is the highest I can get in my area for DSL. It won't Chang till this weekend so I don't know if that will help or not. I watched some videos on YouTube op D3 playthroughs and they all showed a character movement much faster than what I was seeing. I can fix the computer part as I planned on getting something else anyway. If the DSL isn't going to be good enough to play the game than I am screwed.
Sorry for the wall of text, but if anybody could help me out I would appreciate it very much.

I don't think an internet connection problem would make the game seem to run slower. You would probably experience a delay when the loot is dropped from chests and monsters and the mobs would probably skips / teleport. If the game is generally slow and even slower in bigger environments, it would be client related.

What's the CPU in that machine ?
That video card should be able to handle the game at pretty much max, but did you lower the visual quality to see if it would help ?

Also, there are some problem with the Agent program, which could cause issues like the one you are experiencing. The best fix so far is to add "-launch" at the end of the shortcut to the DIII program so it would look like "Diablo III Beta\Diablo III.exe" -launch. You can also look at the task manager while the game is running to make sure you don't have multiple instances of DIII / the Agent or the Launcher.

The processor is an AMD Turion II P540 dual core @ 2.4 GHz with 4 Gb DDR3 RAM.
I missed the first day of the 2 days because I didnt see the private message in my inbox, which totally sucks. I never thought to look, and its crazy I even seen it when I did because I was going to edit my profile and saw the message. It took the better part of 5 Hrs to download the beta client, the whole time I am freaking out. I finally get to play it and its all slow like I mentioned. I changed the graphics settings to all the lowest settings and it didnt change anything. I tried changing the foreground FPS settings and left the background FPS settings low like they were already. Nothing seemed to change anything. As far as loot dropping there was no problem with that, the chests and things would drop the loot immediately and monsters would spawn immediately and they moved pretty much like I have seen in the youtube videos, which makes my character being slow all that much stranger. There was already a level 13 wizard made and I played it first, and it was the same as with the character I started, as far as being slow. I crafted a pair of boots with 7% FRW and it still didnt help.
Even though there was problems, I still loved the game. It was dark and gloomy just the way I wanted it to be. If I ever get another chance to play, I will check the task manager, I did not even think about doing that. Thanks for the help Tilitoon.

Yeah that's definitely a problem on your end and doesn't have to do with the network/internet connection. I know exactly what you mean when you say your character seems to move slowly. I get the same issue whenever I try to record a video of the game with Fraps, especially with Fraps picking up sound as well. My FPS drops to about 20, so there is no actual noticeable stutter, but the game and characters do seem to move slower than normal.

As for why it's doing it for you, I really don't know. The obvious question is if you were running Fraps as well; or any other programs while you had the game running. Another reason could be the double-game issue as Tilitoon described. Are you running Windows XP?

Your video card and processor seem like they would run the game pretty decently, so I don't think it's a problem with your laptop's hardware.

Yea he would not be able to record a quality video with a "standard" laptop with fraps because he most likely has a single 5200RPM hard drive. To record @ 1080p you need to record on a separate physical hard drive than your OS + it needs to be at the very least a decent 7200RPM hard drive like the Caviar black or, ideally, an SSD.

I have been doing some research. I really like the MSI laptop if I go in that direction. For what it has and the price, there is not much that can beat it. Alienwares are just to high, the price they want for certain add-ons like RAM is rediculous. I will list some of the parts I have came up with:

Case: Corsair Obsidian 800 High tower
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200 Gold
Processor: Core i5 2500K
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB
GPU: MSI 580 GTX Twin Frozr
SSD: Intel 160 GB
HD: Western Digital 1 TB Caviar Black
Some kind of DVDR with Blue Ray playback, Windows 7 64 bit, Logitech or Razr gaming keyboard, Logitech or Razr mouse

I need some help on which Mobo to choose at this point. I would like to stay open to a dual video card option in the future and I am not sure if the Mobo would have to have accomodations for that. Also, I like an ASUS 23 inch screen, but would that be to big? I think some of those choices could be cut back a little to save on money, but I could probably swing what I have listed. Putting in some place holder numbers I came up with around 2300 bucks. Anybody have any other suggestions? I would like to use a MSI Mobo, but its whatever will work with what I have listed is fine.

Those are some high quality components you've selected.

The 800D is one of the best case out there, this is not a cheap case with flimsy side panels, this is a huge and heavy full tower case made of steal. I could go on for a few pages about all its features, but I'm sure you pretty much know them all by now. If you are not planning on carrying that computer to LAN parties then this is pretty much the ultimate case.

Another excellent Corsair product, the AX1200 Gold... It's a bit too much even for dual video cards but... I guess if you are ever going triple then you will be able to...

i5 2500K, the classic, can't get a better gaming CPU for the price.

Corsair Vangeance, to complete your Corsair trio, good memory.

Intel SSD, probably the most reliable SSD at the moment, they get the first pick for the controllers, they have the least number of returns. There are other cheaper choices but if the price is ok for you, then you get what you pay for.

Can't go wrong with the Caviar Black.

I'd favor Logitech for the keyboard and mouse if you want to stick to your "high quality parts" theme.

Now for the video card... The MSI 580 GTX Twin Frozr would have been a great choice a few weeks ago but now that the 680 is out you might want to check it out. It'll be much less power hungry, it generates a lot less heat, which mean it'll be easier to SLI. Speaking about SLI, if you want to go for the Twin Frozr model (this is a great model by the way), the only downside is that you can't sandwich two of them together. So if you want to SLI with these, you'll have to make sure you have at least one extra slot free between them otherwise they will suffocate. You probably won't be able to triple SLI for that reason. If you want to use 2 or 3 next to each other, you'll have to go for the typical blower style heatsink.

For the mobo you have a lot of choices, ASRock, Asus, MSI and Gigabyte all have good boards. If you go for Asus, their higher end gaming boards are labeled with ROG (Republic Of Gamers). They are pricey but they are pretty much the best, if you are planning on overclocking they won't let you down. Otherwise their P8Z68 line is excellent too. As long as you don't pick an mAXT board, you'll be fine. Make sure it supports SLI... Since you go for the Corsair 800D case, it can even support bigger motherboards (eATX) so if you find one with a nice arrangement of PCI-E16X slots for tripple SLI then it could be an option. If you want maximum future-proofness make sure the board has Gen 3 PCI express slots. It's not a big deal at the moment because only the GTX680 and the 7970 are using it (and it doesn't give you much more performance), but the upcomming video cards will be using it so...

23" is not too big if you have the space for it. I'm sitting at less than a meter of a 26" Samsung and a 30" Dell next to each other and I love it. Might not be ideal, but a 23" monitor for gaming is definitely a thing to consider, especialy with the setup you are looking for. It'd be a shame to buy a GTX580 (or even more powerful, GTX680 or dual GTX580) and game on a small screen at a low resolution. Actually the only reason I would go SLI would be if I would be using 3 monitors for 3D Vision Surround. Make sure the panel has low input lag / response time, that's what you want for gaming.

Question : What aftermarket cooler will you put on that CPU ? May I suggest the Corsair H100, seems like it would fit your build ?

Are you planning on playing other games besides D3? Since you are talking SLI I'm guessing so. If not, that GPU seems rather overkill. At half the cost, a 6870 can run the beta on max settings.

And 23' monitors are awesome. I've got an Asus brand one and everything looks amazing.

I was in exactly the same boat, looking for a new laptop for D3.

After quite a bit of research I've finally ordered this:
- MSI GT780DX (i5 2450m, GT570m, matte screen, gaming keyboard)
- Crucial m4 128 GB SSD (will swap it with the 500 GB HDD)
- Steelseries D3 mouse
- Sennheiser headphones

It should be delivered this afternoon! I will be ready for May 15th :-)

I was in exactly the same boat, looking for a new laptop for D3.

After quite a bit of research I've finally ordered this:
- MSI GT780DX (i5 2450m, GT570m, matte screen, gaming keyboard)
- Crucial m4 128 GB SSD (will swap it with the 500 GB HDD)
- Steelseries D3 mouse
- Sennheiser headphones

It should be delivered this afternoon! I will be ready for May 15th :-)

Hell yea, this should be a rather impressive laptop to game on. Please post your first impression here when you get it. Do you have Beta access ?

I am still seriously considering getting an MSI laptop. Did you order yours from the MSI website? Moneywise, the MSI laptop is going to be hard to beat. I have kinda gotten into looking for parts and planning a PC build, and I know I can do it.

I was in exactly the same boat, looking for a new laptop for D3.

After quite a bit of research I've finally ordered this:
- MSI GT780DX (i5 2450m, GT570m, matte screen, gaming keyboard)
- Crucial m4 128 GB SSD (will swap it with the 500 GB HDD)
- Steelseries D3 mouse
- Sennheiser headphones

It should be delivered this afternoon! I will be ready for May 15th :-)

Wow, that looks like an awesome laptop! The price especially shocked me. Those parts in an Alienware would probably be close to hitting the $3000 mark. That would definitely future-proof your portable gaming experience.

@Tilitoon, maybe you can answer this for me. I have lots of desktop hardware experience but none with laptops. What does a 'discrete graphics card' mean for a laptop? Can you actually swap it out for a different compatible card in the future, or does it just mean that it's dedicated graphics but not able to be swapped?



darkstarhub: I've been using a 22" Samsung 2ms monitor for a few years now, and it's great. Huge upgrade from a 19" monitor and once you go that size, you will never want to go back. Make sure it's at most 5ms response time, but the less the better. Also make sure its native resolution is at a 16:9 aspect ratio. Mine is 16:10 and while it's not a huge deal, 16:9 is more standard so you'll encounter less software compatibility issues at 16:9.

@Tilitoon, maybe you can answer this for me. I have lots of desktop hardware experience but none with laptops. What does a 'discrete graphics card' mean for a laptop? Can you actually swap it out for a different compatible card in the future, or does it just mean that it's dedicated graphics but not able to be swapped?

I think it simply means dedicated graphics... having discreet graphics and having the possibility to swap the video card are two separate things as far as I can tell. And I'm not even sure if it would be mentionned in the official specs when you can manually change the video card, because it's not something meant to be done by the average consumer anyway. One of the places you might be able to look at and see if you can do it with your laptop model would be to go on the official product webpage and look for the support / troubleshooting section. There might also be an online manual. If there is a section showing you how to replace the video card then you will know it is possible to do so. You can also go on ebay and type in your model number and "video card" and you may find some video cards that are on sale.

So do you know that it is even possible in some laptops then? As I said, no experience with laptop hardware. Only thing I've ever heard of that you can change is RAM, drives, and battery.

I just bought Samsung G7A with i7-2670QM, Radeon 6970, 8 GB Ram. In beta i got about 70 fps with all settings high and res 1920x1080. I thought about MSI and Asus (with GF 560M, 570M) but Radeon has better performance. I checked also external monitor (Dell UltraSharp 2312) and cause of 60Mhz refresh rate You must have vertical sync option enabled.
It's a pretty fine laptop and cause my company bought me it i'm double happy :thumbup:. Compare power and price it's a decent choice.
Edit: Review http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Samsung-Series-7-Gamer-700G7A-Notebook.66523.0.html I got model with slightly better processor.
The display is awesome and minus of this laptop is it weight. About 4 kg and 1 kg for power source. More like desktop replacement to use at home.

So do you know that it is even possible in some laptops then? As I said, no experience with laptop hardware. Only thing I've ever heard of that you can change is RAM, drives, and battery.

Yea mine allows it (XPS M1730). You can check out this thread (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?823549-So-I-fixed-my-computer-by-baking-it) if you want to know how I fixed my video card. I could have bought one on eBay but it would have cost me about 550 bucks... or I could have chosen a cheaper video card model instead but I didn't want to do that obviously.


I just bought Samsung G7A with i7-2670QM, Radeon 6970, 8 GB Ram.

Seems like a good laptop, do you know how much it was ?

Most laptops dont have the ability to change video cards, but I am sure most companies are coming around to include more than the ability to add RAM. I am pretty sure Alienware laptops have the ability to change video cards.

The MSI laptop I am interested in is $1750, has i7 2670, 12 gb RAM, 3gb Geforce 570m, 1 TB in Raid 0, and the ability to move it around. The build I had in mind costs $2300, has i5 2500, 8 gb RAM, 1.5 gb Geforce 580(MSI TwinFrozr), 1 TB HD/160 GB SSD, and stuck in place. OK, here is my logic, flawed as it may be do to things I done in high school:wink:!

- If I want to be able to move around the house, from bedroom, to kitchen, to living room, I can do that with laptop. Stuck in corner of room with desktop.
- Desktop would be wired connection, a little more stable than Wifi, as I have had several issues with wireless routers going out.
- Desktop with 23" screen would be superior to 17.3" screen on laptop
- i7 vs. i5 probably not going to make a whole lot of difference in playing D3, but i7 would be preparing more for future
- 12 gb vs. 8 gb RAM again, probably not going to make a huge difference in playing D3, would help in future
- Video card= This is the big area, of course. I dont have plans to play any other game besides D3, but I cant say for sure I wouldn't try another game at some time, and future games for PC are going to be more reliant on a fast GPU. I would like to have the ability to do an SLI configuration with 2 Geforce cards, or Crossfire with ATI(have not ruled them out yet). Those MSI Twin Frozr cards look so cool, which means nothing as I would never see it, and performance is what matters.
- Hard drive configuration: I could get an MSI laptop with SSD and HD, but it would increase the price substantially. Is the SSD going to make much difference as far as playing D3, probably not. To make the computer viable for a longer time after purchase, I feel an SSD is a must.
- The MSI laptop would come ready to go. I would have to put a PC together, which I have never done, and could lead to frying something. Now, I am very mechanical and good with my hands. I work with 3,500 degree(F) thermite to weld rail together, and I am pretty damn good at it. I have always done my own work on my cars, and everything has always worked out. I knew I would get the ideas going in different directions once I started thinking this through.

Sorry for what probably seems like the rantings of a mad man. I have a little bit of money to play around with this, as I have been preparing for awhile by saving some money just for this. I got it! I will get the MSI and build a desktop!:yes:

Surprisingly as it sounds, the laptop actually seems like a better deal in this case. It seems fairly future-proof, and for the money that you save by not getting the desktop ($550), it will go a long way towards building a desktop PC in the near future. I'm not all at sure how you can come up with a PC that will run you $2300 when you can probably get a very capable PC that can run D3 and the next few years of latest-gen games with ease for ~$1000.

The desktop seems inferior in almost every way in the current state, minus the screen. You can just as easily get a 23" monitor and use it for your laptop's primary or secondary screen whenever you don't mind being stationary.

If you have choices for what hardware you use in the laptop, maybe you could opt for a downgrade of RAM from 12GB to ~8GB, and upgrade to an SSD instead, or save more money towards your desktop build. You will not need more than 8GB of RAM for gaming currently.

@Tillitoon: unfortunately no beta access :-(

@darkstarhub: ordered from a dutch webshop (azerty.nl), it was about € 1475 (incl. SSD, mouse & headphones). If you want SSD, just order it separately, it's cheaper. I do highly recommend going for SDD, since the HDD is always by far the weakest (slowest) chain in any computer.

@Diabolico: I don't think there are many, if any, laptops with interchangeable graphics cards.

Laptop was a bit delayed, but it just got delivered. Looks great, tomorrow I will have some time to install the SDD & OS. Still have more than a month to go... It actually has a MSI gaming mouse with it, now I have two gaming mouses :jig:

PS I chose a laptop so I can game at the living room table while my wife is watching her TV series :-)

Hey Grishok how is the MSI treating you? I have tried to ask a few questions by email to a customer service rep and I have not gotten very far. I asked about changing the hard drives around to a SSD/SATA drive combination instead of the 2 500 GB HD in Raid 0 configuration it comes with and the dude sent a link to system recovery info. And subsequent attempts at info have been handled in similar fashion. I dont really know if I want to go that direction if thats the kind of customer service I am going to get if I have a problem.

Hey Grishok how is the MSI treating you? I have tried to ask a few questions by email to a customer service rep and I have not gotten very far. I asked about changing the hard drives around to a SSD/SATA drive combination instead of the 2 500 GB HD in Raid 0 configuration it comes with and the dude sent a link to system recovery info. And subsequent attempts at info have been handled in similar fashion. I dont really know if I want to go that direction if thats the kind of customer service I am going to get if I have a problem.

I think you're going to find that kind of problem with any kind of computer product and any brand. Just have to keep trying to contact more/different customer service reps and hope you find someone that has some kind of technical knowledge instead of googling for answers to your questions (and poorly at that).

Things I've done so far:
- Removed the 500 GB HD
- installed the SSD (in same bay, used HDD screws and strip). Will install the HDD at a later time, need to buy a 2.5" connection set (strip+screws).
- Discovered there is no W7 DVD in the box... (sigh, nowadays all new PC's have a recovery partition on the HDD instead of a DVD). I don't like the pre-installed crap anyway, prefer a clean install.
- Downloaded W7 x64 Prof (Dutch) SP1 ISO from MS, with checksum check
- Used the utility to make this any W7 version (changes one bit in the ISO to remove a certain .inf file)
- Burned DVD
- Installed on SSD as W7 Home Premium (=compatible with OEM key)
- Used key on laptop (underneath battery pack)
- Installed fine, but activation failed, told me to dial MS number (=automatic process, no operator on the phone), got code by SMS, activation OK! PS: This process of downloading and using the OEM key is completely legal.
- Downloaded drivers from MSI website, or newer ones directly from Intel, nVidia etc.
- Now installing drivers, looking good!

Startup is insane, takes only 10s to boot into Windows :-) Matte screen is great, keyboard feels solid, instant response on starting explorer or internet explorer.

Unfortunately I've got VERY little time these weeks, so progress on finishing the install is slow. End of April probably, but definately before May 15th ^^

You could maybe use the pre-installed OS and recover to the SDD, but I haven't got experience with this process, I prefer the clean install way. There are excellent guides on helping with clean install process on the internet (where to download, how to make the DVD, what to do after install), but it has to be your cup of tea. If this is too much hassle, you could buy a SSD/HDD GT780DX version, but they are much more expensive (1900-2000 euros).

After a long thought process, I have decided to build a desktop. I might spring for the MSI laptop later this year if I get some good overtime this summer. I think the deciding factor was all the negative reviews I found for MSI, kinda split between bad customer service and poor quality and workmanship. There is no way I am going to pay that much for a laptop and have any of the issues I read about. I will give them more time and see how well thier quality stands up.

I really got into researching parts and putting together a build, so the decision was made. I may not have it done by release, but the laptop I have now will allow me to make due until the build is done. I ordered the power supply and case from newegg yesterday, so its underway. They had a combo deal for the Corsair AX750 gold power supply and Corsair Obsidian 650 case and a 15% off promo code for the power suppply. Got a good discount there and no shipping! Saved about a hundred bucks on the first 2 pieces, and thats not adding in that both have a 20$ mail in rebate.



You could maybe use the pre-installed OS and recover to the SDD, but I haven't got experience with this process, I prefer the clean install way. There are excellent guides on helping with clean install process on the internet (where to download, how to make the DVD, what to do after install), but it has to be your cup of tea. If this is too much hassle, you could buy a SSD/HDD GT780DX version, but they are much more expensive (1900-2000 euros).

The new MSI laptops with the Geforce 680 card had an option for a HDD/SSD, but no price. The one you mention wth HDD/SSD is 2,600$ (American). So that was out. If I was single, it would be different, but alas, I have other people I am responsible for.

I ordered the power supply and case from newegg yesterday, so its underway. They had a combo deal for the Corsair AX750 gold power supply and Corsair Obsidian 650 case and a 15% off promo code for the power suppply.

Good choices :)

The more I think about doing this build, the more excited I get. I wish I could get it all at once and have it ready for launch. But, I have to balance this out with normal living costs, and with the economy the way it is in the US, I might not have a job tomorrow. I may wait a day anyway at launch, I am sure the servers are going to be maxed out and lag will probably be crazy. Hopefully the rumors of the game being better optimized at launch are true. If that's the case it won't be to bad playing on my laptop.

I am still looking around at video cards, I haven't made my mind up 100% on which one I want. How much difference does 320 bit and 384 bit make? Also, the i5 will work with a Z77 chipset right?

Thanks for the help.

I am still looking around at video cards, I haven't made my mind up 100% on which one I want. How much difference does 320 bit and 384 bit make?

You would be better off looking at benchmarks of the specific models you are referring to than the mere memory interface spec. But I would say the memory bandwidth is usually a better spec to look for.


Also, the i5 will work with a Z77 chipset right?

Sure, that's socket 1155. Now that Ivy is out, you may want to check it out, although the gaming performances don't seem to be much better than Sandy (maybe some updated drivers will help in the future).

PS The MSI laptop is rocking D3!

Everything on High (except shadows on Med), 1920x1080 @ 60-100 fps.

I thought I would update my own thread instead of making a new one. I almost have everything for the build now. As far as main components, I still have to decide on a motherboard. The board I have had on my newegg list is the gigabyte ud5h z77 WiFi, and that's what I am 99% sure I am going to get. I also need to get a copy of windows, but that's a given. I don't need a lamptron fan controller, or to switch out case fans to bitfenix spectre pro 200mm, but it would be nice. I can't wait to get this thing going, I know it has taken me awhile, but it's starting to get close to actually happening.

The build is this:

i5 2500k
EVGA GeForce 570 (2.5 GB VRAM model)
8GB Corsair low profile vengeance RAM
Corsair gold 750 watt power supply
Corsair Obsidian 650 case
Crucial 128 GB SSD
500 GB external hard drive
Noctua 120 mm CPU cooler with the new PWM fans
ASUS 2ms 24 inch monitor
ASUS DVDR
logitech keyboard and mouse

If anybody has info on or uses the gigabyte board I mentioned, please let me know. Or, if you just have a recommendation, it would be very much appreciated.

Can't go wrong with that board.

Edit: Do you already own your 2500K ? If not, you may want to consider Ivy, since you'll get some extra features with your Z77 board, otherwise, not a big deal.

Everything I listed, I already have. I considered getting an Ivy, but for what I am going to be doing, the i5 2500k will be fine. I kinda wish I would have went with an Ivy, just to be a little more future proof. The GPU and CPU I have should do me fine, as I don't play any of the games that are really tough on the system. My other side-idea in all this is that I want to build my son a system. By the time I get all the stuff for him, I could use the GeForce 570 and i5 in his system and get something a little better for mine. I don't know, if everything runs good on what I am doing now, I will probably just leave it all together. All I plan on doing with it is playing D3 and "maybe" TL2.

Damn, you kinda have me wishing I would have spent another hundred bucks to get the Ivy. I should be fine though, as I don't have alot of things ever going at once. I have my laptop to set beside me for anything else.

You wouldn't get much more performance out of Ivy, it's just that you don't get some of the features available on the Z77 + Ivy combo, like HD 4000 IGP with QuickSync, PCI3.0, native USB 3.0, things like that.

There's also the fact that Ivy is more energy efficient than it's predecessor, saving nearly a third on wattage. If you run you machine 24/7 like I do, that's a fair bit off the electricity bill.

I could have went with the Ivy Bridge i5 3570K, as it and the i5 2500K were at the same price pretty much. The EVGA Geforce 570 is PCI 2.0, so would it have even mattered having PCI 3.0? I guess this goes with being a little more future proof, if I would have went with the Ivy and the Gigabyte Geforce 670, both being PCI 3.0. At this point, I just want to be able to play D3 at high settings. I dont really have the time to get into another game, as I spend to much time on D3 as it is!

I can always upgrade things as I go along. I got a logitech keyboard just to get started, but there are several mechanical keyboards I would rather have from Razer and Corsair. I have been using a logitech G500 mouse since last December, and it is still going strong, so I got another one. I have learned alot so far, and spent a good amount of money, but I cant wait to get this thing put together. I REALLy hope that all the parts I have are good. It will suck so hard if something is bad. I have not opened any of the sensitive parts to avoid possibly giving them a static shock since I have carpet in my house.

Don't worry, your parts list is pretty solid, you'll have a blast with your new computer, hopefully D3 will get better with the next patch and you'll have a good time.

You don't really get real benefits with PCIE3.0, even with the supported video cards, the performance increase is like 1% (which is pretty much in the margin of errors range for benchmarks). The only slight benefit you would get is if you are using a 8X slot, then it's the equivalent of a 16X PCIE2.0 slot, which means that if you are using 2x GTX670 in SLI, one in a 16X and the other in the 8X PCIE3.0, you won't lose that ~4% performance like you would on PCIE2.0. But really this is almost imperceptible without looking at benchmarks, maybe in the future the gap will be more noticeable but for now it's not.

I am kind of interested in mechanical keyboards too but my G15 is still doing fine, so I don't think it's worth the money, in my case, however if you need a new keyboard I've hear good things about the Corsair line, actually there is a thread about mechanical keyboards on these forums, let me find the link.... hum, there you go : http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?826846-Will-you-use-a-gaming-keyboard-for-D3&p=8277747&viewfull=1#post8277747

I like the Corsair K60 for the changeable key caps. I would like to have the four keys that I use for skills with red key caps, I think it would help me with hitting the wrong key. The palm rest for the left side would be nice also. I have had good luck with the logitech mouse, that I figured the logitech keyboard would work pretty good, and it has a button to disable the windows key. The backlighting will be a cool feature as well.

I am going to get a Lamptron fan controller and change the 2 200mm fans to blue LED bitfenix spectre pros. I would be fine without doing this, but I have read alot about the stock fans that come with the Corsair 650 being loud, and the fan speed switch going bad. I really like the look of a fan controller and just a little accent lighting in the case, since it does have a big clear side window.

I finally got everything, and over the last 2 evenings, put it all together and worked out all the kinks(I think). I must say when I loaded D3 and started playing, I could not believe what it actually looked like. Since launch I have played with the lowest settings possible on my laptop, which is a 15.6. The 24" monitor and maxed settings are so awesome. It took me a few hours to get used to it. I have noticed one thing though, the studdering/jitter to the environment and text. If I am standing still, everything is fine, but when I move, objects in the environment are definitely studdering. The text from the items laying on the ground gets jittery and hard to read when I start moving.

I have the lastest drivers for my graphics card, and everything in my setup for that matter. I changed up some of the in-game video settings and it did not change anything. Everything else is awesome, and I dont know what people complaining about the fans being loud on the Corsair 650D were talking about. I can barely hear them at all, and thats on the max setting, with the case right beside me.

The jitter may be tearing, is this what you are experiencing ? If so then enable v-sync and you won't get that problem anymore. You could also enable or force AA to reduce the jaggies in the texts.

I'm glad you enjoy your new setup.

It has been roughly a month since I got the new rig going and everything has been perfect. Enabling V-sync pretty much eliminated any studdering issues I was having with D3. I have every setting as high as it will go and the rig barely breaks a sweat, and even after 10 hours of D3, there is hardly any heat coming out the back of the case or graphics card at all. One thing I have noticed over the last week or so is the mechanics of the characters and monsters when there is alot going on. For instance, in the Tomb of the Assassin, when you turn a corner and there are nearly 100 skeletons and a champ pack, everything speeds up for just an instant when I engage the pack. I cant really explain it any other way. I noticed with the Vsync enabled the FPS is capped at 60, but the number constantly fluctuates between 59 and 60. I dont know if that has anything to do with the sped up mechanics or not, but the problem comes and goes. I am using a DSL connection, so I know its not the best, but most of the time I am getting between 80 and 120 ms latency. I tend to think it is something on the server side, that perhaps it is lagging just a little bit, and speeds up to catch back up or something. Has anybody else noticed this?

I thought I was on to something when I went to fullscreen windowed, as the the FPS was solid at 60, instead of flickering between 59 and 60. I played my wiz a little more and it seemed to be better. The next day when I played the DH, the sped up monster mechanics were starting all over again. I cant seem to nail it down to what is causing this. I was checking the nVidia drivers, and the newest beta driver has a specific improvement to D3 and enabling Vsync. I really dont want to mess with anything as the rig has been working so well, but this driver may fix what I have going on. I am running Wifi, so that might have something to do with it, and I am going to get a long ethernet cable and try a hard connection to see if it helps anything. I really hope its not an issue with the graphics card.

The flickering between 59/60 fps is "normal", it's just Blizzard's implementation of their FPS counter that sucks, probably a rounding problem or something like that.

As for the "speed up", I'm not sure, I'd need to see it to tell. It may be network related, or it may be something else.