Rock, Paper, Shotgun

A few people have been asking about rebuilding PCs for Battlefield 3, so I’ve posted an incredibly basic guide below.
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Okay then! My rambling foray into PC hardware continues. Later in the week I am going to do another PC-build post with a better, clearer version of what we discussed here. That’ll also contain some suggestions about cheaper builds and also some suggestions for what to do if you can’t/won’t build your own machine. In the meantime, however, I want to hear some opinions on the topic of gaming laptops. I tend to cart around various categories of netbook these days, with no real intention of gaming on them, even if they can actually muster a fair bit of PC gaming’s history. But I am aware than many people do having laptops with considerable more oomph. What I want to hear about is your feedback on laptops that you use for gaming. What are the specs? What was the cost? How happy are you with it? Any niggles? Would you recommend it?

Speak!

Uh, hmm. So I completely forgot to post this on RPS yesterday despite spending time reading and commenting about it on other sites. Well, we don’t really cover hardware at the moment. I mean we probably should, but we don’t do it routinely. That’s my excuse. Anyway, Razer’s big announcement was a gaming laptop, the cleverly named “Razer Blade“, which they somehow believe is the world’s first gaming laptop (as evidenced in their reveal video, below). The specs are ok, I suppose – 2.8GHz i7, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT555M – but the real appeal of it is the weight and size: 125mm 22.5mm thick, and 3.2kg. Which means it is pretty portable. It also has an outrageously snazzy touchpad/screen thing and LCD hotkeys. Lovely. Sadly it costs $2,800. Eep.
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How’s your keyboard? Old? Stinky? Are there so many crumbs under the keys that you can barely type, and when you can it sounds like somebody eating biscuits?

Well, Razer’s just announced a new range of PC peripherals branded around upcoming MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, and… well, it’s not like I can tell you whether they’re any good. They’ve only just been announced. But they’re certainly the most ludicrous bits of kit I’ve seen in a while, so top marks there. You’ll find the trailer after the jump. Yes, a trailer. For a keyboard.
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…Make it an SSD. I am not making spurious claims or waving my silly little e-willy around here. It’s the single most immediately noticeable system upgrade I think I’ve ever done, and as such I’m keen it isn’t stranded in a techhead and rich-gonk ghetto. This is an upgrade for any PC gamer, not purely for the well-monied ‘performance enthusiasts’ who get a bit worryingly sweaty when looking at bar charts.
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I mean, “Sandy Bridge?” That’s a euphemism for unwashed undercrackers if ever I heard one. Intel seems to think it’s an appropriate codename for its latest generation of processors, however. Processors apparently so good that they prompted Gabe Newell to say they’re “a game-changer” and will “bring a console-like experience to PC.” This is, apparently, because the CPU includes built-in graphics processing that’s actually up to the job of modern games.

Hmm.
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Do you own a DirectX 10 NVIDIA graphics card, run the 64 bit version of Windows 7, have an Intel dual core CPU, 4GB of RAM and speak English?

Then you’re average. Sooooooooooooo average. How does that make you feel, Mr Average? Does it make you feel… average?
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