http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00K6ZIKWO?cache=e1c843fbc173da7849677ffc587a33fe&pi=SX200_QL40&qid=1411250186&sr=8-2#ref=mp_s_a_1_2

Quadruple cpu threads at up to 2.7GHz
1GHz Intel (HD 4400) Graphics
1920x1080 resolution
8GB RAM
128GB SSD

Or:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00KDIT97Y?cache=e1c843fbc173da7849677ffc587a33fe&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&qid=1411250359&sr=8-5#ref=mp_s_a_1_5

Eight cpu threads at up to 3.5GHz
1.2GHz Intel (HD 4600) graphics
1366x768 resolution
8GB RAM
1TB 5400RPM hard drive

(Note: I understand I talk about hardware on this site a bit much, and it may get long in tooth. But this is probably one of my last threads about it)

Better for what? Does the first one have a regular HDD as well, or just the SSD? It doesn't take long to chew through 128Gb.

Better for what? Does the first one have a regular HDD as well, or just the SSD? It doesn't take long to chew through 128Gb.

Well, I want to make games with the laptop, Photoshop, and play Half-Life 2 and Tomb Raider.

And... Just the SSD.

Generally, the more cores on your CPU the better. I'd prefer more cores and a slightly slower clock rate simply because of the extra computing power you get when running multiple threads. This becomes super important when you're developing with lots of apps open at once.

I'd go with at least a 7200rpm hard drive. When you're not bottlenecked by the CPU, the second biggest bottleneck will be the IO. Once all your data is moved from disk to memory or from memory to video card, then you're going to bottleneck on the speed of your graphics card and cpu throughput.

I think, as it stands, neither of your system specs alone are that great.

I would go with lenovo over toshiba and the 1920x1080 screen over the lower one. Not sure if the 128gb ssd can be upgraded or not, but you could always take the 1tb mechanical drive out and replace it with an ssd of your choosing.

(Warning: I am about to be a hardware snob! Don't say I didn't warn you!)

Both systems are terrible in their own unique ways.

The first has a GPU which will have serious problems powering 1920x1080 games. You'll have to run at a lower res or play games from the last decade. Though if your goal is to develop games which run on low-end GPUs, then this may be a blessing in disguise.

The second's GPU is marginally better, especially since the native resolution is much lower and therefore less taxing. However, that native resolution is way too low to be useful when you're trying to program. The fact that its main drive is not an SSD is the worst part, though. If you've ever used an SSD for anything, you'll be disgusted by how slow normal hard drives are. 5400 rpm drives are the slowest of the slow.


Absolute musts if you want to use a laptop seriously:

- SSD that's 240GB or larger.
- An Nvidia GPU.
- 1920x1080 screen resolution or higher, or at the very least a docking station and some external monitors for coding.

(We're probably talking about 1500-2000 USD for one I consider good enough)


OR, you could custom build a medium/high-end desktop PC, which is much cheaper. You lose portability, but performance/price is much better. A reasonably priced desktop that you build yourself will beat the everlasting piss out of laptops twice its price at every performance metric other than portability.


If you absolutely must buy one of those two laptops, the first thing to do is to buy a new SSD for it and put the old one in an external drive enclosure that you can plug into a USB port. If you have no money for a typical SSD and are willing to sacrifice a bit of speed for capacity, get one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148820

...Or its bigger brother:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148821

If I am forced to choose only between those systems and no other, I would go with the Toshiba Satellite system. Side-by-side, the processor is better (i7 with 6M cache and 4 cores instead of i5 with 3M cache and 2 cores, etc.) and the storage space is not really negotiable: the 128GB system has 60GB of free space which will be consumed by your development tools and other software with no room for actual work; but if you don't need those tools, it might be good enough for some tasks.

But asking "which is better?" is different than asking "does this meet my needs?".

If I were the one spending money on myself, Nypyren has the right idea above.

Neither system makes an ideal game development system. Both are missing too many things that are essential for more serious mobile tasks like presentations (only HDMI port: no VGA, DVI, or other graphics ports), or more serious entertainment (no optical drive), and both are missing way too many things to be a good development system, beyond the lack of display quality and the lack of expansion options and the lack of docking ports, the first is lacking processing power and storage space, the second is lacking storage speed and display quality.

Both of them might make a good email and document and spreadsheet system, both might make a good streaming video playback system, both might make a good web surfing consumer system, both might fill the needs of a student who needs a machine to write term papers but not develop big software. Both systems look like they are attempting to compete with bigger tablets like the Asus Transformer or the Chromebook devices, except instead of running Android or ChromeOS they run Windows.

What are your needs? If they're the former, I would probably keep looking. If they are the latter, I'd consider tablet+keyboard or Chromebooks instead.

Thanks guys. After carefully thinking it over, I believe I will go with the Lenovo. It's faster, cheaper, and has a USB 3.0 slot for an external HDD, or an external SSD assuming those are any good. An NVIDIA graphics card like the 850m would certainly be nice, but laptops with that particular card, which is worth a crap, are $300 higher. The Intel graphics for this Lenovo has 8 ROPS (actually 4 that Intel somehow made as fast as 8), 8 TMUs, and 160 shader units, at a turbo clock of 1GHz. I think it will be fine for light development. Honestly, it takes a lot of man hours to develop a game which needs more (would you agree?).

A 1366*768 screen is a pain in the ass, so go with the first... OR ..if you know a 192*1080 replacement screen compatible with the second and you don't care about warranty go with the second.

GPU profiling is also done on desktops since mobile-GPU world is a jungle (lot of customization, like different VRAM types, different clocks, different PCI bus etc..), the Intel 4400 IGPs should also support feature level 11.1.

Thanks guys. After carefully thinking it over, I believe I will go with the Lenovo. It's faster, cheaper, and has a USB 3.0 slot for an external HDD, or an external SSD assuming those are any good. An NVIDIA graphics card like the 850m would certainly be nice, but laptops with that particular card, which is worth a crap, are $300 higher. The Intel graphics for this Lenovo has 8 ROPS (actually 4 that Intel somehow made as fast as 8), 8 TMUs, and 160 shader units, at a turbo clock of 1GHz. I think it will be fine for light development. Honestly, it takes a lot of man hours to develop a game which needs more (would you agree?).

I would completely disagree, man hours spent has nothing to do with target spec, you can spend years on a 8 bit retro game or 2 days on a DX11 shooter, dépends what your target is and has little to do with your time budget.

You haven't said anything about why only those 2 systems? Honestly they both seem horrible for the task at hand (and really no better than entry level 399$ laptops for what you're planning to do either).

Is there any reason why it HAS to be one of those 2, or did you simply trim down to those 2 (most likely wrongly) before coming here and asking? Because if your question instead is "what is a good laptop for game development in the same price as those" then there are lots and lots and lots and (you get the point) of better options. Anything that doesn't have "only" an intel gpu would beat that pretty much and the 1300 res one shouldn't even have made the first pass short list.

I know i'm harsh but i think the other weren't enough and it's better to be blunt here than to let you misuse 800$, one is better than the other yes, but only in the sense it's "slightly less horrible".