Ok, so last fall I decided to migrate back more towards the PC gaming side of things from consoles (maybe another post on that later). I wanted something that I could play PC games on while I sat on the couch with my wife. Hooking a media PC up to our TV seemed like a good idea but then I started thinking about how nice it would be to play in the basement or play while my wife watched something on the TV. Now understand that I’ve always been somewhat of a desktop guy. Laptops just seemed underpowered, fragile and overpriced. But as I did some research I started thinking that a 15″ could meet my gaming needs, fit in my budget and have a comparable relative screen size as my TV when sitting on the couch. So after way too much research I took the plunge on a Sager NP8255-S through Xotic PC. Quick plug for Xotic, the process was fast and painless, great experience. Anyway, I went with the best video card available (part of the reason for going with the 8255) to try to get a more desktop-comparable experience. The card was the Nvidia GTX 780m, easily the single most expensive piece of hardware in the new laptop even after upgrading the processor and hard drive to an SSD. I figured this puppy better be worth it.

Well, let me tell you, I friggin’ love this laptop and the graphics card has handled everything I’ve thrown at it and hardly broken a sweat.

In the last few months I’ve been playing Alan Wake (still love that game), BF4, Eve, Fallout: New Vegas, Dishonored, StarCraft 2 maxed out on graphics settings and still getting 60FPS+. One thing to note is that when playing some of these demanding games the machine gets a bit warm and the fan kicks on to the highest speed which isn’t terrible but certainly not ideal (for the components, my lap or the noise factor). An easy fix was to get a Cooler Master NotePal LapAir to have the laptop on which is really comfortable and helps cool the laptop with a near silent fan powered off a pass-through USB.

I love having a hardcore gaming experience with something I can take on a plane, train, to the coffee shop, etc. It just blows my mind. Additionally the GTX 780m is a pretty easy card to upgrade so in a while when I need a bit of a boost it should be pretty painless to upgrade. Just like a desktop! Crazy.

So all in all, I really have to recommend everything about this machine and especially the mobile video card. Despite all the research I was still a little nervous what running some of these demanding new games would be like but so far it has been awesome.