Techy advice for new laptop

Hi

I'm looking to buy a new laptop exclusively for playing Football Manager & iTunes (do everything else on work laptop). I would ideally like to be able to play with all English leagues and the top countries (Eur & SA) premier leagues playable and use the 3D match engine

I've found a site pcspecialists.co.uk that do custom build. Totally out of my depth in this field so would appreciate any advice and guidance on the specs I've selected so far;

Windows Home 64 bit

Intel i7 - 2630QM Quad Core (2.0Ghz) 6MB cache

RAM - 8GB (1333 MHz)

GeForce GT555M 2GB

This comes in at £850 - does this sound like a competitive price? It's more than I originally intended on spending so if any elements are OTT and can be cut back on w/o significantly impacting performance please do advise, likewise let me know if I've omitted any relevant specs

Thanks in advance

Ian

As FM is a 32 bit game, it will be able to make use / access up to 4gb of that RAM

But with that spec laptop you will be able to run lots of leagues easily, you could make do with a lot less, I am on core i5 with an intel shared graphics and it is still very quick, and was half that 850 price

Yeah you don't need a system that good really. I'd save some money. I run the game on a laptop with a slowish ultra low voltage pentium processor (for 8 hour battery life) with Intel 4500 on board graphics. The system assessor says it's rubbish for full English leagues plus a few foreign top and second divisions but it's fine for me. The processing is never excessive like in the old days when you could go off and make a cup of tea at the start of the game. 3D engine is fine too so long as another program doesn't unexpectedly kick in and make it a bit jerky. I think any current laptop with at least a dual core processor and Intel graphics is fine.

Any mid price laptop would be fine, £850 would be stretching the budget I feel. 2GB RAM + and you're sorted.

Any mid price laptop would be fine, £850 would be stretching the budget I feel. 2GB RAM + and you're sorted.

2 GB is not worth it if you're getting that processor - 4 GB is fine. 8 GB overkill unless you're looking to do heavy multi-tasking.

The specification is miles over the top for Football Manager, anyway... A i5-2410M + 4 GB of RAM + onboard graphics should be able to handle plenty of leagues just fine, with 3D. On the other hand, a lack of a graphics card will hamper the ability to play other games, and you never know what you'll want to do with your laptop in the future.

For about £850 you can get a refurbed macbook pro on the apple store refurb section, if all you want is itunes & fm a macbook pro will be brill

That graphic card is huge overkill for FM.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004VE73L0/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&s=computers&psc=1

699. 4GB RAM and GT540M.

Cheers for all the comments, for this one that I think I'm going to go for

64 bit

i5-2410M(2.0GHz) 3MB cache

4GB RAM

GT 520M

Quite decent @ £568 I think??

I just upgraded to an i7 with 8GB RAM and ATI Radeon graphics card....................FM runs quicker than a Tottenham rioter with an iPad.

Agreed it can only use 4GB of the RAM as FM2011 is a 32 bit program but fingers crossed FM2012 will have a 64 bit option - I paid £850 for Acer Aspire 5943G from these guys - www.saveonlaptops.co.uk

Reduced from £1499.00 !! Bargain'a'riffic :-)

Cheers for all the comments, for this one that I think I'm going to go for

64 bit

i5-2410M(2.0GHz) 3MB cache

4GB RAM

GT 520M

Quite decent @ £568 I think??

The Ishu opinion : http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/229226-FM-2011-Official-System-Specs-Thread?p=6798572&viewfull=1#post6798572

Good deal (as long as the hard drive is 750 GB). It compares against this: http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_1097215.html - which has got nice reviews (although the i3 versions are much better value for money, but you get what you pay for). The GT 520M is superior to the 6370M, but the the other laptop has 6 GB of RAM.

To be honest if you have £850 to spend on the first one I would buy it for long term gaming, the I7 processor is the best and having one myself you couldn't ask for better, go for it and you wont look back Ian buddy.

Cheers for all the comments, for this one that I think I'm going to go for

64 bit

i5-2410M(2.0GHz) 3MB cache

4GB RAM

GT 520M

Quite decent @ £568 I think??

Add another 4GB RAM stick and you're good to go.

I just bought my new custom made PC from PC Specialists, can't recommend them higher. For the £490 I paid for my system a similar spec one from PC World or other rip off merchants would have been at least double, and their customer service is second to none. (No I don't work for them )