We're fast approaching a time when the weirdly shiny Unreal Engine 3 will no longer be used in big-budget releases, and thanks to a new initiative by Epic Games, the same thing may soon be true of student games. Epic have announced that Unreal Engine 4 is now free to use in schools, colleges and universities, or at least those featuring the relevant courses or degrees. Your teacher or professor will need to sign up for the program here, but if your course qualifies, students will gain all the benefits of being subscribers without having to fork over a monthly subscription fee.

Here's Epic announcing the program:

"Starting now, Unreal Engine 4 is free to use for colleges and universities. The engine can be installed and used on all school owned computers, and personal copies can be provided free of charge to all students enrolled in accredited video game development, computer science, art, architecture, simulation, and visualization programs."

If students decide to make the jump to commercial development with games made while at school, college or university, they'll still need give Epic a 5% royalty, however. With that in mind, this still seems like a great opportunity to get hands-on experience with an engine being used by many professional game studios, so be sure to badger your teacher or professor if your course qualifies.

Ta, Blue's News.

There's a lot to love about the original Fable and its sequel, only one of which ever made its way to PC. We still haven't seen the sequel, and after so many years it's unlikely we ever will, but after a delay of just over six months we're about to get the remastered version of the original game, which hit Xbox 360 back in February. Spruced-up graphics, Steam achievements, and a bunch of additional outfits are the biggest changes here, but it's the same farty, tongue-in-cheek, fairytale action RPG underneath.

The header image to this post reveals the game's new outfits, which include the "Jackarse Dead Fish Weapon". Aside from those, the new visuals, and an apparently "slick new interface", there doesn't appear to be much in the way of new content here, given that the original PC game already shipped with expansion The Lost Chapters. That's still on Steam, by the way.

Fable Anniversary, meanwhile, will be released on Steam on the 12th of September, exactly a week today. Here's a trailer:

It so happens that most of the world is not close to Anaheim, California, so getting to Blizzcon can be a hassle. That doesn t mean you can t follow the proceedings though, because the internet exists. Not only can you watch everything that happens at Blizzcon live and in HD, but you can also watch people make rude remarks in the accompanying comment section.
There is a catch though: to purchase a BlizzCon Virtual Ticket you ll need to cough up $39.99 (or $43.95 in Australia). Seems a bit steep for the privilege of watching stuff remotely, but to sweeten the deal you ll also get commemorative BlizzCon in-game goodies for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm .

The BlizzCon Virtual Ticket covers everything happening at the event. There s two channels broadcasting concurrently, providing access to all the panels, interviews and contents you could desire. There s also an on-demand service running for a fortnight after the event, in case you miss anything.

Tickets can be purchased here. BlizzCon takes place at the Anaheim Convention Center in Southern California on November 7-8.

Written by Emanuel Maiberg

At first, Massive Chalice seems like a competent, post-XCOM, fantasy turn-based strategy game. That, on its own, wouldn't get me excited (especially since I always prefer lasers to swords), but Massive Chalice innovates on the parts of XCOM that got me hooked: my emotional and strategic investment in the characters I trained, equipped, and sent on missions. It raises the stakes with an intergenerational scope, where the heroes I take into battle age over time, mate with other heroes, and produce children who will fight on for the cause. When one of them dies, I'm not just losing a soldier, but a family member or worse, an entire bloodline.

On the tactical layer it plays exactly like XCOM. The Cadence, an army of monsters, trade turns moving and attacking on a tile-grid with your forces, The Nation. Chalice even mixes some of XCOM's elite, special forces motifs into the fantasy setting. The Caberjack unit, a heavy melee character, carries a big battering ram like a medieval SWAT member. The Archers' crossbows are so big that they have to hoist them up on their shoulders and fire them like rocket launchers. The Alchemist unit serves as the explosives expert, tossing potent flasks that deal damage across an area.



It's a cool thematic twist and it's not just superficial. The fantasy world allows Massive Chalice to imagine any kind of hero or ability it wants, and Double Fine's Project Lead Brad Muir is using the opportunity to address some specific issues that bug him about the genre.

For example, rushing all your units to one dangerous enemy and wailing on him until he's dead isn't going to work against the Bulwark. This gurgling fossil monster counters that strategy by increasing his defenses after each hit. Hit him once, and he'll grow an outer shell that will reduce following strikes to just one or two damage points. It's a small tweak that has a bigger impact on the battle flow than I expected, forcing me to spread my damage across enemies instead of just methodically eliminating one threat at a time.

Magical abilities on the players' end were not as interesting or useful. The Seizure class can swap positions with any of your other units on the map, but I didn't see the benefit of putting one character in a bad spot instead of another. The quick Hunter class can remain invisible as long as it finishes its turn next to a tall piece of cover, regardless of line-of-sight, which is odd because line-of-sight matters in other instances.



However the magical details turn out, Massive Chalice's tactical portion is still a little too familiar. Luckily, my appetite for turn-based strategy game of this type is still greater than the number we're getting. The strategic layer is where it gets interesting.

The Nation is made up of five outer and five inner regions. In each, you can construct a building, install one of your heroes as regent, and choose another hero as their mate. Over time, the couple will produce babies that grow up to become your future heroes. The babies' abilities and stats are determined by their parents, though results are not guaranteed. If two heroes have a strong affinity for ranged attacks, it's more likely that their baby will too, but recessive traits can emerge as well, and they're not just randomly generated. They're coded into the bloodline and can emerge with any generation, just like in real life.

It's not implemented in the game yet, but the plan is that some of these matches will also generate unique abilities. An Archer and Caperjack, for example, could birth a hero who can fire arrows with an additional knockback effect.



I was also happy to learn that both male and female heros can be ordained regents. The baby's class is determined by the parent who is regent, so gender equality gives you double the options, and it's also cool that your female heroes are just as worthy of a promotion as their male counterparts.

Inbreeding, in case you're wondering, isn't allowed. Second cousins is as close as it gets.

Getting the most out of your characters during their lifetime feels like Massive Chalice's key differentiating feature, and the most interesting tightrope to walk. A grizzled knight with 50 years of combat experience is useful in battle, but each mission he takes risks his entire lineage, the traits and gear that made him a valuable warrior in the first place. You can also build a standard retreat, and install him there to train future generations instead of taking him into battle.



I loved the idea that some enemies will even prey on your attachment to certain characters with attacks that take away not only hit points, but years from that character's life. You may emerge from battle victorious, but your favorite character will be 35 years closer to the grave.

Muir said that the average time to complete a game is about 12 hours and that you're probably not going to make it on your first attempt. It will take many more hours with the game to find out for sure, but if Massive Chalice will offer as much variety and weird surprises related to its heroes' bloodlines as it promises, restarting it multiple times and trying different strategies would be a pleasure. If it doesn't, it's in danger of turning out like just a smaller XCOM with a different set of props.

Another week, another Steam Client Beta update. The biggest addition comes in the form of in-home streaming support for AMD. VCE hardware encoding of Direct 3D Games is now possible, so long as you have one of the following cards with the latest drivers: Radeon HD 79xx, Radeon HD 78xx, Radeon HD 77xx, R9 295x, R9 290x/290, R9 280x/280, R9 270x/270, R7 265, R7 260x/260, R7 250x.
Meanwhile, you can stream from Linux host PCs now, while support for NVIDIA ShadowPlay is now implemented. There s also a list of more general updates, most of them bug fixes, including the ability to share screenshots of non-Steam games, a bunch of user interface fixes and reduced energy usage when running in the background .
Finally, a handful of tweaks have been made to Steam music. You can now scan for music inside Steam directories, the Music Queue won t reset every time you exit Steam, as well as UI improvements and crash fixes. The full update notes can be found over here.

In-home streaming is a great tool, but if you're a bit uncertain about the finer details we've got a thorough walkthrough over here.

Blizzard began working on a World of Warcraft tribute to Robin Williams almost immediately after his tragic death in August, and little more than a week later, what was assumed to be evidence of its efforts was discovered within the code for the beta release of the Warlords of Draenor expansion. Today, it appears those assumptions were correct, as Robin the Genie has been spotted in the game.

Discovered by Wowhead user Haldhur, the NPC is a blue-skinned Genie found on an island off the Talador coast. He can be summoned by rubbing the Ever-Burning Lamp, which brings him forth with a cry of "Infinite cosmic power!" after which he shrinks away, saying, "Itty bitty living space." Both lines are from the animated film Aladdin, in which Williams voiced the Genie, although according to IMDB the first line is actually "Phenomenal cosmic power."







Located close to that point is a large, broken egg with mechanical controls inside, obviously a tribute to the egg-like spaceship he came to Earth in as the alien Mork from Mork and Mindy. A Mork-like NPC model was also found in the Warlords of Draenor code last month, along with another one believed to reference Mrs. Doubtfire, but they haven't been seen in the game yet. Some stuffed animals and toy tanks were found lying around, however, which could suggest a tribute to the 1992 film Toys.

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor is currently in beta testing and scheduled for launch on November 13.

The first add-on for Dark Souls 2 restored some of the original Dark Souls legendary difficulty, but The Crown of the Old Iron King, part two of From Software s trilogy of DLC, doesn t follow suit. Instead, it evokes the sad, forgotten, wistful feeling I got in the first game s world. It s built to be explored, with lots of optional areas that branch off the DLC s main path, and that comes at the cost of difficulty.

The Crown of the Old Iron King refers to one of Dark Souls 2 s main bosses, and it explores the kingdom he ruled over. Since the Old Iron King was a creature consumed by fire, his world is a kingdom of ash and soot, and that ash is an ever-present reminder that the DLC s world is completely dead. It s a feeling that contrasts with the 'alive and growing' feel of Majula from the main game, and a throwback to the exploratory vibe that I loved in the first Dark Souls.

Ashen remains are all that's left of the forgotten kingdom.

I love the use of fire and ash in Old Iron King. Its new enemies are bathed in it, from the massive guardians that spew fire from their sides as I roll past to the charred undead carrying barrels that explode when ignited. I used this to my advantage in a heavily-protected room, luring the barrel-wielders in and hitting them with fire arrows. The resulting explosion leveled the massive armored guardians in the room, who would have otherwise smashed me to mush. Later, in a dark, foreboding corridor, I encountered crawling Ashen soldiers who light themselves on fire and grab on to me before exploding From s version of Mario s bob-ombs. The noise they make is unnerving.

I also spent much of my five hours clomping through ash fields, almost as pure as driven snow, or stomping on the crumbling remains of the kingdom s doomed inhabitants. Brume Tower, the main area, is covered in the stuff, hiding enemies until they re ready to ambush you or some of the DLC s many new items. It s a constant reminder that you re far too late to save this world, and a great throwback to the ultimate confrontation in Dark Souls. I loved the first game, and I got a nice nostalgia boost from exploring the ruins here.

Careful with that barrel, mister.

That s important, because I had to focus on exploration to get the most of this new area. The path to the one required boss before you grab the crown is surprisingly straightforward especially compared to Crown of the Sunken King. The other areas are tucked away, and while they re not required, they contain new items, spells, and weapons From has hidden away. That rewards playing methodically instead of rushing past enemies to get to the boss. The boss isn t the point this time around the world is.

None of this changes the game dramatically: Crown of the Old Iron King still plays like Dark Souls 2, even if the focus is more on the area I m exploring than the boss I m trying to dodge. I like that these DLC packs reward faithful Dark Souls 2 players, not just with new challenges but with improved items and equipment. I wish the boss fights, and even the normal enemies, were a little tougher Old Iron King feels far easier than Sunken King, which arrived alongside big balance changes to the combat but just because pro players won t die repeatedly at fog gates doesn t mean they shouldn t play this. Treat it as a stroll down memory lane.
Details
Price: $10 / 7
Release date: Out now
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: From Software
Multiplayer: Co-op and competitive
Link: www.darksoulsii.com

For a breakdown of our review methodology, check out the PC Gamer reviews policy.

Oculus Rift development kits have been kicking around for awhile now, and by all reports they've awfully cool. But where are the consumer versions? Will they be meaningfully different from the DK units? And how much are they going to cost, anyway? The Oculus team gets these questions a lot, and they have a few answers.

The Oculus Rift DK2 is pretty fantastic stuff by all reports, but Oculus VR co-founder Palmer Luckey said the consumer release will be "significantly improved," telling Eurogamer, "The jump from DK1 to DK2 is similar to the jump from DK2 to CD1 ." Among the improvements will be increased resolution, a higher refresh rate of at least 90Hz and a headset redesign that will make the device smaller and lighter.

Unfortunately, while thousands of development kits have been shipped, the consumer release is still a long way off. Luckey noted that while most console development cycles include two or three years of behind-the-scenes work, the Oculus Rift has been in the spotlight from the very start. "We started out showing everything we're working on and getting to as many developers as possible, and letting anyone order it," he said. "We could have just stayed in stealth mode and sent it to a few game developers and we could have announced a year from now and said, 'OK! It's ready to go.' But that would have been negative much worse for VR overall."

But when it does come, the price shouldn't go much beyond the $350 cost of the DK2. "We want to stay in that $200-$400 price range," co-founder Nate Mitchell said. "That could slide in either direction depending on scale, pre-orders, the components we end up using, business negotiations..."

It's a bit vague, but understandably so given how far off the consumer release is, and at least it's something to go on. The interview touches on a number of other topics, including Sony's Project Morpheus and the impact of the Facebook acquisition. If you're at all interested in the Oculus Rift, it's definitely worth your time.

Written by Tom Marks

I might have had more fun making gigantic gnomes in The Sims 4 than actually playing the game, at least so far, and right now you can do the same. In what acts like a cheat but seems like a bug (a forgotten debug command?), you can press Shift and ] to grow almost any item you are holding in build mode to a seemingly limitless size. So we decided to push it as far as it could go and capture the results in a video gnomes, toilets, computers, we made it all huge.

We heard about this via a tweet from LazyGameReviews, and quickly learned that the feature has a few problems. The game is stable, but if an item is large enough, your sims basically won t be able to move. Also, leaving your lot and then re-entering it will automatically sell any placed items the larger one is overlapping. We don t know yet if Maxis plans to remove the command, so if you want a porcelain titan in your town, better try it now.

What, we weren't going to make our giant garden gnomes go in the woods like animals.

The Sims at 1440p on the LPC playing The Sims at 400k on the Really LPC.

If he could actually make it up to the table he would be smaller than the pawns.

Well, that looks perfectly norm....wait a sec....

Oasis Springs was a peaceful place before the gnome invasion.

Poor little guy has to crane his neck just to watch TV.

I might have gotten a little carried away...

By Kimber Streams, TheWirecutter.com. The Wirecutter is a tech site that spends hundreds of hours testing gear to find the best of the best. To support The Wirecutter's in-depth research, consider checking out their longer piece on Best Laptops and buying through their site.)

Gaming laptops are the perfect solution for a very specific group of people they re ideal for serious gamers who need a rig that can play demanding games while remaining somewhat portable for frequent travel or LAN parties. They aren t slim battery life champions, and building a desktop will always get you more raw gaming power for less money, so gaming laptops aren t the most practical solution for all gamers.

That said, a great gaming laptop can play the latest games on high to ultra settings with a good 1080p screen, keyboard, and cooling system. Less than $2000 can get you a machine that can play all this year s games on High settings, and even a few on Ultra.

At $1800 (~ 1130), the Asus G750JS-DS71 is our favorite gaming laptop on the market. The JS-DS71 configuration has an Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M graphics card, a quad-core Intel Core i7-4700HQ processor, and 16GB of RAM, along with a 256GB solid state drive and a 1TB hard drive to store tons of games. Even better, it doesn't get magma hot like some other gaming laptops thanks to a great cooling system.

If you re looking for a gaming laptop with that will be future-proof for several years, and can play all this year s games perfectly on Ultra, you ll have to go for something more expensive: $2000 plus (or ~ 2000). Cheaper gaming laptops won't be as future-proof, and will also have lower build quality, but the cost is more reasonable around $1300.
Testing gaming laptops
I came to the conclusion that the Asus G750JS is the best gaming laptop over the course of 90 hours of research and testing for The Wirecutter. I researched to find the an ideal configuration balancing price and gaming power. I scoured manufacturer s websites to create a list of all the gaming laptops currently for sale, and I read reviews by trusted reviewers and outlets, eliminating any laptops with poor heat management or other serious problems. Then I did some testing of my own by benchmarking the Asus and the Alienware 17 using PCMark and 3DMark and playing a variety of games, some graphically demanding and some not.

On the next page: why the Asus G750JS is our favorite gaming laptop.




The best gaming laptop: Asus G750JS-DS71
The Asus G750JS-DS71 is our favorite laptop right now because it combines powerful specs and good build quality without an outrageous price tag. Its Nvidia GeForce GTX 870M graphics card isn t the most powerful, but it is way cheaper than the top-of-the-line GTX 880M, will play nearly every game on High settings and quite a few on Ultra, and has the biggest performance jump over last year s 770M. The G750JS Intel Core i7-4700HQ processor and 16GB of RAM are powerful enough to avoid bottlenecking the GPU without making you pay extra for unnecessary power.

Like most gaming laptops nowadays, the Asus ROG G750JS has a matte, 1920 x 1080 TN LCD screen, which is okay, but not as great as an IPS display. When viewed straight on, colors are bright and blacks are deep, but colors wash out when the screen is tilted up and down or side to side. My biggest complaint is that the screen s matte coating is a little too thick, which creates a visible textured grid on the surface of the panel.

The G750JS s keyboard is deep and responsive. Though most gamers will use a mouse for gaming, the trackpad works well with Windows 8 gestures and has dedicated left and right click buttons that offer satisfying feedback without being too stubborn to press.

Asus Republic of Gamers laptops have always been exceptional at managing heat, and the G750JS keeps its components and surfaces cool without its fans ramping up to distracting volumes. Gaming laptops that don t manage heat properly risk slowing down graphics performance or even damaging the laptop. In the course of my research and testing for The Wirecutter I eliminated a lot of notebooks that got way too hot during gaming.

The Asus ROG G750 has surprisingly good sound for a laptop thanks to a subwoofer on the underside of the chassis. It's a bit light on base, but still sounds good at high volumes. The underside also provides easy access to upgrades, like replacing one of the drives in the drive bay or adding more RAM.



One last note about the laptop: it's a beast and weighs nearly 10 pounds. That's common for 17-inch gaming laptops, and so is its poor battery life. It won t last very long away from an outlet, but Notebookcheck found that it had better battery life than most, lasting 5.5 hours on their Wi-Fi test and ten hours in an idle test.

Full system specs

CPU: 4th gen quad-core Intel i7-4700HQ (2.4GHz)
GPU: GeForce GTX 860M (2GB GDDR5)
RAM: 16GB DDR3
Display: 17.3-inch LCD (1920x1080)
Storage: 256GB SSD, 1TB 7200 RPM HDD
Optical Drive: DVDRW
Networking: 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet
Battery: 8-cell, 89 Whr
Connectivity: 2-in-1 media card reader, USB 3.0 (x4), HDMI 1.4, Mini-DisplayPort
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Weight: 9.9 lbs (4.5 kg)

Note to UK readers: model numbers vary slightly between US and UK, and the Asus G750JS-T4068H on Amazon is the closest configuration. For 1130, it includes a Blu-ray reader and a 1.5TB hard drive, but no SSD. The bottom of the laptop provides easy access to two drive bays, and if you buy this configuration, we recommend upgrading it with a 9.5mm SSD of your own.

On page 3: an even better gaming laptop, for a bigger budget.




The best gaming laptop over $2000: Alienware 17
The Alienware 17 is an even better gaming laptop than the Asus...if you have the money to pay for it. The Alienware 17 can cost more than $4600 (~ 2,550)if you max out all the specs. You shouldn t pay extra for a 3D display or more RAM, but the Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M GPU option and Intel Core i7-4910MW processor will future-proof the laptop and allow you to play anything on Ultra.

The $2200 configuration on Amazon includes the 880M, 16GB of RAM, an Intel i7-4710MQ, and pairs an 80GB SSD with a 1TB HDD. That's a great laptop, but we recommend buying from Dell's website if you want to upgrade to the faster i7-4910MW or add a larger SSD.

Compared to the Asus ROG G750JS, the Alienware 17 has a better screen, keyboard, and speakers. The Alienware s screen is also a matte TN panel with a blueish tint, but it doesn t have the same textured matte coating I disliked on the Asus. The keyboard is more comfortable to type on, and its speakers get much louder.
If you re looking for the most tricked out gaming laptop and don t mind paying a lot for it, the Alienware 17 is the best one there is right now. My biggest complaint: while testing for The Wirecutter, which you can read more about here, its fans are much louder than the Asus.
Full system specs

CPU: 4th gen quad-core Intel i7-4710MQ (2.4GHz)
GPU: GeForce GTX 880M (8GB GDDR5)
RAM: 16GB DDR3 (1600MHz)
Display: 17.3-inch WLED (1920x1080)
Storage: 1TB 5400 RPM HDD, 80GB SSD
Optical Drive: DVDRW
Networking: 802.11ac 2x2, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet
Battery: 8-cell, 86 Whr
Connectivity: 7-in-1 media card reader, USB 3.0 (x3), HDMI 1.4 (1.3 input), Mini-DisplayPort
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Weight: 9.15 lbs (4.15 kg)

Note to UK readers: You can buy the Alienware 17 directly from Dell. We recommend starting with their mid-range model and adding an SSD and upgrading to the Nvidia 880M, for a total of 2,104.

On page 4: a cheaper gaming laptop for a smaller budget.



 


The best budget gaming laptop: MSI GE60-033 Apache
This section by Wesley Fenlon
Kimber spent months researching and testing high-end gaming laptops, but she hasn't tackled budget gaming laptops yet. Based on my own research, the best budget gaming laptop is the MSI GE60 Apache. For a starting price of $1250 (~ 1150), the GE60 is more than $500 cheaper than our favorite. $1250 still isn t exactly cheap, but it s the cheapest gaming laptop I feel confident recommending because it doesn t sacrifice gaming performance: its powerful Nvidia GTX 860M GPU can handle most demanding 2013-2014 games at 1080p, 60fps, and high settings.
If you just want a cheap laptop that can play some games, like simple 2D indie platformers or older 3D games like Half-Life 2, you aren t in the market for a dedicated gaming laptop. You should buy an Ultrabook or a budget laptop like The Wirecutter s recommended Best Budget Laptop. But those laptops are going to use integrated graphics, or extremely low-end dedicated mobile graphics, so they won t be able to play most of today s games at stable framerates.

The MSI GE60 Apache uses an Intel Core i7-4700HQ, a quad-core 2.4GHz Haswell processor the exact same CPU found in our favorite $1800 gaming laptop. The Apache s Nvidia GTX 860M with 2GB of GDDR5 RAM is only a single step down from the 870M graphics in our main recommendation. It ships with a 15.6-inch matte 1080p screen, a 1TB HDD, and 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM.

The graphics card is the critical component in any gaming laptop, and the 860M is a big part of why I recommend this laptop. On Notebookcheck, the GTX 860M ranks 13th out of all the single-GPU mobile graphics cards available as of September 2014. The 870M in our favorite laptop ranks 7th, while Nvidia s new top-of-the-line (and very expensive) 880M ranks 1st.

Budget gaming laptops are a tough category, since they demand powerful performance at a low price. They re also not reviewed as frequently as more expensive, flashier gaming laptops, so good data is hard to come by. To narrow the field, I talked to my colleague Jimmy Thang, who reviews laptops at Maximum PC. He recommended Lenovo and MSI laptops for the quality of their budget-range gaming lines. From there, I checked out the gaming laptops both companies make and focused on the cheap entries in the MSI GE series and Lenovo Y Series. The best budget options were the MSI GE60 and Lenovo Y50, which both use the same CPUs and Nvidia 860M.

Anandtech s detailed review of the MSI GE60 points out the laptop s strengths: its CPU, GPU, and 1080p Samsung PLS display, which offers superior viewing angles to cheaper TN screens. Here s an except from Anandtech:

It's not the fastest or flashiest laptop around, and it's not the cheapest either, but it gets most of the important areas right when it comes to building a good gaming notebook.

Perhaps most importantly, the performance is good, the keyboard and touchpad work well, and the display also looks nice. If you want a system you could take to a LAN party or a gaming session at a friend's house/apartment, the MSI GE60 could certainly fill that need. What's more, you get a good level of performance without breaking the bank. The GTX 860M is really the star of the show here, and NVIDIA's Maxwell provides a good boost in performance over the previous generation GTX 760M while adding a few new features in the process, but let's not forget Intel's Haswell i7-4700HQ, which is fast enough for other tasks as well.

The review called the Lenovo Y50 the most compelling alternative. The Y50 s greatest strength is that it s cheaper; it costs only $1100 in its base configuration. That price includes a 1080p screen, 8GB of PC3-12800 DDR3 RAM, and a 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive with a hybrid 8GB SSD. Despite the similar on-paper specs, the Y50 has some drawbacks.



From the benchmarks I ve seen of various drives with hybrid SSD storage, the performance boost is unfortunately negligible in gaming and regular use. Notebookcheck s review states that the 5400 RPM drive is rather slow with a transfer rate of just 79.9 MB/sec according to HD Tune. Faster 7200 RPM drives...can have transfer rates well above 90 MB/sec in the same benchmark. In fact, we noticed plenty of texture pop-in in some titles like Guild Wars 2 during benchmarking that would not normally occur. Crystal Disk Mark scores also show generally lower numbers across the board when compared to a more standard 7200 RPM HDD.

Laptop Mag s review also criticized the HDD performance. Lenovo doesn t offer customization options while buying online, and buying a Y50 model that includes a full SSD costs several hundred dollars more. The biggest criticism of the Y50 is its screen, which is about 220 nits dimmer than average. Both Notebookcheck wrote that it was dimmer than average, had poor contrast, and only managed about 50% of the sRGB color spectrum.

By contrast, Anandtech noted that the MSI GE60 s screen hits about 370 nits, and manages about 72% of the sRGB spectrum. It also has better viewing angles than the Y50 s LCD.

Of course, the MSI GE60 isn t perfect. Anandtech takes issues with the build quality of its lid, calling it very flexible perhaps even bordering in flimsy. The review also states that the battery only lasts 4.5 hours for light use, which is about the same results Notebookcheck got with a web browsing test on the Lenovo Y50. Lower build quality and shorter battery life are expected compromises for budget gaming laptops.

The MSI GE60 also has a slow 5400 RPM 1TB hard drive, but it has a secondary hard drive bay, which can be outfitted with a real SSD for as little as $70. I consider it an essential upgrade. That pushes the price of the GE60 closer to $1350, but that s still much cheaper than our $1800 favorite. You can buy the MSI GE60 from Newegg for $1250 and add your own SSD, or get a custom build from PowerNotebooks. I recommend adding a 120GB Samsung EVO mSATA drive for $100.

Full system specs

CPU: 4th gen quad-core Intel Core i7-4700HQ (2.4GHz)
GPU: GeForce GTX 860M (2GB GDDR5)
RAM: 8GB DDR3 (1600MHz)
Display: 15.6" Matte PLS (1920x1080)
Storage: 1TB 5400 RPM HDD (plus second drive bay)
Optical Drive: DVDRW
Networking: 802.11ac 1x1, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet
Battery: 6-cell, 49 Whr
Connectivity: SD flash reader, USB 3.0 (x4), USB 2.0 (x1), HDMI, VGA
OS: Windows 8.1 64-bit
Weight: 5.72 lbs (2.6 kg)

Note to UK readers: You can buy a similar configuration of the MSI GE60 with a 129GB SSD for 1156 on Amazon.
Other cheap gaming laptops
ASUS, who make our favorite laptop, sell a cheaper model, the ASUS ROG G750JM-DS71, starting at $1250 on Amazon (down from a retail price of $1400). Spec-wise, it s extremely competitive the same CPU and GTX 860M GPU, 12GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, and a 1080p screen (with a better RGB color space than the MSI GE60, but lower brightness and contrast). But it s also a 17.3-inch laptop that weighs 10 pounds, which is huge and heavy for a budget laptop. You also can t buy a budget configuration of the G750JM with an SSD online it comes with a 1TB 5400 RPM hard drive.

If you re comfortable with making that replacement yourself, and prefer a 17-inch laptop over a 15-inch laptop, the ASUS ROG G750JM-DS71 is a strong choice compared to the MSI GE60, with similar specs, more RAM, and longer battery life. Make sure to buy a laptop SSD to pair with the slow hard drive.

I researched and ruled out other Lenovo and MSI competitors, like the Lenovo Y510p, which is also $1100 and has two GPUs in SLI. But the dual Nvidia 755Ms are actually slower than a single 860M, and it has an older processor. The MSI GP70 is a cheap $900, but its Nvidia 840M is far, far weaker than the 860M.

I also looked at Toshiba s Qosimo laptops, which are comparable in specs. The 17-inch Toshiba Qosmio X70-AST3G23 comes with an i7-4700MQ CPU, 16GB of memory, and a 3GB GeForce GTX 770M. The 770M is a fast card, and slightly outperforms the 860M in some cases, but it s a year older. I recommend the 860M, however: as Notebookcheck explains, Although the GTX 860M has much less memory bandwidth and computing power, it can compete with (or sometimes even beat) the old Kepler-based GeForce GTX 770M while drawing significantly less power. The 860M offers equivalent performance while running cooler and sapping less battery life. The Qosmio also ships with a 5400 RPM 1TB HDD with a hybrid 8GB SATA SSD. Toshiba doesn t offer the option to customize its laptops when buying online, which would allow us to include a build with a faster SSD.

Samsung s gaming laptop, the ATIV Book 8, is comparable on price at $1270, but runs a much weaker Radeon HD 8770M GPU.
Wrap up
For $1250, or about $1350 with a fast SSD added in, the MSI GE60 is a powerful enough gaming laptop to play modern games on high settings, with a better screen than the competition from Lenovo and ASUS. If you only want to play old games, or very simple games, you can buy a cheaper laptop built for portability rather than gaming. But if you want to get a true, dedicated gaming laptop, the MSI GE60 is the best balance of power and price you re going to find on a smaller budget.

If you have more to spend, though, get the Asus G750JS-DS71 it'll give you more gaming power, last longer, and it's an all-around better-built machine.