The Mother Board

[evandean]

Hey guys and gals! I am just posting this to get input from you lot about a gaming laptop or Mini PC - I am planning on trying to keep below my budget of £500 for a gaming laptop But £60 over isn't to major

So for starters, just a quick question - Is it possible to use a laptop as a monitor via a HDMI cable from the PC itself (On going fed between me and a friend)

Anyway - So this is the stuff I currently am considering for the mini PC:

Motherboard: ASUS AT5IONT-I - Intel Atom D525 - Around £120

Processor - Intel: Intel Core i7 3.06 GHz - Would this fit though - And not sure if the Intel Atom works with i7 chipset?
Processor - AMD: AMD Phenom X4 3 GHz (AM3, L2 6 MB) or AMD FX 3.1 GHz (AM3+, L2 8 MB)
^ Which one?

Graphic Card: Really stumped on this - VIDIA GeForce GT 210 - What's your recommendations?

RAM: Kingston (Most likely) DDR 2 or 3 8 GB (4 GB x 2)

Fan: You guys tell me

Casing: http://www.xcase.co.uk/Mini-Micro-Case-p/case-xcase-mm.htm or http://www.xcase.co.uk/X-Case-V12-V1211-p/case-x-casev121211.htm



And I am still looking for a suitable gaming laptop - It will most likely will have to be AMD as Intel will probably be to expensive - Anyway surprise me!

Thank you for all your help. + None of this $%^!@# like 'Oooh just buy a gaming pc - I really do not have room in my house - I have like 2 square feet of room in my bedroom where it will be.

[Mr T]

Welcome to the motherboards.org.....

If you want a gaming laptop, you'll need to look at spending £800 and above...

Reason being is laptops are not aimed at gaming overall... The ones that are have fast CPU's, a decent graphics chip, a hardened keyboard and mouse pad and a decent sized screen - over 15.6"....

To build your own laptop - forget it, it just isn't done any more... The most you get is buying from someone like DELL and stipulating what you want in it within a tight, very tight spec sheet...

What it looks like you are doing is trying to force a mini ITX board to be a gaming machine... If you do so, your main expense as it is a gaming machine is a decent graphics card and that can be a half of your budget... (And mini ITX has an issue with gaming - heat dispersal)....

You can do it on an ATX set up and go AMD... Budget mainly for graphics card, RAM and power supply...

But my advice, if you want gaming on a budget, get an Xbox360....
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I have been programming on computers since the ZX81.
I am an apprentice trained Electronics Engineer with qualifications to back it up.
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Yet to some people I still know nothing...

[evandean]

Thank you for your response - Yes I did consider that gaming laptops are extremely expensive - But if I were to buy a cheap one I can replace motherboard, ram and processor to make it better.
Also I have an xbox - But graphic cards can get pretty large and hefty, so I can see where you are coming from

Also - Still I need to know if I can connect a laptop to a desktop via HDMI cable?

AMD Will most likely be my main choice as it is cheap and quad cores are easy to come by.

[Roach412]

in buying a cheap laptop, you probably won't be able to swap out parts. it's just the nature of the beast. cheap typically means proprietary, and proprietary means custom designed boards and interfaces. those customizations mean your generic replacement parts don't fit.

you want to HDMI in video to a desktop? why? you would need something that interprets the incoming signal in order to use it...like a capture card or specialized software i think.

-Roach
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Lian Li Lancool First Knight Series PC-K59W
Intel Core i7-960 Bloomfield 3.2GHz
EVGA X58 FTW3 132-GT-E768-TR
EVGA GTX 560ti FPB
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 12GB (3 x 4GB)
Crucial M4 128gb SATAIII SSD
Corsair Professional Series HX850 PSU

[evandean]

Thank you

Any more input?