General Discussion

I don't have a lot of money to buy a laptop for gaming and for the most part I just the option of being able to play, albiet on low settings if necessary, current games.

So I'm wondering should I opt for the faster processor speeds or is 1.9 or 2.0 ghz enough.

What about these graphics cards:

256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS

ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3200 Graphics
256MB ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3450 Graphics

I assume in either case, I would do better going with the second one in the set, which one is better or would they all be good enough for meeting most minimum requirements.

One last question, is 4gb ram worth shelling out the extra money for when 3gb upgrade is included in the price?

I would say get a faster processor, atleast 2.4 GHz. For the RAM, if your getting Vista 64-bit I would say go 4 GBs, but 3 should be fine. As for the graphic cards you might want to go for something a little more. Trust me when I say this, because my current laptop looks exactly like yours and I rushed into it. Save up the cash, it will be way more worth it if you can get something that won't be totally out of date in 2 years. You could probably get a desktop with better specs for what you are gonna pay for that. Just don't rush into, cause you can't upgrade any laptop parts and it will be a total waste of money.

I really can't wait, it's getting ordered tonight. My mom is offering to get me a replacement laptop for school, so I have to get while the getting's good. I was going to wait until september/october when my fin. aid comes through, but this offer is too good to pass on.

Does it matter any that it's a Core 2 Duo?

Oh, when the warranty says drop damage, does that mean I can drop it down three-flights of stairs in a year and get a brand-new replacement? I didn't get an extended warranty on my first laptop, and i'm regretting that now.

Yes the drop damage covers drops, and duo means theres double the processor. So if theres an intel core duo 2.4 ghz, that's basically 4.8 ghz. If it's quad, 2.4 ghz is like 9.6 ghz. But I'm just saying I rushed to, and I'm regretting the hell out if now. Luckily, I got the money for a decent desktop now, and my laptop is just going to store my music and for school. I can play some games on it, but poorly at low settings.

Originally posted by RaidTheSpade

Yes the drop damage covers drops, and duo means theres double the processor. So if theres an intel core duo 2.4 ghz, that's basically 4.8 ghz. If it's quad, 2.4 ghz is like 9.6 ghz. But I'm just saying I rushed to, and I'm regretting the hell out if now. Luckily, I got the money for a decent desktop now, and my laptop is just going to store my music and for school. I can play some games on it, but poorly at low settings.

That's not correct. If you have a dual core at 2.4 GHz, that means that your processing speed is 2.4 GHz. Dual core technology comes into play when you're multitasking. If you're running a single application on your computer, you're not going to see a big difference between a 2.4 GHz single core and a 2.4 GHz dual core. However, you will see a massive difference when running more than one application because you have the power of two processors tackling the applications rather than one. Some software developers say that their product(s) takes advantage of dual core technology. I have yet to see any significant difference in any game that claims to take advantage of multi-cores. If you're not really into multitasking I'd go with a faster single core CPU, although I'm not even sure if they sell single core CPU's in package deals anymore, hehehe.

Anyhoo, laptops really aren't meant for gaming but you should be ok getting that deal. The difference you'll see between 3 gigs and 4 gigs of RAM is negligible. As for the video cards, neither one is great. I'd say go for the 8600 as opposed to the 8400.

Good luck and happy hunting :)

It is a package deal so I don't have many different choices. But I have a $400 off coupoun if I get it above $1299. Basically I just want to be able to play WAR if I choose to, but the games I play now work on my current laptop that is two years old.

Is it worth getting the 64-bit vista since it doesn't cost anymore or would it hurt my performance if I just go with 3 gigs?

Where are you getting it from?

It was going to come from HP, because I have a $400 coupon.

I don't have a lot of experience with Vista because I switched back to XP shortly after installing it. The amount of RAM that Windows XP uses just to run itself is only a couple hundred MB, whereas Vista uses closer to a GB. Vista does use memory more efficiently. In either case, 3 GB is plenty. I'd recommend going with Vista; I'm pretty sure Microsoft is about to stop supporting XP if they haven't already. Apparently Vista has improved a lot in the past few months in terms of stability and bugs. Yes, go with 64 bit Vista if you can.

Do not get an HP, Dell, Apple, etc. Do not get ANY of that garbage.

You want a laptop with a sager or asus motherboard for a quality system.

Go to xoticpc.com and they have laptops for different price ranges. You'll get the most bang for your buck there. If you're head strong on getting one of those garbage brand names then good luck, but I suggest you take my advice.

Also, just charge it to a credit card and make your monthly payments. Laptops are expensive and it's easier just to pay it off over time.