Thinking of a new laptop

Well, I'm thinking of a new laptop and I'd appreciate some input on a couple of things. My gaming desktop is aging but I spend very little time with it, because I'd rather use my laptop in the living room together with Kayla. My current laptop plays anything older but just copes with NWN2, is borderline for The Witcher and can't really handle 2W...and then Dragon Age is on the horizon and so on.

No need to tell me a desktop is faster/better/cheaper - a laptop fits my current lifestyle and my company can do a salary deal. Good laptops are expensive in Australia, but Dell has a deal that looks attractive.

XPS 1530
2.4Ghz T7700
4Gb DDR2 667Mhz
256Mb 8600M GT
...and other sundry stuff.

Questions: How does a 2.4Ghz dual-core T7700 stack up? I'm running an older 3.2Ghz P4 (Northwood) but I assume the newer architecture will keep up on non-dual-core stuff?

Is Vista just eating up the 4Gb RAM, leaving me with the sort of performance I'd get out of XP and 2Gb, or is 4Gb still getting a little bit out in front? I'm not really keen to go to Vista but it's going to come with most new systems.

Basically, I don't expect cutting edge but I'd like to run most games on medium-ish for the next 2 years.

Lastly, the standard screen is 1200x800 but there are options for 1440x900 and 1680x1050...I'm tempted to leave it as 1200x800 because that res works nicely on a 15.4" screen for the text size I like and I think most 3D games will run nicely at the native resolution - I imagine 1680x1050 might be pushing it going forward.

Most importantly though, I still play a lot of older 2D (from Spiderweb to Fallout) -- this is critical. I can put Avernum V in a window at 1200x800 and it will look OK...would 1680x1050 be better because of the scaling options or worse because I'll end up with a lot of stuff in tiny windows?

Thanks for your thoughts.

I have a custom Dell laptop which works well, though I'm still getting used to Vista. I took all the top options I could and it still came in at a reasonable price. Haven't tried playing anything old on it yet, but it's handling all the latest stuff easily.

The 2.4Ghz dual-core T7700 will be more than enough. easily.
The CPU will not be the bottleneck on that system.
Neither will 4Gb DDR2 667Mhz ram. That's very very good. Lots of fast memory, even for vista.

With laptops the bottleneck is almost always the GPU. I am fairly certain that this will be the case with your system too. However 8600GT is a mid-range DX10 card and is pretty good for a laptop. I believe that it should be able to run pretty much anything at least on medium settings for years to come - especially with a processor like that.

I say go for it.

EDIT: And I would go with the 1280x800 resolution. With a 15" screen more would not make any sense. ALso if you want to run games in the native resolution that would be the best choice from that perspective too.

Hope this helps.

For a gaming laptop to last for two years (Dragon Age, Fallout 3), the chosen video card probably won't do much good. The latest 8800M GTX but is very expensive, so get the 8700M GT if you could. Or go for previous generation GeForce Go 7950 GTX (DirectX 9) as some says it run better if not as good as 8700M GT; but i think Dell already replaced it with 8x00 series. And while the new series support DirectX 10, in most cases you need to disable it anyway as DX10 features can slow down performances.
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=476
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/405/5/

As gaming machine depend a lot on GPU, T7700 should be enough.

4GB is very good for Vista but remember go for the 64bit version. Eventhough Vista seems to take up a lot of physical memory when boot up it could releases some memory its using when needed. And you could always optimized the system resources such as disabling the glassy Vista Theme, etc.

And i would suggest always run TFT display on native resolution. You could certainly try other resolutions but the results depend on different panel types/manufactures and they usually look worse.

Re: Vista. Can't you just get an "empty" laptop with, say, FreeDos (it's how Dell laptops are sold here, for example), and then install XP on your own, if you don't like Vista (and I don't see why one would).

If you are like me and don't mind disabling the filterings and fancy lights and glitter efects and occasionally turning down the details a bit 8600M GT is all good.

I don't need cutting edge, so as long as I can get a playable framerate with modest settings, I'm happy. I like decent textures (so I usually dislike the "low" settings in most games) but don't really care about fancy shadows, field of view, HDR and so on.

Dell doesn't seem to offer any option for no OS in Australia and the 8700M is only available in an SLI (!) configuration in the 17" 1730, which is both too big and too expensive for me.

All that said, I've noticed ASUS (one of my favourite brands and I currently have two of their laptops) are starting to introduce Penryn laptops, with T9300 CPU and 9500M video. The specs for the 9500M look exactly the same as the 8600M on paper, so I might dig further.

Thanks for those links, Remus, although keep in mind that article quotes DDR2 VRAM, which is for the cheaper Inspiron. The more expensive XPS has DDR3.

I just bought an Acer Aspire 9920G-402G16MN with 20" screen.

Waaaaay too big for me. I guess you are using yours as a desktop replacement? I need something that will comfortably sit in my lap.

Dhruin said:

Waaaaay too big for me. I guess you are using yours as a desktop replacement? I need something that will comfortably sit in my lap.

Click to expand...

I wanted something to drag back and forth from the bedroom to the kitchen while doing homework, and sometimes drag with me when we are going to my wife's parents. I found that most laptops of today are widescreen and the 15" was too small and the only 17" with the config I wanted was darn ugly...

Dell (as well as Alienware and Toshiba and others) have gone Penryn, and I think that is desirable if you can get it. However, you have to do a different XPS - either the 1330 or 1730 ... one is very expensive and the other is limited to a 128MB video card.

You can actually do just about as well with the Inspiron laptops ...

As for resolution, I *love* 1440 x 900 on my 15.4", and 1900 x 1200 on 17".

Already pulled the trigger on a fully spec'ed 1530, for better or worse. Probably get here on Monday. Went with 1280x800 because I really do run a lot of 2D and I'm comfortable running 3D games at a modest res.

The 1330's video is definitely too limiting while the 1730 looks great but it's out of my budget (prices are *very* different down here) plus it's simply too big - it's not going to sit on a desk. Alienware prices are out of the question and Toshiba doesn't offer the flexibility or value to get the right spec.

Penryn would be nice but the price premium (based on looking at other models) doesn't look worth it.

So, T7700 XPS 1530 it is. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

It will be great for quite a while ... I'm itching on a 1730 for the integrated numpad and a 1330 for the portability ... even though I have a current Macbook Pro and 'last gen' XPS 17" anbd don\'t need a new one!

I say that it's ok.... the bad part is... what will you do after 2 years? buy another?

a 20" is awesome... but i think it's a little to much
I like very big screens hehe

a 17" would work... but if u don't like it... hey go with the 15"

gaboru93 said:

I say that it's ok.... the bad part is... what will you do after 2 years? buy another?

Click to expand...

Yes ... my family is in the process of moving and you wouldn't *believe* the amount of laptops I still have from through the years - despite feeling like I got rid of the majority!

Hey - I had a whole reply that's missing. :/

Yep - buy a new one. Short version of my missing post is that Australia has corporate laptop purchase schemes that give you a tax concession. My company buys it for me and they take installments out of my pay over a year - with about $800 tax savings on my $2300 laptop (=$1400 cost to me).

Lots of people do this every year because of the tax breaks and you don't miss small amounts taken straight out of your pay.

if that's the case Dhruin I say go for it...

Dhruin said:

Lots of people do this every year because of the tax breaks and you don't miss small amounts taken straight out of your pay.

Click to expand...

That *is* sweet ...