Hi all,
I'm going back to school and thinking of getting a laptop. I already have a home-built desktop, so that will take care of all my quantitative modeling and heavy gaming needs (and seeing as how I'll be in political science, I think it'll mostly be for gaming).
I want a laptop, however, for taking notes in class and also to play some older games (Civ 4, FEAR, Total War: Medieval 2, etc.). I've come down to essentially two laptops: a Dell Vostro 1400 which I can get for under $700 and a Dell Latitude D630. The latter I can purchase through the school, but I don't know how much it is.
So, assuming that price is equal, it comes down to graphics. The Vostro has a 128MB GeForce 8400M GS. D630 has an integrated GPU which I can hopefully upgrade to a 128MB Quadro NVS 135M. It's the same chipset as the 8400, but does anyone have any thoughts on if the Quadro would be able to play those games well on low (or possibly mid) settings?
Other comparisons:
Vostro - 5.7~5.9 lbs., slower CPU (C2D 1.4 Ghz), larger hard drive (120~250 GB)
D630 - 5.2~5.3 lbs., faster CPU (C2D 1.8 Ghz), 80 GB hard drive
If the Quadro would work for the games, that's going to tip in the D630's favor. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance! This forum always has great advice!
I'm going back to school and thinking of getting a laptop. I already have a home-built desktop, so that will take care of all my quantitative modeling and heavy gaming needs (and seeing as how I'll be in political science, I think it'll mostly be for gaming).
I want a laptop, however, for taking notes in class and also to play some older games (Civ 4, FEAR, Total War: Medieval 2, etc.). I've come down to essentially two laptops: a Dell Vostro 1400 which I can get for under $700 and a Dell Latitude D630. The latter I can purchase through the school, but I don't know how much it is.
So, assuming that price is equal, it comes down to graphics. The Vostro has a 128MB GeForce 8400M GS. D630 has an integrated GPU which I can hopefully upgrade to a 128MB Quadro NVS 135M. It's the same chipset as the 8400, but does anyone have any thoughts on if the Quadro would be able to play those games well on low (or possibly mid) settings?
Other comparisons:
Vostro - 5.7~5.9 lbs., slower CPU (C2D 1.4 Ghz), larger hard drive (120~250 GB)
D630 - 5.2~5.3 lbs., faster CPU (C2D 1.8 Ghz), 80 GB hard drive
If the Quadro would work for the games, that's going to tip in the D630's favor. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance! This forum always has great advice!