Three laptops to choose from for my wife - Mostly WoW.

digitalmanifestations

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Torn between three laptops - Primary use will be World of Warcraft. Right now she has a Compaq that's a couple of years old with integrated intel graphics (blegh). She gets around 8-17 FPS in WG on low settings. I don't imagine Cataclysm will be doing her any favours.

Screen size would be ideal at 17 inches but I'm sure she'd be perfectly happy with 15. So resolution isn't too big of an issue and none of those laptops have a 17 inch screen anyways.

She'll want to game at high/ultra settings on World of Warcraft and knowing her, she may want to dabble with the Sims or Starcraft 2.

I saw Benchmarks but they're too close to really tell and I really feel it comes down to CPU performance now and what would end up being better in the long run when combinging the cpu and gpu.


I'm looking at the following:



ASUS N52DA-X1 AMD Phenom II Quad-Core P920(1.6GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 NoteBook - 779.00



HP Pavilion dv6-3143us Intel Core i3 370M(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 500GB HDD ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 + Intel HD NoteBook - 799.99



ASUS G Series G60VX-RBBX05 Intel Core 2 Duo P7450(2.13GHz) 16" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M NoteBook - 654.99

I saw an Acer Aspire with a 5650 in it for around 679 or so, but reviews said it suffers from a few issues.


I'm torn though. I know the GTX 260M is a better GPU but the CPU specs on the others are more current - Not sure about nicer as I don't know much about the P920 performance.



Anyone have experience with these GPUs and are able to tell me what kind of frame rate my wife could expect?

Thanks for all the help in advance.
 

digitalmanifestations

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Thanks Maziar. She'll also be doing some editing in Photoshop, schoolwork, etc but the difference between the CPUs for that should be negligible in her case.

I suppose if I didn't get the Asus G60, the Phenom II with the 5730 would be the next runner up. From what I've read though refurbished Newegg and/or Asus products are pretty reliable.

I came across this one on Overstock.com: http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/Asus-G71GX-RX05-Intel-Core-2-Duo-Vista-PC-Laptop-Refurbished/4849690/product.html
 
G71GX is also good,and has pretty much the same specs as G60.
I wouldn't recommend Phenom II though,it doesn't perform very well.You can find notebooks with Core i3/i5 and 5730M which are better.
 

digitalmanifestations

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Would you guys suggest a laptop with a 5730 in it if it was running an I5 or I3 processor, or would the difference in perfromance the cpu would make in this case be negligible? (I'm really leaning towards the GTX 260m myself, but I just want to be absolutely sure and I know a lot more about desktops than I do laptops - Speeds, performance and whatnot.)
 
GTX 260M is notably faster than 5730M in games,and most games are GPU limited,so overall going with GTX 260M/C2D will give you a better gaming performance than 5730M/i3 or i5 in almost all games
 

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Well I really do appreciate all the responses. I know it seemed I was beating a dead horse but I just wanted to be completely sure.

I've decided on http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220733

It's more than the 649 Asus but it has 2GB more ram and a faster CPU that I'm sure can be overclocked. I did read however that someone got their P7450 up to 2.5 Ghz. So whether or not it is worth the extra 70 bucks I'm not sure.
 

BeefBravo

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http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220733

This is what I recommend. I have an Asuse G72 & I play WoW on ultra with no problems. Even with Cata I'm getting over 45fps on ultra & a solid 60fps with shadows bumped back a bit. I play for hours at a time without a hiccup. It overclocks to 2.88ghz with the included software too. Download NVidea's newer tool package & you can bump the video card specs as well. However overclocks aren't needed to play WoW at ultra settings with it. So if you aren't comfortable with the overclocking it will still play at over 40fps on ultra. I also play with 8x AA (multisampling). This is a great machine & at $750 you can't beat it.
 

BeefBravo

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Oh, if I disable VSync my framerates will jump to over 80fps & sometimes scream past 120fps (depending where I'm at). However those framerates are so much higher than the screen's refresh rate that I just leave VSync on (otherwise it can get graphically choppy despite the higher frame rates).
 

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So it really sounds like I can expect the same performance as what I get out of my desktop EVGA GTX 260 SSC, or close.

I'll go for the G72 if only for the extra 2GB memory and bigger HD. The faster CPU clock speed is fine but you're right, WoW isn't like Crysis where it taxes multiple components - CPU hinderance won't be much of an issue.
 

BeefBravo

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The G72 is a great buy right now because of it's price. I paid $1000 for mine last February & just 2 weeks before it was priced at $1300. The price is down because the new G73 has been released & it comes with an i7 & a GeForce GTX 460M (DX11), but it costs cloe to or above $2000 I believe. For DX10 games & certainly for WoW the G72 is hard to beat at $750. Also burning DVDs is pretty fast on it too. I can burn an average DVD using convert x in 15 minutes (convert & burn). I've had them finish in as little as 10 minutes too. For the price the G72 is hard to beat right now.
 

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Hmmm. I figured it'd be somewhere around that of a 9800 GT. I suppose that really isn't close to a GTX 260 at all actually haha.

But it's settled! I'll get the G72! Thank you for all the great responses and your patience :p.
 

nativeson8803

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Choose the one with the best video card. I just bought a decent laptop for 540.00 out the door (California) and while it does all the stuff I really needed it for, it can't play many games. The money was an issue to me, but I do lament not having a discreet card.

My laptop: MSI 6200 (Intel Integrated Graphics)