What can I expect out of this Dell laptop?

v1lla21

Honorable
Jun 17, 2012
3
0
10,510
So i went to Costco and they had a laptop for special at 700 bucks. It's a Dell, I know, but it sounds good to me and I'm coming here for help. I want it for Uni but i'll be doing some gaming on it. I'll be playing games like BF3 (if possible), Portal 2, Civ 5, and Guild Wars 2, to name a few. What can I expect out of this laptop?

Specs:
Intel i7-2670qm
8GB of ram (DDR30
1TB HDD
1GB Nvidia Geforce GT 525M

Any recommendations other than this one? budget is at $800.
 

nbelote

Distinguished
Oct 5, 2009
221
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18,860


Good CPU (not great), horrible GPU.

This one would do you tons better at the same price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215261

Heck, the top few on this page would do you better: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=17&sel=Mfr%3BMfr_12
 

KelvinTy

Distinguished
Aug 17, 2011
33
0
18,580
With those spec, you are looking at around 50FPS at 1024x768 and everything effects turned to low or off.
As for the GT630M, the story is still exactly the same and AMD 6650M is even worse in the BF3 benchmarks...
Source: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html (click the respective GPU model, scroll down to BF3 for benchmarks.)

At $800, I can only suggest the 11.6" Clevo rebrand Sager... Despite the small screen, it has a GT650M. BF3 can be run at 1366x768, medium settings... Not the greatest, but it's cheap.
http://www.gentechpc.com/system_dept.asp?dept_id=SD-022

I cannot recommend anything else because there isn't really a gaming notebook at $800... It would be way, super, ultra better off building a mini PC...
 

v1lla21

Honorable
Jun 17, 2012
3
0
10,510


Well that leaves BF3 out of the picture, I own it on PS3 already so I don't mind. Would a game like Skyrim also run on low settings at about 30FPS?