i'm a new college student and am looking to buy a laptop. i'm going to buy windows vista and i think i will buy with 2 gb of ram and a 2.0 ghz processor. i'm going to be using it for basic daily activities (writing reports, surfing internet, listening music, watching videos, using instant messenger, etc.). i'm not a serious gamer but i might decide to play a few games in college. i don't think the games are too graphically intensive, but are like warcraft or counter strike. i don't mind if the settings are set to the minimum on a low resolution. should i buy the intel 965 gma x3100 integrated graphics or spend money on a 128 mb or 256 mb dedicated gpu? i prefer to get the most value for the price so do i need a dedicated gpu? and if i get integrated graphics, is 2 gb of ram enough for vista along with using my daily activities?
2007-10-14 20:54:47 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Laptops & Notebooks
The best integrated graphics would still be marginal for many games. Get at least the Geforce 8400M G or the GS. It is a DX10 card and supports Shader4.0.
2007-10-15 01:37:08 · answer #1 · answered by Karz 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
the X3100 is good enough. it has hardware directX, shader model 3 and all the good stuff needed for basic gaming.
2gbs of system memory is good.
i am going to edit my post here since some people are behind the times it seems. The intel X3000 series are huge improvments from previous models. they have hardware DirectX 10 T&L and so many other things the previous GMA 900 series did not have. Also driver support for games is vastly improved, the GMA950 would simply not run certain games it was even capable of because of that.
the reason i suggest integrated cards is battery life. if you want to take your laptop to class you will be hurting if you go with a dedicated card. they suck too much power.
if you are happy with medium settings and resolution in games an X3100 is fine. if you need more, then get dedicated, but just be weary of lessened battery life.
2007-10-15 04:03:06 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Go with the best dedicated graphics card you can afford, they are not upgradeable and the Intel integrated cards are on the low end of graphics cards that are on the market. The system requirements for games are being raised all the time, I have an Intel 950 on one of my laptops and it's useless for most of the games on the market.
2007-10-15 07:45:08 · answer #3 · answered by Gerald J 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I would go with this laptop, it has a 2ghz core 2 duo, 1gb RAM, 160gb hard drive, and a powerful Nvidia 8600GS, and includes 2 year warranty:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220163
2007-10-15 05:15:00 · answer #4 · answered by Doggzilla 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋