Is this laptop a lost-cause for gaming?

[C_olin]

I have an HP Pavillion dv9000...

CPU: AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-52 (1.61ghz)
GPU: GeForce 6150
RAM: 1GB DDR2
Windows XP Pro SP2

... and I was hoping to do some gaming but the gaming performance is subpar. I ran 3dMark 06 and got "216"... Is it worth attempting to tweak/upgrade this to game better or should I save up and build a decent desktop rig?

Thanks

 

[peterhuang913]

Build a rig, it's not worth it to upgrade.

 

[C_olin]

That's what I was thinking... But I'm a poor college student so I'll have to sell some guitars are something... lol

 

[Kubel]

You would have to swap out the motherboard, and that would cost hundreds for the parts alone. 6150/7150M are nice as far as integrated graphics go, but they are nothing compared to dedicated.

It would be more economical sell it and look into a newer DV9500Z or DV9500T with GeForce 8400M/8600M GS graphics- or even better- build a gaming desktop.

 

[Kubel]

One thing I noticed in your other post was XP was reporting 960MB RAM. That means you only have 64MB allocated to your 6150 Go graphics (I have the same in my notebook, DV6000Z).

To improve gaming performance a bit, you could increase your graphics memory to 128MB in BIOS.