Ethan_Kaizer
Daemon Poster
- Messages
- 881
- Location
- Long Island, NY, USA
Hey everyone, been a while since I've been around here. I'm thinking of buying a laptop for college soon, and I'm looking around the 600-750 dollar price range. I have gift cards to Best Buy and bhphotovideo.com, so if I could find a good deal from one of those two sites, that would be great, and if not, then it's okay. This computer is going to be used a lot for multimedia purposes, a small amount of gaming, and school work. It's got to be a reliable brand, and I'm leaning towards a good warranty as well. I like larger/heavier laptops, 15 inches and up. I really don't mind the extra weight, as I won't be traveling with it too much.
My first question is about processors. I have seen AMD Athlon X2, AMD Turion X2, Turion X2 Ultra, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Duo Mobile, and Centrino (are the last two different?) in this price range. Which of these will give best performance, and which should be avoided?
Secondly, what graphics types would be enough to run the Source engine, and other mid-level spec. games? I have seen laptops in this price range with the Intel 4500MHD chip, which I assume is garbage. I have also seen the ATI HD3100 and HD3200, the NVidia 9300M, Geforce 105M, and a few laptops if I remember with the 9500GS chip, and maybe one with the 9600M GT. I'm not looking to play Crysis, I'm just looking to be able to play CSS, call of duty 4/5, L4D, and TF2, and other moderate games like that. And no, I don't need to max them out, they just have to play smooth on decent settings. Gaming is not my top priority.
Any answers and recommendations would be great. I saw a few very nice looking deals on some HP laptops at my Best Buy store yesterday, for the DV6t and DV7t, for under 700. Once I get some more advice, I'll go back to the store and look again.
Thanks a lot, and hope everyone around here has been doing well!
My first question is about processors. I have seen AMD Athlon X2, AMD Turion X2, Turion X2 Ultra, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Duo Mobile, and Centrino (are the last two different?) in this price range. Which of these will give best performance, and which should be avoided?
Secondly, what graphics types would be enough to run the Source engine, and other mid-level spec. games? I have seen laptops in this price range with the Intel 4500MHD chip, which I assume is garbage. I have also seen the ATI HD3100 and HD3200, the NVidia 9300M, Geforce 105M, and a few laptops if I remember with the 9500GS chip, and maybe one with the 9600M GT. I'm not looking to play Crysis, I'm just looking to be able to play CSS, call of duty 4/5, L4D, and TF2, and other moderate games like that. And no, I don't need to max them out, they just have to play smooth on decent settings. Gaming is not my top priority.
Any answers and recommendations would be great. I saw a few very nice looking deals on some HP laptops at my Best Buy store yesterday, for the DV6t and DV7t, for under 700. Once I get some more advice, I'll go back to the store and look again.
Thanks a lot, and hope everyone around here has been doing well!