Need help on a purchase!

[Rythen]

I got roughly $1,700 in scholarship money to spend on a laptop. I got on the net and was overwhelmed (i'm a total n00b) at all the things out there. Should i go for Intel or AMD? Any specific ones? Also, i'd like to do some gaming on it, so should i go with something that has ATi or nVIDIA? Blah, i'm totally lost. Any suggestions are welcomed!

 

[Nubius]

Well laptops generally aren't made for gaming and finding a good 'gaming' laptop would probably be somewhat difficult and expensive. AMD's are generalized as being better for gaming and Intel for apps mainly because of Intels bigger fatter pipelines, whereas AMD has smaller ones that can do more instructions per clock cycle than Intel...this is why you can see a 2.2GHz amd chip beat out a 3GHz Intel depending on the chips.

When it comes to ATI or Nvidia, well you'll get all sorts of answers on that and really it comes to personal preferences. It seems in my experience with a few different cards and reading posts on these forums that ATI always have driver difficulties, and generally I see more ATI based problems on this board...but then again that's just my Opinion. Like I said finding a laptop with a good onboard card would be hard, because laptops get really hot so they can only be 'so powerful' ya know? I don't know any particular laptops however, so just wait and see if someone indeed has some good suggestions.

 

[beedubaya]

If you want to do gaming you could get yourself an awesome desktop rig for that price.

 

[Rythen]

Yeah, I though of that, but I'd really like a laptop to write my notes on instead of pen and paper, ya know? I'm totally disorganized and taking my notes on a laptop would help me greatly (not to mention the fact that im more inclined to type than to write). A local store is offering laptop with an AMD 64 2800, ATi 9700, and 512mb of RAM for $1600(I'd post the link but im not so sure if im allowed to). Is that a good deal or do you guys think i could do better with the money?

 

[SNiPeRViRuS]

actually i think thats a really good deal for that notebook. just make sure and check that its a valid sale and that none of the parts are faulty.

 

[Nubius]

Yes you can post a link it's all good and actuall preferred so we can see what you're talking about. Seems like a rather good deal especially for a notebook, however I have no idea how good the 9700 is...I know the 9600 and 9800 were good, but I really don't know about the 9700 but it's right on up there with the top previous gen cards so you should be able to get some good gaming out of it.

 

[Amd64Boy]

if your looking for mobility you want to go with pentium
but if your looking for a long lasting laptop go with AMD
Overall go with ati they give you good graphics even with alow power video card.

As i said if your looking for mobility go with the pentium
If tou want the thinest and smallest of laptops go to this link http://www.kemplar.com/sonyu3_ts.htm

 

[gizmo90]

u mite want to look into a windows "tablet" pc! wer u basically hav a HUGE Palm Pilot! some even convert back into a laptop!


[just a suggestion] lol

 

[Rythen]

Here's the link to the one i was talking about earlier.

http://www.pcclub.com/product_system_detail.cfm?itemno=ENP75704

On another note, I have around 3 weeks before the cash gets here, so if anyone sees anything good before then, please post the link so i can check it out

 

[madmonk888]

thats pretty solid dude.. good deal it looks like .. id always recommend a desktop tho =D but i understand the need for note taking on computer.. i know the many ways of a slob myself =D