Need laptop advice

[synario]

I know second thread, but the question is different and more specific so here I go:

I'm looking at this laptop on QVC: http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.item.E246894.desc.Dell-XPS-156-NotebookCore-i76GB-RAM500GB-HD2GB-Graphics

It's an xps 15 with an i7 which is more than enough, and a 540m. Annoys me that they give it 2gb, since they are well aware they can full a bunch of house-wives that way, but oh well.

What I have to ask is, how powerful is the 540m compared to the nvidia 6630m, or the 5650m? Will it play shogun 2 on high settings? Will it play Battlefield 3 on low settings?

Most importantly battery life: With only the screen brightness at low/minimum, and web surfing/word documents, how much battery life can I get? I can't find a straight answer. If it can get 4 and half hours through careful use (low screen brightness, mild use, and the keyboard light turned off) I'll be happy.

Also, will these last me six years? Not performance wise, but durability. Will it not fall apart after 6 years if I take care of it?

 

[cjanecki84]

I think you are looking at the specs wrong. The 2gb is dedicated video memory which is about as much as you're going to find in any high end GPUs. This has 6gb ram (probably upgradable to 12 maybe even 24) The 540m's specs looks like it's actually going to be higher than the 6630 or the 5650.

As for game specs, you'd need to check the system specs against the reccomended spec of the game.

Now concerning the battery life, I wouldnt count on on 4.5 hours. I'd pack an extra battery. i7 CPU by nature is a powerhog, i wouldnt expect much less out of the mobile version.

Last 6 years? Physically, I'd say so as long as you take care of it properly.

 

[synario]

No, I know the ram is 6gb. Of course though, it'll never need to use all 2gb of video ram, almost no video cards use more than one.

It is bad for the computer to constantly swap out the battery though?

 

[cjanecki84]

No it won't hurt the computer at all as long as its done properly. That is full shut down and then swap. I just highly doubt that you'd get 4.5 hours on a i7 with a gtx in there. I would get around 2.5 out of my hp pavillion with Intel duo core and a dedicated graphics card 8 the name evades me) model dv9565nr if you look at that and compare power consumption on the major components. CPU, gpu, and ram.

 

[cbrunnem]

I know second thread, but the question is different and more specific so here I go:

I'm looking at this laptop on QVC: http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/view.2/app.detail/params.item.E246894.desc.Dell-XPS-156-NotebookCore-i76GB-RAM500GB-HD2GB-Graphics

It's an xps 15 with an i7 which is more than enough, and a 540m. Annoys me that they give it 2gb, since they are well aware they can full a bunch of house-wives that way, but oh well.

What I have to ask is, how powerful is the 540m compared to the nvidia 6630m, or the 5650m? Will it play shogun 2 on high settings? Will it play Battlefield 3 on low settings?

Most importantly battery life: With only the screen brightness at low/minimum, and web surfing/word documents, how much battery life can I get? I can't find a straight answer. If it can get 4 and half hours through careful use (low screen brightness, mild use, and the keyboard light turned off) I'll be happy.

Also, will these last me six years? Not performance wise, but durability. Will it not fall apart after 6 years if I take care of it?

yes contrary to what cj said it will get 4 hours plus on a battery. or it should unless they put a small battery in it. i have about the same setting up but with 8gb of ram instead of 6 and i can get 4 hours or more. just make sure you have your browsers and windows media player and other stuff that doesnt need the gt 540m set to run off the intel hd 3000 graphics.