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Tom's Hardware > Forum > Laptops & Notebooks > General Discussion > Tough choices... help me decide please =)

Tough choices... help me decide please =)

Forum Laptops & Notebooks : General Discussion Tough choices... help me decide please =)

Hey folks. I hate laptop shopping because I can't build the damn things myself! Consider: It will be primarily for gaming and light photoshop use, after that it's all the general powerpoint, word, msn, web surfing etc.

ASUS N81VPC-C1 ($1,556.64)

14.1" 1366x768
T9550 2.66Ghz
Radeon 4650 1GB
4GB DDR2
320GB 7200rpm
6-cell battery
32-bit Vista

ASUS N51VN-A1 ($1,549.99)

15.6" 1366x768 (ugh on 15.6" )
T9600 2.8Ghz
GeForce GT 240M 1GB (new 40nm)
4GB
320GB 7200rpm
6-cell battery
32-bit Vista

So, I have a tough time deciding just between those two... but then I found out this is hitting stores in ~2 weeks:

Gateway P-803H-CA ($1,249.99)

17" --> possibly only 1440x900 res, waiting to find out for sure
P7350 2.0Ghz
GeForce GTX 260M 1GB
4GB
500GB 5400rpm
9-cell battery
64-bit Vista

The Gateway is tempting because of the price, vid card, and 9-cell battery. Slower hard drive and processor though make me hesitate. Gateway's been on a big roll though this past year after Acer bought them and this is still part of their "win back customers with quality parts and pricing" phase, so it's tempting.

What do you guys think? Where is the sweet spot with video card and processor among these three choices, keeping price and screen resolutions in mind?

Cheers!

Message edited by jevon on 07-22-2009 at 06:09:51 PM

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Hello and welcome to the forums
If u want to game definitely go for the GATEWAY model,a GTX 260M beats HD 4650 and GT 240M with ease,also although it has a 2.0GHZ CPU it will enough for most games,in games like RTS u may run in to some troubles but as i said most games will be fine since they are mostly GPU limited than CPU limited

Reply to Maziar

Thanks Maziar, I didn't notice that I was back to "Newbie" status somehow (I have 377 posts haha). Oh well!

I do play RTS games, though something like StarCraft II I can't really see being a problem on a Core2 2.0Ghz processor. CoH might not be happy though!

I forgot to say the 260M is the GTX version so it's one of the best out there. I guess I just want to make sure the processor isn't going to bottleneck the card.

Decisions, decisions!

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to jevon

jevon wrote :

Thanks Maziar, I didn't notice that I was back to "Newbie" status somehow (I have 377 posts haha). Oh well!

I do play RTS games, though something like StarCraft II I can't really see being a problem on a Core2 2.0Ghz processor. CoH might not be happy though!

I forgot to say the 260M is the GTX version so it's one of the best out there. I guess I just want to make sure the processor isn't going to bottleneck the card.

Decisions, decisions!

1) Don't worry about your status. I have over 2400 posts and am somehow only considered a "Scout" :sarcastic:

2) Keep in mind that the GTX 260M actually doesn't run on the GT 200 core like the desktop cards. It's not going to perform like said desktop GPU, but it will be fine for just about any game you want to play. The CPU may be a bottleneck, but there isn't really any way of knowing without messing with it. Plus, as Maziar said, unless you are running at lower resolutions for your games you are going to rely more on the GPU.

I think the choices should be between the Gateway and the Asus N51.

Message edited by lostandwandering on 07-22-2009 at 09:40:58 PM

A 2.0GHZ C2D will be fine with those games since the VGA is GTX 260M and the resolution is not very high too,as i said definitely go for the Gateway model since it has the best GPU between those

Reply to Maziar

asus and gateway are just third class brand,consider the ideapad Y*50^^^^it good for most people!

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to jingcjk

jingcjk wrote :

asus and gateway are just third class brand,consider the ideapad Y*50^^^^it good for most people!

The GT 105M in the Ideapad is NOT for gaming which is what the OP wants to do. Please read everything that's been posted before you respond.

Message edited by lostandwandering on 07-23-2009 at 04:52:01 PM

Thanks guys, I'm leaning towards that Gateway. I'm just trying to figure out what that specific Gateway actually looks like now! I'm not a big fan of the orange + black FX design and want to make sure this doesn't have something like that.

Though there is a slightly different Gateway coming soon too with a P8700 2.53Ghz C2D processor (all other specs virtually identical), but prices so far seem to be anywhere from +$100 to +$300 more.

Reply to jevon

The only one of those video cards that is DirectX 10.1 compliant is the HD 4650.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by el_perro_azul on 07-28-2009 at 02:55:21 AM

Reply to el_perro_azul

el_perro_azul wrote :

The only one of those video cards that is DirectX 10.1 compliant is the HD 4650.

It's also the weakest in the group.

edit: statement retracted. 4650 > GT 240.

Message edited by lostandwandering on 07-28-2009 at 03:39:35 AM

Here are Crysis Benchmark videos for the two ASUS laptops:

ASUS w/ HD 4650

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSWyOVbdvMY

ASUS w/ GeForce 240

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fih0_QuH4wU

The HD 4650 gets beter FPS at the highest settings (look towards the end of each video, as he changes the settings 3 times to show the differences)

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to el_perro_azul

el_perro_azul wrote :

You would be correct. I was only thinking of the GTX260M, which it wouldn't beat. My bad.

This might be interesting to you:
http://www.amazon.com/N81vp-D-T960 [...] =de_a_smtd

It's the N81vp-D1... it's the same computer as the N81vp-C1, except with a faster processor, and the price remains the same. It's a win-win.

What's weird is that I've been trying to decide between those two ASUS computers myself for about a week!

Then last night I found the computer that I posted up above and I think I'm sold on that one, the N81vp-D1, because it's the exact same laptop with a higher processor speed and the price is the same. I think what happened is that they are phasing out the C1 and bringing in the D1. Like I said before... WIN-WIN!

Reply to el_perro_azul

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