Laptop for my brother

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mocs2782

n00b
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Apr 16, 2006
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My brother needs a new computer and I said that I'd find a nice one for him. The thing is, I'm sort of a n00b when it comes to notebooks. His budget is around $600 - $700. He will use it for web browsing, word processing, and some light gaming.

Any suggestions or help?
 
what does "light gaming" entail?
light gaming with starcraft is one thing.....while light gaming with Battlefield 2 and CS:Source is another......
 
'light gaming' with BF2 on a $700 budget for a laptop is going to be a problem. Looks for something with discrete graphics, and a lot of RAM. Tough order for $600-700.

schiesz
 
Read this comprehensive review...

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2766

It is a comparison of:

XPS m1710 with a Geforce 7900 GTX
E1705 with a Geforce Go 7900 GS
E1705 with an ATI Mobility x1400

They are essentially the same machine, with different video cards. There are a few tweaks, the video cards are different, but that's about the only change. In Battlefield 2 at 1920x1200 with 0xAA in the order listed above:

69.46 FPS
25.57 FPS
7.95 FPS

7.95 FPS is unplayable, and you would be hard pressed to find a sub $700 laptop with anything better than an x1400. The e1705 with the x1400 is ~$2,800. Looking at the Dell Outlet, you can find some Geforce 7400's with Turbocache (Read: Shared Memory) that MAY be able to run BF2...but not really well...for ~$1,100. I would say the minimum chipset for a game like BF2 would be a 7800 Ultra. You'd be looking for an older XPS M170 ~$1,800 from the outlet. That system is pre Core Duo.
 
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