Laptop Gaming:Is it possible?

[Haervii]

Ok, here's the deal: I was awarded $2300 from UNC@Chapel Hill (where I am going to college in fall) towards the purchase of one of their laptops. Originally I had planned to get a cheap laptop and buy a sweet gaming desktop over the summer. Well, now I'm having second thoughts.

Here are some specs on UNC's laptop.
-Intel Mobile M 1.5Ghz(now it's better than it seems, trust me. The brochure says that it's a step up from a regular 2Ghz pentium 4, and is the fastest processor available for a laptop.)

-512MB RAM(doesn't say what speed)

-Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet(could someone explain this? I've heard of 10/100 ethernet cards, but never 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet. What's the difference?)

And here's the catch:
-32MB ATI Radeon Mobile

ugh.. well, assuming that i can attach my mouse and big monitor to this thing, could I play games like....Planetside? or better yet, stuff like Doom 3 that hasn't even come out?

Or, should I get the cheap laptop( basically a worse version of the above mentioned laptop, and it's cheaper) a couple hundred dollars back, then get a sweet desktop gaming machine?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

 

[s2kpacifist]

Go for the extra $1000 for the gaming rig, while getting a decent $1300 laptop to use for typing or whatever. That's just my opinion though.....

 

[Excelsior]

Damn UNC people.

Anyway, do what he said. Get a cheapo laptop for class, library, etc. Then spend the rest on a nice desktop for gaming. Don't try to spend it all on the laptop, cause itll be outdated before you can say Sophomore. Whereas the desktop will be kicking ass, and upgradeable.

 

[Vonkhan]

what he said ^

 

[chocobaR]

Originally posted by: Excelsior
Damn UNC people.

Anyway, do what he said. Get a cheapo laptop for class, library, etc. Then spend the rest on a nice desktop for gaming. Don't try to spend it all on the laptop, cause itll be outdated before you can say Sophomore. Whereas the desktop will be kicking ass, and upgradeable.

Exactly. Gaming on a laptop is pretty crappy and costy while you can get a good desktop PC for gaming for almost nothing.

 

[chocobaR]

Damn double post, weird forums...

 

[iamme]

$1000 for a decent laptop for word processing, etc (check out Hot Deals forums.....Dells are always on sale).

$1300 for a kick ass desktop setup.

 

[zodder]

I hate to make this thread sound like a broken record, but I agree with everyone else.

 

[ivan2]

u just missed the dell deal which u can get decent labtop for 1300...

 

[V00DOO]

I spent $1,500 + on a top notch Dell Lappy thinking I would play games on it, but I do all my gaming with my desktop. Save your money on the laptop and spend money on a better desktop. Trust me gaming on laptop is pretty crappy even with my 15" Screen, 64MB Video unless you are playing solitaire in which case you don't need a top notch Laptop. My 2Cent.

 

[WarmAndSCSI]

I have a 1.4 GHz Centrino notebook with a Mobility Radeon 9000 64 MB and it runs games great. The 32 MB version of the Mobility Radeon 9000 is significantly slower, though.

 

[RIGorous1]

don't try to game on your laptop cause the results are no bang for your buck. The speeds of today's laptops make you wonder about desktop replacements, but with gaming and other high resource applications we must remember that the gaming performance or .program performance is a function of the sum of your components. Especially with laptops there are still large bottlenecks with components such as hard drive rpm and which chipsets are cooler (rather than faster), also RAM. The Processor might make you say "wow this is great", but with a 4200rpm HD (which is what most lappy have) you won't be able to game as well as with a desktop.

Verdict: go for a cheap lappy with a kick ass Desktop ...

just my 2 cents

Rig

 

[WarmAndSCSI]

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
don't try to game on your laptop cause the results are no bang for your buck. The speeds of today's laptops make you wonder about desktop replacements, but with gaming and other high resource applications we must remember that the gaming performance or .program performance is a function of the sum of your components. Especially with laptops there are still large bottlenecks with components such as hard drive rpm and which chipsets are cooler (rather than faster), also RAM. The Processor might make you say "wow this is great", but with a 4200rpm HD (which is what most lappy have) you won't be able to game as well as with a desktop.

Verdict: go for a cheap lappy with a kick ass Desktop ...

just my 2 cents

Rig

d00d, what does HDD performance have to do with gaming (other than load times)? My 5400 RPM notebook HDD loads games just as fast as my server's RAID0 array, anyways.

Edit: wait... you're that same idiot from the other thread. Once again spreading more bullsh1t.

 

[iamme]

Originally posted by: ivan2
u just missed the dell deal which u can get decent labtop for 1300...

dell laptop deals come around all the time, so don't worry

most decent laptops can be had for a little over $1000, with a little time spent in the Hot Deals forums.

 

[RIGorous1]

Originally posted by: TheUnhappyCamper

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
don't try to game on your laptop cause the results are no bang for your buck. The speeds of today's laptops make you wonder about desktop replacements, but with gaming and other high resource applications we must remember that the gaming performance or .program performance is a function of the sum of your components. Especially with laptops there are still large bottlenecks with components such as hard drive rpm and which chipsets are cooler (rather than faster), also RAM. The Processor might make you say "wow this is great", but with a 4200rpm HD (which is what most lappy have) you won't be able to game as well as with a desktop.

Verdict: go for a cheap lappy with a kick ass Desktop ...

just my 2 cents

Rig

d00d, what does HDD performance have to do with gaming (other than load times)? My 5400 RPM notebook HDD loads games just as fast as my server's RAID0 array, anyways.

Edit: wait... you're that same idiot from the other thread. Once again spreading more bullsh1t.

Is it me or are you purposely following me around to bash me... I need a second opinion here... cause I beg to differ about your hd comparing to a raid 0 array.

 

[WarmAndSCSI]

Originally posted by: RIGorous1

Originally posted by: TheUnhappyCamper

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
don't try to game on your laptop cause the results are no bang for your buck. The speeds of today's laptops make you wonder about desktop replacements, but with gaming and other high resource applications we must remember that the gaming performance or .program performance is a function of the sum of your components. Especially with laptops there are still large bottlenecks with components such as hard drive rpm and which chipsets are cooler (rather than faster), also RAM. The Processor might make you say "wow this is great", but with a 4200rpm HD (which is what most lappy have) you won't be able to game as well as with a desktop.

Verdict: go for a cheap lappy with a kick ass Desktop ...

just my 2 cents

Rig

d00d, what does HDD performance have to do with gaming (other than load times)? My 5400 RPM notebook HDD loads games just as fast as my server's RAID0 array, anyways.

Edit: wait... you're that same idiot from the other thread. Once again spreading more bullsh1t.

Is it me or are you purposely following me around to bash me... I need a second opinion here... cause I beg to differ about your hd comparing to a raid 0 array.

Actually, if you look up^ you'll see I posted on this topic a while back. I just wanted to check back for updates. I didn't even know I was responding to YOUR post - hence the edit AFTER I posted it. Most of the time taken in loading a game is loading textures and objects into system RAM and video RAM. And I didn't say faster or the same, I said "just as fast", which implies I really can't tell the difference in load time without timing it. RAID 0 doesn't speed up reads much anyways, I just indicated that it was a RAID 0 array just to make a stronger argument against your BS.

 

[PCMarine]

Yea, you'll want a dedicated gaming desktop.

 

[RIGorous1]

Originally posted by: TheUnhappyCamper

Originally posted by: RIGorous1

Originally posted by: TheUnhappyCamper

Originally posted by: RIGorous1
don't try to game on your laptop cause the results are no bang for your buck. The speeds of today's laptops make you wonder about desktop replacements, but with gaming and other high resource applications we must remember that the gaming performance or .program performance is a function of the sum of your components. Especially with laptops there are still large bottlenecks with components such as hard drive rpm and which chipsets are cooler (rather than faster), also RAM. The Processor might make you say "wow this is great", but with a 4200rpm HD (which is what most lappy have) you won't be able to game as well as with a desktop.

Verdict: go for a cheap lappy with a kick ass Desktop ...

just my 2 cents

Rig

d00d, what does HDD performance have to do with gaming (other than load times)? My 5400 RPM notebook HDD loads games just as fast as my server's RAID0 array, anyways.

Edit: wait... you're that same idiot from the other thread. Once again spreading more bullsh1t.

Is it me or are you purposely following me around to bash me... I need a second opinion here... cause I beg to differ about your hd comparing to a raid 0 array.

Actually, if you look up^ you'll see I posted on this topic a while back. I just wanted to check back for updates. I didn't even know I was responding to YOUR post - hence the edit AFTER I posted it. Most of the time taken in loading a game is loading textures and objects into system RAM and video RAM. And I didn't say faster or the same, I said "just as fast", which implies I really can't tell the difference in load time without timing it. RAID 0 doesn't speed up reads much anyways, I just indicated that it was a RAID 0 array just to make a stronger argument against your BS.

Sure buddy, I sense a lapse of judgement here... but wait I forgot you are superior and that your implications are the only implications that people can have... Bravo another fallacy...

 

[sandorski]

My bro recently bought a Sony Vaio 2ghz P4, 512mb PC2100, yadda yadda ya. HP2 played well on it, but I'd think that the worst part of a laptop would be the crappy kb/pointer.

 

[ElFenix]

actually the 1.6ghz pentium-m would be faster, might be the fastest mobile processor.

and if you could game on that machine depends on which mobility radeon it is. is it a 9000? then yes, you could. is it a 7000? then no, you couldn't.

but anyway, like everyone else was saying, gaming is better on a desktop, and heres the other thing: if you're taking the notebook to class 1) you're gonna want a lightweight notebook (2 texts + 8 lb notebook = sore back) and 2) you don't want even the temptation to game while studying at the library or whatever.

and oh, yeah, gigabit ethernet is a relatively new feature and is just now being integrated into chipsets.

and that should be DDR ram. i doubt the i855-m or whatever intel named it can even address sdr ram.

 

[human2k]

With the right amount of $$$, anything is possible.