External Monitor & Resolution for the M11X-R1

I will be purchasing an M11X-R1 this week most likely and since the resolution is 1366, in order to play games such as:

- WoW
- Command & Conquer (recent ones)
- Heroes VI

and various other titles, should I find a 1366 monitor?

If I grab ...let's say:
Newegg.ca - Hanns·G HZ201DPB Black 20" 5ms WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 X-Contrast 15,000:1 (1,000:1)

which has a 1600x900 resolution, will that destroy gaming performance?

Thanks in advance

I might grab an R2 (i5/i7) if I can find one cheap.

At one point, I used to own an R1, but sold it to my brother, thinking the Sager 8130 would be enough for school ...boy was I wrong! The battery is so terrible on the Sager it keeps dying, so I definitely need an M11X once again

 

I would get a 1080p monitor and just lower the resolution for games. That way you will have a lot of screen space when you aren't gaming.

 

Absolutely agree. Why limit yourself to the M11x's resolution?

 

Alright, thanks for the info.

I just thought that a higher resolution would cripple gaming even at reduced settings.

1600x900 it is (my preferred res)

 

Since no one else will say it, I will...

If you try to run any of the 3D command & conquer titles at 1600x900, your framerate will drop to a crawl. Even in 1 on 1 games with many units on the field, I was unable to get my Core i7 M11x R2 to get through it without slowing down noticeably. Your M11x has a core2duo processor which is not as powerful as the newer Core I processors in the R2/R3 M11x laptops. You do the math dude. Even overclocking at 166 mhz, the slowdown was still quite noticeable.

This laptop has trouble with strategy games, that's all there is to it. I scooped up all the Command & Conquer games during a Steam sale and I was not thrilled with the performance. Setting all graphics settings at "Low" helped a little, but not much.

I'm a little concerned because I see a lot of people thinking they're gonna buy an M11x and just attach a monitor to it and get the same performance as a desktop. It just doesn't work that way dude... this laptop is an underdog as it is, and trying to run games at higher resolutions will result in worse performance. That's just the reality.

 

When I owned an R1 a few months back, I found it handled Command & Conquer 3 quite well (high-med settings), but that was on a 1366 external monitor. So I take it 1600x900 is out of the question, even if the R1 has an OC'd CPU/GPU?

Might just look into an R2 then if I can find a good deal.