M11x-R3 (i5) good buy?

Hi Guys,

Might be preaching to the choir a little here but I'm looking to buy one of these in the next week or so. Currently I run a very decent desktop but I'm finding myself away from home more and more on weekends (visiting family, partner etc) which is turning my desktop into a Monday to Thursday machine.

I've been looking at getting a laptop that I can use for general purpose, gaming (mid to high settings) and something that's portable. The last point is a main one as I have to carry my work laptop (AMD Fusion Thinkpad - they aren't too bad!) around with me so getting a 15" would make my bag too full.

My question to you guys is: Is this laptop as good as it's advertising claims and will I be able to run modern games to a decent level (BF3, Dragonage, Mass effect, witcher 2 and hopefully skyrim)? I'm no stranger to tweaking settings if I have to.

Model I would be getting:

M11x-R3 (£679 + £35 on Ram)
- i5-2467
- 2GB ram (going to upgrade to 8GB as soon as it arrives - Dell rip you off)
- 250GB HDD (again upgrade asap)

Look forward to hearing what you guys have to say!

 

You can find plenty of Youtube footage of it handling the games you list, apart from Skyrim of course and then Battlefield 3 was an alpha demo so it might be more stable/fluid by the time it's final code is released.

As for Skyrim, I'm convinced it'll have the muscle necessary to run it. As you've already figured out, though, upgrade the components yourself as Dell aren't worth it, they are seriously overpriced. In my opinion 8GB is too much RAM for your needs, if you only plan on gaming that is. If I were you I'd roll with 4GB for now.
Having said that, if you plan on playing online games a lot (your list suggests not so much, but anyway...) you may want to invest in the Killer lan card, I've heard it's worth it but I've no personal experience with said device myself.

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Use that code in your basket at the check out for 15% discount, it's valid until the 26th of October so you may want to act quickly.

 

Cheers! I'm planning to order today or tomorrow. So I'll definately have a look into the killer card. I was thinking 4GB at first but I'll have to see which works out best for the money. No way am I giving Dell £70 for an extra 2GB when you can buy 16 for that kind of money!

With that code + the killer card (£30 extra) it comes out at £605.99 inc delivery. My thoughts now is if it's worth getting the i7 although looking the difference is mainly with the extra GB of video RAM.

 

That video RAM does absolutely nothing, it's just a marketing tool. I realize you have no choice in the matter if you upgrade to an i7, just don't take that 2GB into consideraition if you're making a choice on the i7 processor as it really doesn't amount to anything, it will make no difference to your games.

 

Ah, too much time in the desktop graphics market (haven't bought a decent laptop for years!) I'm still finding it strange that some i7's are dual core!

I'm pretty happy with £605 (i5, 2gb, 250gb & killer wifi card) considering my inital budget was £700 I'll spend the remainder on a bigger HDD and the ram. £22 on crucial for a 4GB kit. Gonna try and get this ordered tomorrow!

Any ideas how long it takes Dell to deliver this? Need to get it sent to work but I'm away from the office after Friday.

Edit: Just ordered it!