An upgrade in screen, but a downgrade in gaming?

I've been contemplating swapping my K53TA for an N53SV, as I really do miss having a 1080p display. The CPU would also be a fairly significant upgrade from the A6. However, I'm concerned that I would be taking a hit in gaming performance going from the 6650M that's in the K53 to the GeForce GT 540M in the N53. I'm talking resolution for resolution - can I expect about the same performance at 1366x768 from the 540 as the 6650?

Going to the Asus N55 is not an option as it's too expensive. I've also considered other brands, and they simply don't have the features of the N53 for a comparable price.

Any insight is appreciated.

 

You have nothing to worry about the 540M is a better gpu then the 6650M. While not a huge amout better it does score better in 3D Mark 05, 06, and Vantage. It's only about a 1-5% increase in performance but you dont have to worry about losing performance.
The upgraded CPU will also help a bit on your gaming performance too. Include the 1080 screen and it's win, win, win!

 

Both these video cards are very competent at 1366x768 in pretty much any game, however they will struggle at 1920x1080. My G53SW's GTX460m has barely passable performance in Skyrim at 1920x1080 medium quality settings, and I had to lower the resolution to 1600x900 to have sustained FPS.

So for gaming the bottom line is you have to match a low power video card with a low resolution screen, otherwise you will be disappointed. The CPU plays a much smaller part in the overall performance.

 

Naturally, I don't expect modern titles to run fluently on such a mediocre (comparatively) GPU. I personally have no problem lowering resolution and settings to achieve a playable result. It's more the productivity aspect of the high-res screen that I miss - being able to fit more information onto a web browser or text document and having more real estate to manipulate photos.

As of this moment, I'm actually leaning more toward the Asus N53SN as it comes with a slightly more powerful GPU and isn't much more expensive than the SV. The GeForce GT 550M isn't worlds better than the 540, but every little bit can help.

 

I'll definitely agree that screen resolution is very important for everything except gaming. I doubt I'd be able to go back to 1366x768 now that I used my G53SW for a few months.

But among the laptops you are considering, the GT550m might not be worth the extra money. It has the same number of cores, the same bus speed as the GT540m, only slightly higher clock, but not enough to make a real world difference.

 

You could just run the lower 720p resolution when playing games, and then use 1080p outside of gaming.

 

You could get a Dv7t, the 1080p screen is amazing and the 6770M plays alot of games, like Skyrim and BF3, well at 1080p.