Name me the Asus laptop that can pull this off.

1. durable (4-5 years longevity)
2. sub $900
3. can run vindictus on medium

 

That's a hungry game, as for longevity it's a lot to do with how you treat the machine. 4-5 years is easy if it is kept clean (dust free) cool, laptop cooler is a great addon, and doesn't get knocked about

ASUS N53SV-SX138V 15.6" core i7-2630 8gbram, geforce gt 540, in the uk it runs to around £825 ish. so might be a little over your budget ,depending on what prices are like in the US.

Good luck sir

 

There really isnt anything that will have a great gpu in that price range, to get performance you'll have to bump up you budget.
Its like asking for a car that will go 0-60 in 3 secs for under 20k, it just doens't exist.
The closest is the N53SV series as BOFH1971 mentioned but you're looking around $1100. If you can up your budget a little check it out.

 

I'd start looking on eBay for a used, but like-new N53 or similarly spec'ed machines. Chances are, those will fit you budget better.

 

a refurb g73 or similar will pull that off. nothing new.

 

Like above said. Refurb G73 best buy models are going for under 900-1000 at the moment.

 

I'd go for the UL series. You can get most of them under $900, and the G210M, while not beefy to play modern game, can run Half Life 2 on high. Since both Vindictus uses the same engine as HL2, it should be fine.

 

Haha this game would probably play on medium graphic details with a Dell Latitude D610 with an Ati x300 video chipset! I was able to play HL2 on almost full details without much lag and the x300 only has 64MB video memory.

Vindictus System requirements
CPU: Single Core 2.4 GHZ
RAM: 512 MB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 5xxx series or equivalent
Operating System: Windows XP
Hard Drive: 5 Gigabytes
Network: Broadband Recommended

Recommended Requirements

CPU: Duo Core or higher
RAM: 1 GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 7xxx series or equivalent
Operating System: Windows XP or higher
Hard Drive: 6 Gigabytes or more
Network: Broadband Recommended


So, achieving the performance you need is simple.
Get a Penryn laptop that can handle an extreme chip so you can achieve overclocks with ThrottleStop and get a laptop that has a decent GPU (modern; pwns HL2 many times over); ie. a G50VT! Nvidia 9800gs. No need to upgrade to an extreme chip until you need it though sometime in the future.

I've had mine for about 2.5 years now, no problems. The only complaint about this machine is the quality/richness of color on the screen.

It wouldn't be smart to get a laptop that can 'just' play Vindictus unless you are really budget crunched.

 

The Asus N53SV XE1 will work well. It's $899 and is probably one of the best laptops you can get at that price point.

 

4-5 years running mid-range games? You'll have to get a high-ish end video card to pull that off.

 

Yea if your wanting to be able to play demanding games made in 2014-15 with details set better than "low", you'd need a beefy video card.

The G50VTs are often less than $650 if you shop around online.

Get the G73 if you want more video chipset performance, and a CPU performance boost* (*IF there are G73s with the Sandy Bridge chips!, 1st gen mobile Nehalems don't impress me).
If Asus hasn't made a G73 with the Sandy Bridge chipset then your looking at just a video card performance boost and perhaps a better screen than the G50VT (and a sexier laptop?).
The X9100 Penryn xtreme chip running at or above 3.4GHZ will challenge the Nehalems when it comes to non-SMP aware apps IMO.
In a year those chips will probably start to be less than $200 on ebay..

Choices choices marcusjhung! Give us more details on what you want to do with the machine..