[ Dell E1750 / Inspiron 9400 ] - Looking to buy.

I am looking to buy a laptop for various tasks:
-Gaming (Half-Life 2 / FEAR / Unreal Tournament2k4 / StarCraft, etc).
-3D tasks (Maya / 3D Studio Max)
-2D Art (Adobe Photoshop)

as well as internet browsing and typing documents.

Anyways, I won't be multitasking, will be doing gaming and only gaming, or just doing photoshop and only that.

Was wondering if I needed dual core or if i can get away with single core.

 

I would get dual core because it is much more futureproof.

 

If dell still had the i9300, I would suggest that. The i9400 with the 7800go should get about 50-60 fps in CS:Source with 1920x1200 (wuxga) or 80-90fps with (xga+) 1440x800 I think. Unreal tournament 2004 should avg out to be about 100fps average and spike at about 200fps, when comparing it to my 6800. I usually get 70fps avg at 1920x1200 and spike sometimes at 150fps.

 

Wow, and I probably wouldn't even play that high of a resolution.. probably 1280x1024 most of the time.

Can't figure out if I need dual core though.

 

I would go for the dual core. In the future, games are going to use dual core. So if you want to stay on top of technology, I say go dual core.

 

I want to only play games such as Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2.
Do i really need 2gb?

 

It would probably be better to get 2gb. Your games will run much better. Trick is not to buy the 2gb from dell. Get the lowest amount of Ram that you can, and then buy 2 sticks of 1gb from on online like Newegg.com

 

is it easy to swap out memory of a laptop?
I build PC's, but have never touched a laptop.

 

[added] - whats a good memory to buy for laptops?
Looking for 2gb.

Also, please don't skip over my above (^^) question.

 

Yes, it is easy. Just two screws and the memory bay is open. Just pop in the memory. That is it. When I'm going to get my 2gb of memory this summer, ocz is what I am going to be buying, but many people on the fourm buy transcend memory. ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820208312)
Transcend memory page.

 

In regards to whether or not to get the Core Duo, if you can afford it I would go for it, if you look at the prices of say 1.86 GHz Pentium M versus a 1.86GHz Core Duo the price difference is about $50 - $100 and I'd say it's worth doing the upgrade for that as the performance jump seems to be about 30% increased performance from numbers I've seen so far, and it seems like you do enough that you could utilize the extra power.

 

I am going to be gaming alot.. should I go for UXGA or an XGA screen?

Besides gaming, I will also do graphic deisgn work (Photoshop) and some modeling (3D Studio Max0).

I read somewhere that UXGA wasn't good for games, not sure about the truth in that, but I was just curious.

 

Praz,

The reason people say that the UXGA screen is because of alot of games will not run very good at the native resolution 1900x1200. I have the WXGA+ screen 1440x900 and I play all my games at native resolution.

Some people also don't like the glare on the screen.

 

What would you recommend for me?
I'll be gaming alot... but I wont play my games at 1900.. probably 1440 or lower.

 

I got 1.86GHz... is there a HUGE difference in performance from 1.86 to 2.0?

I would assume no.

 

I want to change my order, I already placed the order, any way to change it at all?

 

Here's my question is there gonna be a huge performance drop if you get the 533 Memory of Trancend or OCZ because the stock Dell memory (yes I know is expensive) but it is 667. Also isn't the True Life UXGA sharp as hell so wouldn't it do well on games? Obviously the frame rate would take a hit but with that 7800 it should pick up the slack right?

 

Praz,

You can call Dell and see if you can cancel and reorder. Most of the time they will let you if you are spending more money . Just call and see if they will let you.

Good luck!