x300

Hi, I'm going to purchase a laptop for the first time as a desktop replacement. I do a lot of gaming and in my replacement I am looking to make sure I can atleast keep playing my current games ok. I have a budget of around 1500 and was able to find a 9300 configured with the coupons to around that price with the nice go6800 card. However, after checking at circuit city of what a 17inch laptop looks like, it's just way to big as I still need the laptop to be portable.

This is when I started looking at the 6000 a lot more closer due to the smaller screen size. My question is, does the x300 perform well with games like counter strike source and world of warcraft? My current pc has a 5200fx which performs just ok. Is it comparable to the 5200fx and will I be getting my bang for the buck? (configured a nice one to about $1450) Any other questions you need just let me know and I'll reply.

Thanks in advance.

*edit* I did want to add that I don't intend to keep up with my gaming much further as it's really time to put the hobby aside. I'd just love to be able to play the current games well because it's mostly how I stay in touch with my brothers.

 

I've got the Inspiron 6000 with 512 meg ram, the lowest cpu (pentium m 1.5 ghz), and the 128 meg x300, and I can say that it probably will not suit you as a desktop replacement. Ironically, the two of the only three games I've tried on it are WoW and Counterstrike Source. WoW runs at lowest settings, but with VERY frequent skips or jumps. Now, I don't play WoW, but a friend who does said that there is some server-side skipping occasionally, but that this was more than what should be there. CS:S however is much more scalable (you can turn the settings down a LOT), and in 640x480 all settings the lowest it rans fairly well--very infrequent and small skips--nothing to worry about. The third game I have tried is UT2004, which at the complete lowest settings runs mostly fine, with only a very small number of skips.

I personally was quite dissatisfied with the graphics performance when I got this notebook because of what I've read about the x300. Actually, I do believe that if you opt for a gig of ram (which I will soon if I can not sell my i6000) the games will run much smoother.

As I've been writing this post on my desktop, I've installed some of my older games on the Inspiron. I can happily report that Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell (the original) runs fine, as does Unreal Tourny Game of the Year (it better).

In conclusion of this long and drawn-out post, I'd say if you get a gig of ram, you should be able to play WoW tolerably, and Source games at their lowest settings will be tolerable too. I wouldn't go so far as to call an i6000 a desktop replacement, but I do feel it's the best balance of portability, price, and gaming available.

 

Yeah a Gig of memory is essential if you want WoW to perform well. I'm surprised that WoW can't be played smoothly at lower resolutions thou, more memory definitely will help.

One thing you might want to check into, is see if you can get one that features the mobility 9700 gpu. The older Dells have it, if you are lucky enough to still find an original XPS it has the very powerful mobility 9800 gpu -- although the $1500 might not be able to cut it thou. You might also find a laptop from a different maker that has the 9700.

There are x300 users who are perfectly happy with their CS: Source performance as well, maybe it has something to do with how the game was configured? Lastly, I'm sure you know this already, but make sure to get the model with 128mb dedicated memory. Shared memory = bad performance, period. Regardless of how much system memory you have -- you are limited by the bus speed, which is simply not sufficiently fast to feed data to the gpu.

cheers,

yass

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Smagelly

 

Weird. I can play UT 2004 at 1024x800 with lowest quality settings fine with an I6000 with GMA900 graphics and get playable framerates.

Dell I6000

 

I have an Insprion 6000 with the Pentim M 1.6, 512, and the X300.

I play CS:S/HL2 at 1680 x 1050 with the graphics set ABOVE medium. The fps and load times are great. I can't believe that you can barely run the game at 640 x 480 with everything on low. Maybe your ATI drivers aren't installed? Something is definitely wrong.

 

backup7, just out of curiosity to see if there's actually something wrong with my system, have you ever run 3dmark03 and/or 05? I'll run them both on my 6000 and we can compare results.

 

That is strange. But I'll emphasize that I haven't done much gaming on my 6000 at all since my desktop with a 6800gt kicks its butt. I just installed CS:S and put it at lowest settings right off the bat since I figured it would have to be at lowest settings, considering WoW skipped literally all the time even at lowest settings.

 

I'll be on a 56K for a while, so unfortunately downloading 3dmark @ 283 mb is out of the question. Wish I could help you out.

 

Thanks for all the replies. Backup, your words give me hope that I'll atleast be able to play some decent games. However, I've decided to wait until august as I won't need the lappy until I move into my apartment off campus. Hoping the prices will be a bit cheaper and I heard that Dell might be putting in an even better card option later on down the road.

 

3dmark scores won't help you out much, those programs are not very good for real world benchmarking, especially 3dmark05

I have the pentium 730 and ati x300 128mb, I can play CS Source on a 32 player server with medium detail at 1280 x 800 and get above a 30 framerate. I can also play new games like brothers and arms with it. Its not AMAZING but it gets the job done.

just do some searching over in the games forum or hardware forum on the x300, there are so many of these x300 posts its gettng tiresome replying to them all.

Also, if you can wait, then by all means do it, the longer you wait the better stuff will come out.

 

I just recently bought a 6000 (2ghz, 512mb pc3200 [400], 60gb 7200rpm hd, x300 128mb) and I've been playing HL2, CS:Source, HL2DM, Far Cry, and World of Warcraft at or near high settings for each. On HL2 for example, I do have to put a few on medium until I upgrade my memory with 1gb (or 2gb) pc4200 [533] stick.