Cheapest notebook to play WoW smoothly.

I want to get my girlfriend into WoW, and she needs a notebook pc for school, so I'm trying to find a notebook to run wow smooth, very playable, without any lag cheap.

I've been looking at hp, gateway, and dell.

The best build i've found for $983.99 is the HP dv6000z.
AMD Turion(TM) 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-50(1.6GHz/512KB)
256MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7200
2048MB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)

Can anyone suggest and link me a build from hp, gateway, dell, etc. that can run it the best in the price range of $800-900ish?

Or is the build above good enough? I don't know much about mobile gfx, but looking at other posts, WoW seems to run well on the 7200. Is that cpu with 2gb of ram good enough?

Thanks.

 

You are paying a lot for the extra ram that you really do not need, one gig is fine for wow, and I think the dv6000 comes with a Go7400 not a Go7200. Also if either of you are in school you can get edu discounts from HP.

Your other option is the Dell e1505 with the X1400, that will run you around $850 but since there are always coupons you should be able to bring that down a little more.

 

The AMD version of the dv6000 does come with the 7200 go. If she does plan to carry this often, I would think a 14" notebook would be better.

 

At hp.com, doing the latest customizations for the dv6000z, it lists the Go7200 as the gfx included.

Really? only 1gb is suitable? if it is, great, cause upgrading is indeed expensive.

I just went and looked at the dell e1505.
Intel? Core? Duo T2050 (1.60GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB)
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1400 HyperMemory

It's cheaper, and if it can run wow smooth, without lag, then it'd be in my best interest to pick that. And from what I understand the X1400 is better than the 7200 too.


ZAZ, rather than carrying it around campus it's actually meant to be compact and save space in her room/dorm for the first year of general ed., and also to play wow with me.

 

Sorry I got the dv6000t and dv6000z mixed up the T (intel core duo) version gets the Go7400 but the Z (AMD x2) version gets the Go7200
Let me modify slightly what I said, Right now with XP 1 gig is fine but of course I cannot tell the feature so with vista 2 gigs may be necessary.
Even so upgrading the ram yourself is much cheaper than buying it from HP so 1 gig is still the best way to go. Provided that they are giving you the 1 gig in one SODIM and not 2, then you would have to take both sticks out and buy 2 1 gig sticks which will cost you more. But as long as its XP 1 gig is fine.

The X1400 is about twice as powerful as the Go7200 so the Dell will provide much smother game play.

 

Yea, when i was browsing notebooks, I noticed that some used 2 sodim, so I decided to add the extra ram, even tho it's expensive.

I dont really see the need to ever have vista on her notebook. XP will do the job fine papers+wow for 4 years. Then i'll build her a powerful desktop w/ vista. (Yea, I know a lot about desktops, just nothing about mobile hardware)

And thanks a lot, you found me a cheaper/better option with the Dell. Greatly appreciated.

 

One last thing, Intel® Core™ Duo T2050 (1.60GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB) VS Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB) for gaming.

 

Honestly the there is very little difference between the CPUs but the 667MHz FSB will be a little faster plus the core 2 duo is 64 bit which will help with upgradability over time, so I would go with that one.
I have been working with XP for the last 2 years and my current work notebook has 512mbs which is fine for general office work but I am just about to stick another 512mbs in so I can play a few games on it. Right now I am running Halo trial version on the laptop, which is supposed to be much more demanding than WoW, on med settings though at a 650x800 resolution it runs fine.
P4 2.66 GHz CPU
512mbs of ram
GM 855 intell xtreme graphics

So just about any notebook with a graphics card and a core duo is going to be better than that, so I am guessing that what you are looking at will play wow fine.
Most notebooks can play very demanding games, its just a matter of turning of graphics features that you do not care about and fine tuning the game setting a little.