Last minute Dell + World of Warcraft ?'s

Well it's crunch time. I need to make some decisions about my Dell E1505. Tomorrow morning the money for my new lappy goes into my checking and I'll be ordering a system. Basically everything is how I want it *except* I am having second thoughts on spending the money on a 2.0ghz Core 2 Duo vs. the 1.6ghz. Also, I am worrying about the SXGA screen vs. the XGA screen.

With the x1400 being a huge limiting factor, am I throwing money away on a 2.0ghz Core 2 Duo expecting to get better "clicking around windows" and World of Warcraft performance? And also, is the x1400 enough power to drive WoW @ 1680x1050 SXGA? I am afraid I will end up having to run the game at a non-native res. ..... would that look considerably worse than the lower grade XGA screen if I end up having to?

Basically anyone who has a SXGA + x1400 I need some opinions on this!! So hard to pull the trigger without having solid #'s for the main application being used on this thing ARG.

 

WoW will run on integrated graphics on max settings as long as you have enough RAM. You won't notice a difference between the 2.0 and 1.66 core duo for the types of applications you're using. If that's all you want to use your laptop for you may want to look at either the e1405 or a xps m140 at the dell outlet. You will get a much better deal unless you need the wsxga screen.

 

I would suggest getting the 1.6ghz Duo, the difference will not be noticable.

Now the X1400, it has only 128mb dedicated, and that screen res is pretty high, so the card will be straining a bit more, my guess is you should be able to run WoW, but if you really want to make sure, get something (Non-Dell) with an X1600/7600 card in it.

 

I have played WoW on an integrated ATI x200m so I know this isn't really true. The game barely could break the 20fps mark. The 950 being worse than the x200m. I wish this was the case tho!

 

Yeah I dont think Wow will run too well on a 950 as vespoli.

 

not unless you turn every graphics setting down to minimum! The X1400 would probably be fine, but consider getting a X1600/7600 if you are a hardcore gamer

 

At 1680x1050, I don't think the x1400 can cut it. It'll run just fine at 1280x800 but like night_2004 said, try to aim for a x1600 or Go 7600 if you want to play at native resolution with a SXGA+

 

The processor speed won't make much of a difference in gaming - the bottleneck in most laptops is the graphics card, not the CPU. It's a shame Dell doesn't offer more CPU options to begin with.

 

My apologies for the misinformation, I thought that I read earlier that the GMA 950 would play it well. My mistake.