Looking to buy this, a question first

http://cgi.ebay.com/Alienware-Lapto...ryZ46323QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Im currently looking to buy that laptop off ebay. Its a reasonable price, very reasonable actually. My question is.. is that processor duo? if t isnt, is that still a good deal? The RAM looks good, video card looks good, and the HD space is fine, but the processor confuses me. Will it still run games well like that?

 

Its a single core

 

No, Pentium M processors are single-core.

 

Not that good of price, brand new faster dual core bigger HDD I suspect faster RAM, same price. The gpu I don't know but for not much more can get that to if dedicated, if IGP a bad price, oh yea and it is used and you can get new.

 

For 800$ it's not bad, but I think you'd be better off saving up and going for something a little newer and stronger. Graphically I really don't think it will last you for anything new.

 

that graphic card and cpu is getting old, i wouldnt recommend it.

 

I could not find the GPU?

 

its a Go 6600.

 

Just know that it'll heat up *really fast* - I had a friend with one of these who only played CS:CZ with it and surfed the internet. He refused to keep it on over an hour because the bottom plastic could burn the back of your hand.

 

I think you can configure a much faster system through Dell or shop around for something better.

 

go 6600 is really really budget gaming at this point. it will play new games at the lowest resolution and settings. consider the fact that you can get a desktop 7600 gt for $75 - that is a good sign that the 6600 won't do much for gaming. the pentium m was a good chip, but its getting pretty old. that chip won't be able to keep up well with the latest games either. a core duo or core 2 duo would be much better.

doesn't dell have $800 offerings with modern parts? (8600m gt and core 2 duo)

even the lowest end nvidia gpu available today (8400m gs) will outperform the go 6600.

 

Bad price for that M5500. Would have been better if was around $500. I got a similar laptop, but not branded Alienware, for around $750 a few months ago, and that was brand new and includes the 1 year warranty, and the other goodies.


@ masterchef341

My friend got one of those new Acer Aspires with an AMD Turion X2 1.8 Ghz (forgot the model of the processor), 2 GB 533 Mhz DDR2 and a GF 8400M GS 128 MB. My GF Go 6600 thrashed his 8400M GS in all the games we benchmarked. 3DMark06 says otherwise, but then again, 3DMark doesn't always reflect real world performance.

Anyway, the 8400 GS isn't THAT bad. But don't expect it to be as fast as those GPUs listed as "performance" cards in the sticky section. The GF 8400M GT will most likely surpass my GF Go 6600, but that's another card.

BTW, my friend bought his Acer Aspire 4520-301G12 for 39,000 Php ($800), but he added another 1 GB module to make it 2 GB and it cost him another $50. Nice price for a laptop with a GF 8400M GS, and it's small too when sitting next to 15.4" and 17" laptops.

 

i don't know... was he using the latest drivers? its hard to make a quantifiable remark about the 8400m gs vs the go 6600 without knowing a lot more information. i know enough not to look too deeply into 3dmark scores.

i just figure a go 7400 is about equal to a go 6600, and the 8400m gs is a little better than a go 7400.

either way, at that price he could pick up an 8600m gt and a core 2 duo courtesy of dell. that would be NEW (instead of 2-3 years used) and have a *gasp* warranty. (and the battery would last longer, screen would brighter, so many other little things)

 

go look at dell. I my roomate just ordered a 17" 1705 with the 7900gs vid card in it for $1050 a few weeks ago(new not refurb). a new 15.4" with a good vid card should be as cheep as that used one you got there.

 

@ mastercher341

We were both using stock drivers. Well, I use stock drivers just to keep things safe and I'm already satisfied with the performance so I didn't even bother updating. And it's weird you say that about the 7400 as well. Another friend of mine has a Fujitsu Amilo Pro (forgot the model) with a GF Go 7400 256 MB. He's also using optimized drivers for it, just not sure what forceware version he uses. My GF Go 6600 still thrashed his laptop easily like it did with the 8400M GS. Bah. I wish we recorded the benchmarks. But the games we usually use for testing are NFS Carbon, Oblivion, Far Cry and FEAR. My other friend's Asus S96J is also posting similar results, but it's around 10-15% faster than mine, and over 40-50% faster than the 7400. We haven't done a head-to-head with the 8400M GS and the X1600 yet, but it should probably yield the same results as with the GF Go 7400.

It also sucks that most retailers are only selling laptops with low-end GPUs here. And importing a laptop is too expensive and everyone I know ends up buying their laptops here. Lucky for me I got my laptop from a shop that isn't well-known and they were on sale at the time of purchase. It's hard finding boutique shops that sell ODM laptops. But there are a few.