What else besides graphics card?

So, I searched the forums and found much talk of graphics cards and what is better and what notebook to get, well I'm in a bit of an interesting situation. I purchased an HP DV 9000 about a year ago and after many (5) times sending it back for repair over graphics issues, they decided to send me a new system, a brand spanking new DV 9500t.

The first thing I did was look at what cards were available. The 8600m gs was the best card so I opted for that one. The support agent was very generous and allowed me to put in the top processor available (Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor T7700 (2.40 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB), and 2 gigs of ram. I got the 17.0" WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680 x 1050) and the 120GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive.

Aside from my card (which I have read is not as good as some of the other cards out there), what else contributes to how well a game performs on a system? I realize this is kind of an open ended question, but I'm only semi tech savy.

Thanks

 

The general consensus I've read here is that Graphics>RAM>Processor>HD speed. Some might argue about the last 2 placings but there is no doubt that the graphics card is the key bottleneck for gaming today with RAM playing an important role as well (I have a 5-year old laptop on 256 SD RAM, I can certainly tell you that more of it makes a huge difference in start-up and everyday usage)

 

I tend to agree with Harleyquin07 that the Graphics card is the most important element, followed by RAM (but 2 GB should be more than sufficient for now), processor, and HDD.

Although some may disagree, I tend to think the hard drive belongs at the bottom of this chain because the only thing it's really going to affect are loading times, not actual in-game performance.

 

Yup, both the above are correct. The HDD does not contribute at all to game performance, however it's often considered because it does contribute to how long it takes to load the game or change levels.

Also, besides hardware, the drivers for your video card play a large part in game performance, and due to that the operating system plays a noticeable role as well.

 

The 8600m GS is a powerful card, not matter how much you read here otherwise.

 

Not really, no. In the grand scheme of things it's a decent lower mid-range dedicated solution for the casual gamer, but it's by no means a "powerful card".

 

I recommend the OP read the big sticky by Chaz on the top of the forum and refer to the thread about mobile GPUs and their relative rankings for a clearer picture about the capabilities of the 8600GS against other cards.

 

well...you'd be able to play games without lag, or minimal lag, and get decent(by decent i mean "playable") framerates in games.