Moderate Gaming laptop

Hey everyone, i just got rid of my Inspiron 1720 and am ready to upgrade to a new laptop. I was wondering if this laptop is good enough for moderate gaming for example Halo 2 for Vista and Gears of War. I remember my 8600m GT wasnt that great or maybe the game just stuttered a lot. Besides the laptop has the gears of war logo on it so I'm pretty sure it can run it but just looking for some input from people who own the m-6850 FX.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8790828&type=product&id=1205537513321

i've also been hearing that the processors are upgradeable on the 6860. Does that mean i could do it on the 6860 too?

 

its not going to be any better than your 8600m gt. the hd 2600 is the ati card that competes directly with the 8600m gt. in fact, the 8600m gt fares a bit better than the hd 2600.

that said, when i played gears of war, the 8600m gt was more than capable. the stuttering may very well have been a driver issue, which you can resolve by following the instructions on this forum.

 

that is actually less powerful than ur 1720. fyi if u can fill out the faq, than i can help u better but the gateway laptop p series in best buy for like 1300 is an awesome package for $1300.

 

her is a link for the. gateway p series fx it has an ok processor but that is fine for fps type games. if u play rts, the upgrade to the t9300 that u can buy off newegg.com. here is alink to the processor if u want to upgrade. t9300

 

Shadow...Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) the Gateway FX series is the best bang for the buck. Do a search on the forums and you find that the 68XX series provides you more that you could ever get in other lappies at a lower price.

I have upgraded my 6860 to a T9300 processor running Raid 0 on 320GBs with 4 GB RAM and X64 Vista...that at a price under 1500...nothing comes close.

Crysis is playable at Med/High settings with no issues running 25-45 FPS easily on DX10.

Your call.....

 

hope i helped. fyi, u rly cant get much better for the 90 dollars one u stated but if have like some more cash, then u can but the p series i linked. its a solid gameing laptop that nothing else can beat for the price.

 

go here and scroll down and look at some of my screen shoots...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3510272#post3510272

 

as other posters above said... if your looking to step up from the 8600M GT, GDDR2 or GDDR3 regardless, dont go to the HD 2600 GDDR3 as it is the ATI rival to the 8600M GT.

Other then that, M-152XL is a better buy then the 6850. Both are good machines, but probably not much of a step up from the 1720 you had.

 

hmm, i see. so as of right now. i should stick with the 8600mgt 256GDDR3?

 

for 'moderate gaming' i would say yes. if you want to play the latest and the most demanding...no.

when you say you got rid of your inspiron, does that mean you sold it?
btw the inspiron doesnt use GDDR3, it uses GDDR2.

 

i have gears of war and it does stutter sometimes even with my 8800GTS, when using FRAPS it just jumps from 30ish to 15ish for no reason so i don't think it's my laptop's problem.

 

No ,it probably is'nt. Gears of War for Pc has been called a crappy port by a number of game magazines. They didn't spend alot of time making this work on the Pc. The game runs smoother on the xbox360 than high powered Pc's, wich is rediculous if you think about it. Even on really high powered systems that frame drop you mentioned, happend to a number of reviewers. Get Mass Effect, its a much better port, and has added menu's ect that make it better on the Pc.
Seanno

 

The 6860 Fx is more than adequate for playing any game on the market today (especially if u upgrade the cpu).
It is not a laptop you want to lug around though if u are a frequent traveler or student.
This laptop caters more to gamers who don't want to overypay for technology.