How much of a performance upgrade is this?

I just ordered a customized Sony Vaio E series laptop from SonyStyle! How much of a performance boost should I expect to see when my new laptop arrives? (For games and general use).

From my current laptop (HP G60-115EA):

Intel Pentium Dual Core T3200 @2GHz
3GB DDR2 RAM
Intel GMA 4500mhd
160GB 5400rpm hard disk

To this laptop I have just ordered (Sony Vaio E series):

Intel Core i5-520m @2.4GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM
Ati Mobility Radeon HD 5650
500GB 5400rpm hard disk

 

For games, there's a huge difference.

 

Yes totally agree with above!

 

For games indeed a huge increase.
for office work not so much
For encoding/rendering also a huge increase due to like x times faster processor.

 

From my current laptop (HP G60-115EA):

Intel Pentium Dual Core T3200 @2GHz -- i5 will pick its teeth with that.
3GB DDR2 RAM ------------------------ Decent amount, but the new DDR3 is faster spec.
Intel GMA 4500mhd ------------------- the HD5650 makes about 5,650 intel gma cards... it will literally blow your mind at how much better graphics performance you'll get outta the ATI card. Ok, maybe not 5,650 but maybe 5,640..lol
160GB 5400rpm hard disk -------------- Here is about the only area you won't see a performance increase, just added capacity.

 

He may see slightly faster game load times from the new HD...

But generally the performance improvement will be huge.

 

Yes! Can't wait! Just 6 weeks until its mine! It's not surprising that it's much better as it costs £800 while my HP was £400 when it got it back in 2008.

The most demanding games I own are The Orange Box games, Call of Duty 2 (2005 game not modern warfare) and Spore. All of these play terribly on the HP even at low settings (Well Spore is smooth at lowest settings). So I can assume they should be playable on the new Sony at highest settings with vsync, AA and AF enabled and at the native res of 1080p?

 

Well perhaps not quite that, if you switched off the AA then I am tempted to say yes, depending on if thats the old WW2 Call of Duty 2 or the more Recent Modern Warfare 2.

 

Not modern warfare. The 2005 game Call of Duty 2.

 

Ok then, I am tempted to say for sure.

 

I look forward to that alot. How about Half Life 2 Episode 3 and Portal 2? I'm guessing medium settings with no AA or AF? I hope I'll be able to play them when they are released.

 

With no current or even projected realease date its hard to know.

 

Portal 2 is definately coming in 2010 as it's on Valve's website for december release.

As for Half Life 2 Episode 3... I think Valve's forgotten about that.

As long as I'll be able to play it when it does eventually come out I'll be fine. Hopefully it'll be next year at the latest or my laptop would be too old to handle it. And that would annoy me greatly.

 

In that case I would say near maxed settings for Portal 2, AA would probably be thing you would have to drop. Perhaps resolution if they make relatively demanding at the top end.

 

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Don't underestimate this card. It runs with Nvidia's GTS250! With the combination of an i5, GDDR3 VRAM w/HD5650... it should play pretty much anything out right now with all high settings. It should play MW2 completely maxed out. This card is SEVERAL tiers above the Nvidia GT330m. Here is a video of MW2 running at everything on Extra at 2xAA... (make sure to hit HD)

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Here is one with the "Stalker: DX11 Benchmark". Remember the HD5650 is DirectX 11 compliant, so you can have features like tessalations and generally more realistic graphics, and it performs amazing for the pricepoint! In this video, they had the settings at: 1680x1050@60, preset high, DX11.

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