Laptop questions

MinerWilly

Our teenage daughters christmas present is going to be a laptop. I'm a little lost on what kind of processors and gfx(cards?) these need to have to be powerful enough.

It don't need to be able to run the newest games on full gfx but it do need to run Sims 3 and play full hd movies.

beanz

Any dual core processor will do those things. And look for a gfx chip of a fairly recent generation and it will be fine (you can google it to see what they say when you find a laptop you like).

Make sure it has at LEAST 1gb ram and I'd go for one with a physical DVD burner in it rather than using an external one as she probably will not want to cart around the extra stuff if she is going to have a need to watch/burn DVDs on the go.

Something like this perhaps.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AS5741-5763-FB-R&cat=NBB

Matt_B

This is a good site for working out what spec PC you need for a given game:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

For Sims 3 the results are:

CPU: 2GHz P4
RAM: 1GB (1.5GB for Vista)
Video Card: 128MB GeForce 5900 / Radeon 9500 / GMA 3-series
OS: Windows XP SP2
Free Disk Space: 6.1 GB + 1 GB for save games

Pretty much any modern laptop will meet those specs, and also do full HD playback, so feel free to shop around.

zeropolis79

That's good specs to run The Sims 3.

MinerWilly

beanz wrote: »

Any dual core processor will do those things. And look for a gfx chip of a fairly recent generation and it will be fine (you can google it to see what they say when you find a laptop you like).

Make sure it has at LEAST 1gb ram and I'd go for one with a physical DVD burner in it rather than using an external one as she probably will not want to cart around the extra stuff if she is going to have a need to watch/burn DVDs on the go.

Something like this perhaps.

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=AS5741-5763-FB-R&cat=NBB

Okay, so i should be pretty safe getting a laptop with atleast i3 processor and gfx chip a few steps up from the cheapest. Laptops with AMD processors seems to be more commmon here, are there any real differences between AMD or Intel?

Sorry Beanz i know you like DVD's but i don't think it's too important, we hardly use disks anymore and if the need arises a DVD can always be copied to a memory stick first (using the desktop pc) :)

MinerWilly

Matt_B wrote: »

This is a good site for working out what spec PC you need for a given game:

http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri/intro.aspx

For Sims 3 the results are:

CPU: 2GHz P4
RAM: 1GB (1.5GB for Vista)
Video Card: 128MB GeForce 5900 / Radeon 9500 / GMA 3-series
OS: Windows XP SP2
Free Disk Space: 6.1 GB + 1 GB for save games

Pretty much any modern laptop will meet those specs, and also do full HD playback, so feel free to shop around.

But whats the equal to P4 and Radeon 9500 in laptop world?

beanz

MinerWilly wrote: »

are there any real differences between AMD or Intel?

For what your daughter wants to use it for, no.

As for the question about the P4 and radieon those are pretty much both 'obsolete' so the point is any newer multicore cpus/gfx chip is better so she'll have no trouble running sims 3.

Google is your friend on the graphics thing, find something you like online, see what the gfx chipset is and google 'chipset any good for games', the results should tell you it's capability for games etc, but if its a relatively new chipset it will be ok for sims 3.

MinerWilly

beanz wrote: »

For what your daughter wants to use it for, no.

As for the question about the P4 and radieon those are pretty much both 'obsolete' so the point is any newer multicore cpus/gfx chip is better so she'll have no trouble running sims 3.

Google is your friend on the graphics thing, find something you like online, see what the gfx chipset is and google 'chipset any good for games', the results should tell you it's capability for games etc, but if its a relatively new chipset it will be ok for sims 3.

Ok thanks. It's very confusing, i found some benchmark pages for processors and gfx chips.

Now when looking at what stores have to offer some laptops have good processor with a weaker gfx chip and some have weaker processor with stronger gfx chip. If our budget won't allow to get the best of both then what would be better. Strong cpu and weak gfx chip or weak cpu and strong gfx chip?

beanz

One with moderate performance on both :p

Though If I had to pick I think I'd go for gfx simply because the processors are so powerful these days that even bad ones are good. I'm dubious about the intel integrated stuff so would probably go for something with a nvidia or ATI/radeon set before an intel set.

Don't skimp on the memory..that 1gb I mentioned is minimum...I'd really say at least 2gb to be honest and that can make a difference to video playback too, I have an older laptop that had 512mb memory that was very jerky on video till I plopped another 1gb in it and now it runs smooth.

beanz

If you see any you like online, post them here over the next few days so we can take a look at give our thoughts.

Alcoholics Anonymous

This link is a great resource.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

You can select games and laptop or desktop card (or both) and it will show how fluently the game plays (fps) at low or high settings. If the chart shows green, the card is good to go and if it has a number in it, someone has bothered to record the framerate for you.

tomshardware also has excellent comparison of desktop and laptop cards on various criteria and they used to do a single monolithic list for both so you could roughly compare laptop and desktop cards but I don't see that anymore.

There is one caveat -- a particular graphics card in one laptop may not perform as well as in another. laptop manufacturers will do a number of things to accommodate heat budgets or power budgets that reduce graphic card performance. Sometimes those choices can be undone in firmware hacks and sometimes not. I'd find something a little above what you need for this reason and for future proofing -- though how much future proofing you need in a laptop which is inherently unupgradable is something you should figure out. Once you've identified a few laptops in your budget with minimum performance, look them up on the net and find their actual performance before buying.

MinerWilly

Alcoholics Anonymous wrote: »

This link is a great resource.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

You can select games and laptop or desktop card (or both) and it will show how fluently the game plays (fps) at low or high settings. If the chart shows green, the card is good to go and if it has a number in it, someone has bothered to record the framerate for you.

Good page, thanks!

MinerWilly

beanz wrote: »

If you see any you like online, post them here over the next few days so we can take a look at give our thoughts.

I'm looking at these two right now but from some local shop. I might hang around for a few weeks before buying so they probably get some new ones in before.

http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/41492/dbxtf

http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/50606/ddkkk

These pages are in finnish, i had problems finding these machines on english pages, maybe they use different modelnumbers for different countries?

beanz

Both those would work for her, I'm thinking you can even drop down a bit if money is an issue.

I'd go with the asus one as the specs are more than enough for her use and it's the cheaper one of the two.

MinerWilly

They're both actually 600 euros from the shop i was planning to buy them from. The HP has a bigger screen but i don't know if that is a good or bad thing. She will only use it in her room for now but in a year she might well be living elsewhere during weekdays because of studys. A smaller laptob will be more mobile i guess.

Thanks for helping out. If i'm not getting any of those two i have a good picture of what kind of machines i have to be looking for.