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Gaming Notebook! CPU and GPU combo? Help please...

M

MrSwam

Junior Member
Hey Guys,

I have been looking for a notebook for a bit of gaming. Which one of the two would you go for? I ordered the Dell XPS 1645 with the ATI MobilityRadeon HD4670 1GB but they are having loads of problems so I am going to cancel it tomorrow and order one of these...

Which one would you go for and why?

Processor: Intel® Core i5 520 Processor
Operating system: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Finishes: Brown
Hard drive: 500 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
Memory: 4 GB 1066MHz DDR3-SDRAM
Graphics: ATI MobilityRadeon HD5650 1GB
Display: 39.4 cm LCD, 1920x1080, webcam
Optical Drive: Blu-ray Disc(TM) player

or

Processor: Intel® Core i7 720 Processor
Operating system: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium
Finishes: Premium Black
Hard drive: 500 GB Serial ATA (7200 rpm)
Memory: 4 GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 1GB
Optical Drive: Blu-ray Disc(TM) player
Display: 41.6 cm LCD, 1920x1080, webcam
 
Generally speaking, go with the faster GPU. They get outdated much faster than processors in terms of gaming. I have no idea how an HD 5650 stacks up against a GT 330M, though.

What games are you looking to play? If you want a computer that will play anything you throw at it even at the highest settings, you should be looking for something along the line of a mobile GTX 280 or HD 5850 / 5870 (if they exist yet).
 
The mobile 300 series from Nvidia is the same technology that debuted in 2006, and was then called the GeForce 8000 series. They have added new types of memory, done die shrinks, added some shaders, and little enhancements over the years, but the ATi 5000 series, and even 4000 series tech is newer. If you can find a Mobility Radeon 5000 series, I'd absolutely go with that. No question.

Otherwise, my second choices would be GTX260m (which is actually newer tech than the 300m series... Nvidia doesn't have any new-generation chips to compete with ATi, so they're rebadging/renaming old ones and sticking them in laptops until they come out with Fermi, but the mobile version of that may take up to 9 months to be released, if ever...) or a Radeon 4000 series, probably 4650 or up for gaming.
 
How does the Turbo mode compare on the Core i7 720 and the Core i5 520?
 
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