Need advice on choosing between some CHEAPO laptops

[moogen]

hey all!
trying to pick up a new laptop. i'm torn between two toshibas: one has a 17" screen, runs amd athlon x2 ql-60, 3gb memory, 160 gb hd, and has an amd radeon x3100. the other is an intel based one: 15.4" screen, intel t5800 (2ghz, 800mhz bus), 3gb memory, 250gb hd, intel 4500hd integrated graphics, and costs $50 more. obviously, the intel one is gonna have a little more diesel behind it, plus a lot more battery life. but i love the larger screen on the amd, and one of my major concerns is gaming power! i'm not gonna run "the latest and greatest" on it, but do want to paly the occasional 3d game. so what do ya think? which one will actually run my games better? any opinions welcome, thanks in advance!!!!

moogs

 

[moogen]

btw, what IS a radeon x3100?? how does it compare, say, to a radeon x1250??

 

[ther00kie16]

Well, radeon line is pretty intuitive: higher number = better performance. 1st number is generation while 2nd is low/mainstream/high-end. Although a 1 is the lowest, it's still much better than a x1250. The intel 4500 is on par with the 3100 if not better so I'd recommend that because it's also newer. And of course, the core 2 will be faster and it doesn't hurt to have a bigger hard drive.

 

[IlllI]

you wont get much gaming performance with either one of those

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=3417&p=13 thats basically a review of the desktop version of the intel x4500. i's assume the laptop version would perform a tad worse

 

[moogen]

yikes... that 4500 looks to be quite the piece of turd. based on that, will it actually out-perform an ati 3100??

 

[IlllI]

probably more than you ever wanted to know about video cards for laptops http://www.notebookcheck.net/C...aphic-Cards.130.0.html

the 3100 seems to be in class #3 but below that of the GeForce 8400M GT
3 spots below the 3100 is the intel gma 4500

heres another link you might find useful http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=302231

it doesnt compare the 3100 but the 3200, but i'd expect both to be pretty close to each other performance-wise with the 3100 just being a lower clocked version