Several questions about recent laptops

[asdftt123]

After careful consideration with a new system build, I'm now considering getting a laptop instead for the mobility. -_-

If I get a laptop, my budget will be around $1500-$2000, but any less spent would be a good thing! =P

I plan to use this laptop for school work (most important), but I also want a good graphics card to play games (CS:S, HL2, Doom 3, Oblivion, FEAR, STALKER, SC2, and hopefully Bioshock and Crysis). What is the current best video card available for laptops and how does the hierarchy go? I'm a complete noob when it comes to anything mobile as I've been researching in the desktop sector for the past month. If anyone could link me to benchmarks or reviews, I would really appreciate it! So far, I've been looking at the 8600M GS...will that do any good for those games on 1280*800 res?

Also, how do the Core 2 Duo Meroms perform in accordance to the Conroes? Will it perform clock-for-clock similarily to Conroe or will it lag behind slightly?

Finally, is there a good laptop out there that will compromise price (under $2000), mobility (light and thin), and a nice video card + CPU that will run Vista nicely? I would prefer to stay away from Dell...I've had an Inspiron 8600 for the past 3 years but I've had problems with the USB ports, overheating, and the unit does not feel very sturdy at all. How are companies like Asus, Acer, and Sony?

Thanks in advance!

 

[TheStu]

Apple MacBook Pro.

1" Thick, 5.4lb, 15" LED backlit 1440*900 screen, 8600M GT 128MB, 2 GB RAM

That IMO fits your list of needs. You can install Vista on there (if you insist) but I would recommend not making it your primary OS simply because if you only run Windows on a MBP, a kitten is murdered. That and OS X is worth taking a look at. Though, I would still recommend that you head to newegg and check out their notebook/laptop section to get a feel for prices.

I just did that and I can tell you that if you are looking for one to match the MBP, then expect to pay pretty much the same price, or much much more. The ones on Newegg usually ship with more hard drive space, or perhaps a higher resolution screen. But they do have more VRAM so they can get away with a higher res.

So, check out newegg, and be looking for either the 8600M GT (not the GS) (great card to my understanding) cuz its DX10, or the 79xx because unless I am mistaken it is much faster than the 8600M GT. Conversely, you will pretty much only find the 8600 in the new machines with Santa Rosa, whereas the 79xx will be found in older machines. Those old machines do still have Core 2 Duos mind you, but Santa Rosa gives you a wee bit more performance and battery life