Acer Inspire 6530G
Turion 64 X2 RM-73 2.2Ghz
4Gb DDR2 (333Mhz) - Soon to see an upgrade to 8Gb 800Mhz ^_^
ATI Radeon 4570 512Mb (680Mhz / 500Mhz)
Don't let anyone tell you, you can't get modern gaming on a tight budget. This laptop has ran anything I've thrown at it, i.e, DAII, Mafia II, Fallout 3, the list goes on. It helps if you know how to balance and manage video settings, which I expect most people on the escapist do. Generally games a couple of years old run at high outputs or better and brand new games like DAII need to be scaled down a little. The only major issue is sacrificing play time for render quality. It CAN play DAII at mid-range settings with textures ramped up, but I can only play for an hour or so without having to close it because the keys are hot to the touch. If I pull everything down to the bare minimum I can keep going all day.
It's a great little laptop and bang for buck wise it was better than anything I could build on a tight budget. £330. It is also widely upgradeable if you know how, but a much riskier affair than any desktop upgrades I've done. The graphics board is independent; an second generation MXM standard (3.0 type a), which means it'll accept GPUs up to Radeon 4750 / GeForce 250M (though if the copper piping from a 250M, which is usually recycled from an Alienware M11x old model, would fit is another matter). The CPU can be upgraded but only by 200Mhz and a slightly wider Hypertransport band, so it doesn't seem worth the entry cost.
You can game on a laptop on a budget.
Turion 64 X2 RM-73 2.2Ghz
4Gb DDR2 (333Mhz) - Soon to see an upgrade to 8Gb 800Mhz ^_^
ATI Radeon 4570 512Mb (680Mhz / 500Mhz)
Don't let anyone tell you, you can't get modern gaming on a tight budget. This laptop has ran anything I've thrown at it, i.e, DAII, Mafia II, Fallout 3, the list goes on. It helps if you know how to balance and manage video settings, which I expect most people on the escapist do. Generally games a couple of years old run at high outputs or better and brand new games like DAII need to be scaled down a little. The only major issue is sacrificing play time for render quality. It CAN play DAII at mid-range settings with textures ramped up, but I can only play for an hour or so without having to close it because the keys are hot to the touch. If I pull everything down to the bare minimum I can keep going all day.
It's a great little laptop and bang for buck wise it was better than anything I could build on a tight budget. £330. It is also widely upgradeable if you know how, but a much riskier affair than any desktop upgrades I've done. The graphics board is independent; an second generation MXM standard (3.0 type a), which means it'll accept GPUs up to Radeon 4750 / GeForce 250M (though if the copper piping from a 250M, which is usually recycled from an Alienware M11x old model, would fit is another matter). The CPU can be upgraded but only by 200Mhz and a slightly wider Hypertransport band, so it doesn't seem worth the entry cost.
You can game on a laptop on a budget.
