Laptop Graphcs Advice

[Airwalker]

Laptop Graphics Advice

Guys,

I'm looking at buying a (fairly) decent laptop to take to uni in September. The spending limit is about £1,300 though.

I've been looking through the Dell Outlet today and have seen some surprisingly good deals, such as:

Inspiron M170 Pentium M 780 ( 2.26GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 533MHz FSB)
1024MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2x512)
120GB (5, 400 rpm) Hard Drive
17 UltraSharp Wide Screen WUXGA (1920 x 1200) Display with TrueLife
8X DVD+/-RW
NVIDIA Geforce Go 6800 ULTRA with 256MB DDR video memory

That'd be £1,231.51 inc VAT, excl. del.

The graphics card is what I need advice on. Some of the laptops in the Dell outlet have GeForce Go 7800GTX cards installed as opposed the the 6800 Ultra. When it comes to graphics cards I know relatively little, but am aware that not all 7 series cards are necessarily better than some 6 series, for instance.

Which would give greater performance?

And while I'm here I may as well ask - is that a good deal or could I find a better spec elsewhere? I've always been a Dell fan but I try to keep an open mind!

Thanks in advance.

Tom

 

[joxley1990]

Are you looking to play games on the laptop?

If your not, they will both be the same, you would not notice a difference in anything.

If you are - the 7 series range will be the best - but the 6 series are very good in laptops.

 

[Airwalker]

Are you looking to play games on the laptop?

If your not, they will both be the same, you would not notice a difference in anything.

If you are - the 7 series range will be the best - but the 6 series are very good in laptops.

Yeah I am - probably games like Half-Life 2 and Far Cry, for example. I don't have huge expectations from laptop cards though. But I figured if I get a half decent video card then I shouldn't have any trouble upgrading OS when Vista finally comes out

 

[joxley1990]

The 6 series will be good, very good.

7 series, evan better. Go for the 7 if you can.

 

[k0409964]

my laptop can play half life 2, and far cry with ease, spec as below

 

[slayer322]

maybe this can interest you in the like of one of theese 19" Wide's

http://www.alienware.com/configurat...yscode=PC-LT-AURORA-M-ALX&subcode=SKU-DEFAULT

a little more for sure but man oh man, dual 7900's

 

[Logan1]

a little more?!?!?! thats almost 2.5x as much. anyway i'm not so sure about if laptop video cards are different than desktop ones but with exception of the 7300 all the 7 series is better than the 6 series. the 7300 is a new super budget card, and is lower than a 6600GT.

 

[Feircepc]

its not 2.5x more hes in uk when he says 1300pounds its like 2000-2300us dollars. and try www.ibuypower.com i heard they make some good labtops for a nice price.

 

[slayer322]

i was jk about that, but more power to ya if u buy that monster

 

[Airwalker]

maybe this can interest you in the like of one of theese 19" Wide's

http://www.alienware.com/configurat...yscode=PC-LT-AURORA-M-ALX&subcode=SKU-DEFAULT

a little more for sure but man oh man, dual 7900's

Heh, yeah very nice indeed but sadly very far out of my price range too. We can all dream.

I certainly can't justify spending more than £1,300 on a laptop, especially considering I'll have racked up £20,000 of debt by the end of my 3 years at uni.

Sounds like the general feeling is that the 7800GTX would be the better option. Sadly that laptop has disappeared from the Dell Outlet now so it looks like I'll have to wait until I see another with similar spec/price.

Out of interest, has anyone bought from Dell Outlet before? The only thing that concerns me is the condition of the laptop when it arrives.