Notebook for AH

[Silat]

My friend wants a new DELL notebook for home use.  Portability is a secondary issue, he mostly does word processing.  He might actually load a game or two.
He wants a 17in screen and a real vid card:)
$2200 at the outside..
There's a slim chance I could get him on Aces High).
 
Im not really familier with notebooks.
What should I look for and what are the requirements?

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by Silat
My friend wants a new DELL notebook for home use.  Portability is a secondary issue, he mostly does word processing.  He might actually load a game or two.
He wants a 17in screen and a real vid card:)
$2200 at the outside..
There's a slim chance I could get him on Aces High).
 
Im not really familier with notebooks.
What should I look for and what are the requirements?

I wouldn't get a Dell, Azus makes 'vanella" notebooks that places like PCClub sell.

I just got a 'npower' 2.2 P-M, 128M 6600go, 1G ddr2, cd/dvd burning, card reader, Centrino a/b/g... lots of goodies for a tad over $1600. Using coolbits I upped the 6600 to a whopping 441Mhz / 735Mhz stable.

http://www.pcclub.com/product_system_details.cfm?itemno=ENP61104

This one has a 17" screen, sata drive & 256M 6600go, starts at $2300:
http://www.pcclub.com/product_system_details.cfm?itemno=ENP87104

But as far as notebooks go, IMO look or the best video chipset he can afford... generally a notebook with a kick'n video chipset has a relatively powerful CPU.

If it has to be a Dell, a 1.7  P-M scores about the same as a 2.6 PIV, so even a 1.7 should suffice for most games.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Just to point out, notebooks are always a big compromise of performance for battery longevity. If you compare 3Ghz notebook to a 3Ghz desktop the desktop will fly circles around the notebook even if they seem to run on similar hardware.

[Delirium]

I have a Clevo laptop that uses a desktop chipset, with a Pentium chip, not a mobile version but a regular desktop chip.

It totally SUCKs on battery life, I get about 40 minutes out of it, but it can still run AH2 and I have had it since 2000.

[x0847Marine]

Originally posted by MrRiplEy[H]
Just to point out, notebooks are always a big compromise of performance for battery longevity. If you compare 3Ghz notebook to a 3Ghz desktop the desktop will fly circles around the notebook even if they seem to run on similar hardware.

Yes and no.

My notebook came with the vid card clocked down to 100mhz and the CPU power saving scheme "on"... at these settings it usually ran at 700Mhz and lasted for hours on the battery.

I turned the power saving off and used coolbits to clock the vid card to 440Mhz...the battery dies in about an hour but it now scores higher in some areas like video performance on Cinebench than my desktop.

I can always turn that power saving stuff on again, if I'm interested in battery life.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Well none of the laptops I've owned so far could hold a candle to the desktop.

Slow HD alone hinders performance a lot. There are various other compromises in most if not all laptops which affect gaming. For example a mobile radeon 9700 is not at all the same gpu as a desktop 9700.

I currently own a laptop with 1Gb ram, 3700+ A64 cpu and mobile R9700. It got beat hands down by my desktop 3000+ with 9500 pro (now traded to x800 gt since the setup went bad).