ENIGMA Forums
General fluff => Off-Topic => Topic started by: freezway on March 25, 2010, 02:45:03 pm
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Im looking into buying a laptop, and was wondering about recommendations. I want pretty fast, with a decent GFX card (with decent openGL support) around $900 + shipping. I was thinking about this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146613. Also, needs to run linux well (ubuntu). anyway, i thought this would be a good forum as it has quite a few ppl who know their crap.
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Hell yes, that's a good lappy.
I mean, it's not like my computer which is both cheaper and has an 2.5 GHz Quad Core and 8 gigs of ram and 1 TB hard drive, but for a notebook, that's great.
So long as you trust the brand to build it reliably, then you're fine.
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What are you using it for? Gaming (Linux or Windows)? 3D Rendering? Media Encoding?
Because your CPU and GPU needs will change accordingly. For example, that GT 240M is slightly weaker than a desktop GT 240, meaning it can handle games well at the native resolution of the laptop. But Nvidia screws with mobile GPU naming a lot, for example a GTX 280M is less than half the power of a GTX 280 and a GT 330 is actually less than a 9800 GT.
With the CPU, unless you need a quad, I would recommend Intel's 32nm duals if you care about battery life. You won't use the other two cores much, clock speeds are higher so 1- or 2-threaded apps will run faster, and it will use about a third of the power (half the cores and a die shrink) so it will last a lot longer.
But you can get FAR more value by buying a small-form-factor desktop. If that would suit your needs then you could get 1.5x the CPU power and 2-3x the graphics power for the same money...
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i already have a desktop: core 2 quad (2.33GHz) 4 gigs ram (800MHz) and an nvidia gts 250 (512MB)
Playing games (fairly good gfx intense games) but i need the extra processing power so compiling things (like wine) doesn't take an long time. I'll be dual booting 7 and ubuntu, I mainly want it so i am not restricted to my desk, i also may sell my desktop if it preforms well enough.
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Go for it then. You could possibly get a better graphics card, but either power use would go up or you'd be getting an ATI 5xxx card (which only sometimes works in Linux). It's a good deal.
Battery life is atrocious on the quad though. On battery only, it will last about an hour, and much less under full gaming load.
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Battery life is atrocious on the quad though. On battery only, it will last about an hour, and much less under full gaming load.
Which is exactly why it says...
Battery Life 3.50 hours
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doesn't need great battery life. Its mainly gunna be plugged in b/c im either gunna be at friends houses OR in my hammock (we have lots of extension cords.)
@Game_boy: are you talking about the laptop or desktop?