Acer 6930G vs Dell Studio 17

Biggerboat

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Apr 2, 2008
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Hi guys,

I've been given a £610 budget from SAAS to buy a laptop for University and am looking for the best deal as the one they've recommended isn't good value compared to what's available. I can add to this budget if I like but I'm looking to keep this to a minimum as I'm a skint student ;)

I've narrowed it down to the Acer 6930G for £679 and the Dell Studio 17 for £649.

The main differences between the 2 are that the Dell has a faster CPU, a P8600 compared to a P7450, a larger, higher res screen 17" 1440x900 compared to a 16" 1366x768, whilst the Acer has a better GPU, a 9600M GT 512mb(DDR3) compared to a HD3650 256mb.

I'll be using the laptop for various design programs, Photo Shop, Flash, 3D Studio Max, Final Cut Pro, as well as for movie watching and if possible a little bit of gaming.

I suppose the big question is is how much better is the 9600M GT over the HD3650. I'm familiar with their desktop versions and know the NVIDIA blows the ATI out the water but I'm not sure how that translaes to laptops, also bearing in mind the far lower resoltions they'll be running at compared to a desktop.

Also is the only difference between the P8600 and the P7450 strictly clock speed, i.e. same architecture, cache etc.?

I'd appreciate any advice you could give. Obviously if there's a better deal on another laptop for the money then I'd consider that also.

Thanks