Is my laptop obsolete?

[david0916]

Hi all, I bought my laptop in 2010 and spent a good 1300 on it.
but now lots of my games have to be ran on low setting, and sometimes its not playable even its on low. I wonder if its time to get a new one or I can upgrade some of its component to make it work

Dell XPS L502X
Intel Core i7-2630QM 2.00 GHz 1
8GB,DDR3,2 DIMM, 1333MHz (L502X) 1
8X DVD+/-RW Tray Load Drive 1
NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M 1GB US (L502X) 1
750GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive (L502X) 1
Win 7 Home Prem 64 SP1,Eng,No Media,CNB 1
Intel WLAN-N 1030 and BT 3.0 (L502X) 1

Thank you!

 

[joecole1572]

The GeForce GT 525M is your limiting part. Unfortunately you cannot upgrade laptop GPUs.

What type of games do you play?

 

[amirp]

As a gaming laptop it is weak due to the GPU, but overall it is still a decently powerful laptop to todays standards for sure.

So if you are looking to play games then either:
- build a desktop and keep the laptop for portable use (most cost effective option, you can build a desktop for around 600 that can play games at very high settings but youd need to spend probably twice that much for a laptop that can do that)

-buy a new gaming laptop (focus more on getting one with a better GPU ... maybe one of AMDs APUs which have stronger GPUS) and sell this one for a decent amount

Personally I would go with option 1, as I dont play enough games to have to want to play them on a laptop on-the-go...and a desktop is upgradeable, and more powerful for the price.

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

No...

All the best Brett

 

[david0916]

The GeForce GT 525M is your limiting part. Unfortunately you cannot upgrade laptop GPUs.

What type of games do you play?

just the main stream titles, farcry3, bioshock infinity.
damn, wondering is an external graphic card is possible

 

[jaguarskx]

The nVidia GT 525m was considered relatively weak when it was introduced. Basically good enough to play many games using low graphic settings @ 1366x768 resolution. Naturally playing at higher resolution would mean lower performance.

Since you cannot upgrade the graphics chip your only recourse is to buy a new laptop. I know most people who wants to buy laptop have a budget to work with. However, if you really do want to play games with it, then you need to go above that budget. Generally, the more the better.

Games for PCs is always advancing (unlike console games) so over time your laptop will generally be less capable of playing newer games. This is why I recommend you spend above your budget if gaming is a priority. That's because new hardware is always being released and in general it is a good thing.

For example, Intel's upcoming HD 5000 integrated graphics core (GT3) appears to have the processing power that is somewhere in between the nVidia GT 625m and GT 630m. Both of which are more powerful than the older nVidia GT 525m. Waiting on Haswell to be officially released before anyone can release a review of Haswell with gaming benchmarks.

However, that does not mean you should settle for a laptop based on an Intel Haswell CPU with the HD 5000 graphic core if you want to ensure that your next laptop can play games decently for a few years. The more you invest now in a graphics card, the later you should be able to postpone your next purchase.

 

[joecole1572]

just the main stream titles, farcry3, bioshock infinity.
damn, wondering is an external graphic card is possible

Those are some pretty intense games and they require a powerful pc or laptop, even for low settings. I have to agree with amirp, you might be better off buying a dedicated gaming PC for $600-$700 (assuming you are in the U.S.).

jaguarskx is right about the GT525M, it wasn't really meant for gaming even when it was released.

If you are dead set on playing new AAA games on a laptop, you shouldn't buy from your typical HP or Dell brand. An alienware laptop could get you playing at low settings for a couple of years. The cheapest one now is $1000 and packs an i5 and a GT650M, which I hear isn't too shabby.

Sorry that your laptop can't play the games you want. I found myself in a similar situation 5-6 years ago where I thought bought a pretty powerful laptop, but couldn't get the performance I wanted after 2 years. If you need any help with suggestions, let us know.