Laptop for school and light gaming

[Domoxo]

Hello everyone! I'm looking for a laptop for $500 or under that handle light gaming(sims3,left 4 dead and fear2) and school work (generally Web sreaching).It must have an optical drive(CD drive ) No touchscreen or 2 in 1.I was thinking of getting a HP - Pavilion 15.6" Laptop - AMD A8-Series - 6GB Memory - 500GB Hard Drive - Snow White/Anodized Silver on best buy for $399 is it good enough.

 

[jaguarskx]

Based on the price it sounds like a laptop using AMD's Beema generation A8-6410 APU with a Radeon R5 graphics core.

It is a low power and low performance APU to keep price low. The graphics core is about equal to the Intel HD 4200 graphics core. I suppose it will do okay with games. But I think you are better off if you can find a laptop with an Intel Core i3-4010u with the integrated Intel HD 4400 for better game performance.

 

[jaguarskx]

The following Lenovo B50-70 is an example for $450.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317619

However, I recommend that you upgrade the RAM to 8GB when you have the money to do so. It is fairly inexpensive to buy another stick of 4GB RAM. The 2nd stick of RAM should give you slightly better performance because the RAM will be operating in something called dual channel mode which basic allows data to be transferred faster between the RAM (which the graphic core uses) and the CPU. Because the graphics core also uses the same RAM as the operating system and programs you avoid potential problems of running out of RAM and games either freezing or close down.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148813

 

[Destroya X]

The following Lenovo B50-70 is an example for $450.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834317619

However, I recommend that you upgrade the RAM to 8GB when you have the money to do so. It is fairly inexpensive to buy another stick of 4GB RAM. The 2nd stick of RAM should give you slightly better performance because the RAM will be operating in something called dual channel mode which basic allows data to be transferred faster between the RAM (which the graphic core uses) and the CPU. Because the graphics core also uses the same RAM as the operating system and programs you avoid potential problems of running out of RAM and games either freezing or close down.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148813

thank you this helped me alot but the laptop i was looking at is a lenovo with the same specs but i dont know if i should get a better graphics card. but i know i need more RAM