Need help deciding on a trio of sub 500 laptops

[qarano]

I'm getting a laptop for school, but considering I'll be a starving college student for the next couple years, it will have to double as a htpc and gaming console for the time being. As such I've pretty much decided on using a llano apu due to their built in gpu.

I've narrowed my choices down to these three fundementally similar machines.

Acer Aspire AS5560G-7809 - $450, need to upgrade hdd if I get this (320gb yuck), Radeon HD 7670M (strongest gpu?)

Acer Aspire AS5560-Sb613 - $480, has an acceptable hdd size, has more reviews, a8-3500m (stronger cpu? clock speed is the same but the number is higher), Radeon HD 6620M (weakest gpu?)

Lenovo Ideapad z575 - $500, Radeon HD 6650 (middle gpu?), well reviewed

Which one should I choose? Which would be better for games like bf3 and skyrim (I know I won't be able to run these at max, but I would like to be able to play them at med-low with decent frame rates (bf3 would be multiplayer))

And no, I can't push my budget up any higher. 500 is already pushing it. thanks!

 

[qarano]

edit: just found another contender: Samsung Series 3 NP305V5A-A04US - $500, has 1.8ghz processor, bigger hdd, and 6gb of ram.

 

[dudewitbow]

voting on the z575 ideapad only because acer is known to usually have heating problems with its laptop lineup, which heating on a laptop does affect performance as it will throttle your parts.

btw the 6620m is an integrated graphics chip in the llano chips. it doesnt equate to the same level as dedicated chips have. technically the ideapad has the 6620m as well i believe, and can possible hybrid crossfire but i wouldnt do so.

 

[qarano]

Thanks for your reply. Will a laptop cooling pad like this be sufficient to mitigate acer's cooling problems or no?

If it does I'm leaning toward the 450 acer for gaming performance, or the samsung because damn.

 

[qarano]

ok after doing more looking, I think I'm going to decide between the z575 and the samsung. same price, similar specs.
The z575 has a (slightly) faster cpu, which will help in gaming, but not much else. The samsung has a 300mhz faster cpu, which doesn't do diddly squat for games, but does help in overall productivity. It also has 140gb more hdd space, but I don't think I need to worry about that too much.