Nvidia GeForce GT300M vs. ATI Mobility Radeon 5650

[valyndramon]

Hey guys (and gals),

I've been shopping around at some local stores in search of a good gaming laptop. I mainly play Team Fortress 2 and Dragon Age: Origins.

So far I've narrowed it down to two laptops, I've looked at the Benchmarks on notebookcheck.net for both Mobile GPU, but would like a direct answer from some people with experience as the store employees seem to know just about as much about computers as I do. I've looked around the forums using the "Search" and haven't found these two mobile GPUs compared.

From what I've been reading up on these two, my first choice would probably be (price wise):

http/www.officedepot.com/a/products/491478/HP-Pavilion-dv7-4060us-173-LED/

and

http/www.officedepot.com/a/products/542229/Toshiba-Satellite-A665-S6067-16-Laptop/

is my second choice. My only restraints are...I want to be able to play Team Fortress 2 smoothly (about....40fps or so for me) and Dragon Age: Origins "okay" since I'm not exactly sure if either could play it....but it plays okay on low settings on my dv2500 (slight lag, but "okay") but I can't get more than 3-5fps in Team Fortress 2 on a 16v16 server.

Anyways, thanks in advance for the help!

-Valyndramon/Nicole

 

[lostandwandering]

The HD 5650 is the faster card hands down, but there are some other things to consider.

1) The i7 720 in the Toshiba is a faster CPU than the X3 N830.
2) The Toshiba has a smaller screen and a lower resolution.
3) The HP weighs close to 3 lbs more than the Toshiba
So you just need to decide what options are important to you.
Something like this would be the best of both worlds IMO: http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101230

 

[valyndramon]

Thanks!

I'm not too worried about weight or screen size, but I know next to nothing about the new Intel i3, i5, and i7s.
I have an i3-350 in my desktop at home with integrated GPU and I still get around 23fps on full 16v16 servers, but that's about it in my experience with intel (aside from my centrino duo laptop).

I'd love to go with the one you liked from newegg, but the laptop I choose will most likely be my graduation gift from my grandmother (not fond of buying things off the internet)

What if I "upped" it and said I would like to play Left 4 Dead 2 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. : Call of Pripyat? Would that, by any chance, single one of the two out? I'm not too good at making decisions.

 

[lostandwandering]

Don't get me wrong, the HP with the AMD processor will be perfectly fine for gaming. Since it has the stronger GPU it would definitely be the better choice (over the Toshiba) for the two other games you mentioned. Also, go to Best Buy and take a look at what they have. They generally have a decent selection that you can have delivered to a store near you.

 

[valyndramon]

Okay, I was hoping to go over to Best Buy and CompUSA to take a look at their selections sometime this week. I'll check them out before making a final decision.
Thanks again!

 

[valyndramon]

Best answer selected by valyndramon.