Is this a good laptop to play fallout new vegas/fallout 3?

[DemocraticAlliance15]

HP Pavilion 3120sa

 

Technical specifications

Dimensions: 1.0x1.0x1.0(H/W/D)cm Brand: HP Screen size: 15.6 inches Processor: Intel Core i5Intel Processor Star Rating: Intel 5 star processor Processor model number: i5-480M Processor speed: 2.4 GHz iLife 11 with iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, and iWeb, Processor bus: tbc Processor cache: 3MB L3 Memory (RAM): 4 GB Storage (hard drive): 500 GB Storage (hard drive) Type: SATA Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium Dedicated Graphics: ATI Radeon HD 5470 512 MB

 

I will be buying this soon as the desktops in my pc world are really bad so i though with the graphics card and processor it would be a good laptop for modding fallout. I am on a tight budget of £550 so anyting less or same would be good.

[RitualBlack]

The laptop would be fine for creating new models and textures for Fallout, but graphically it would suffer a bit while playing the game.

 

Mobility Radeon HD 5470

 

I would suggest this laptop (slightly higher than you price range, but definitely worth the small difference)

 

Laptop here

 

It has a very nice 4 core processor as well as a Nvidia 540m (far superior to the 5470 and the i5-480M).

 

540m

[DemocraticAlliance15]

This laptop is far superior thank you. Ill do some researching and go to my local pc store to see if they have it. Or i could wait a little longer and get a proper good pc.

 

Is it possible to put a graphics card in a laptop?

[CommanderCrazy]

Actually, the one linked by tttttt is better. The graphics and processor especially.

 

The clock speed may appear to be lower on the processor, but do note that its a quad core i7, so it is actually better.

[RitualBlack]

yep, like CommanderCrazy said, quad core is the way to go nowadays :)

 

As for changing laptop graphics cards it is a cumbersome task to do. The average laptop has its graphics card soldered on so changing it is not only really risky but there is no guarantee that your replacement card will be the of same wattage or size, not to mention the numerous factors that can go wrong simply by opening up a laptop without proper knowledge (like a voided warranty by accidentally messing with one of those numerous and pesky stickers). When buying your laptop make sure you are ok with settling down with it for about 3-5 years. The one I listed will be fine for quite a while, especially since it is on budget. The graphics card may be a bit choppy a few years down the road, but since the laptop is 720p (CPU intensive, whereas 1080p becomes more GPU) and its processor is very nice it should be able to handle anything medium settings or higher for the next few years. It is very important to do some research before buying and if it is a laptop you are looking for check notebookcheck.

 

Go to Google, than type in "notebookcheck Graphics Card X" and it will show you your expected fps for games, which I assume is what you are looking for most. (could be just me, but I don't think that blue ray writing time is all that important to most people :tongue:). A good thing to remember is to add a few fps since you are not running the game in notebookcheck's 1200p resolution.

 

As for the waiting and saving, that is up to you. Some people like to spend all there money on a crazy rig that will last for "6" years declining performance over time, but initially can run games on ultra, and some like to spend half as much every "3" years in order to play games on medium to high. There is not all that much difference in the long run unless you have ridiculously high Canadian taxes like I do. Do I ever hate paying 13% on everything, Pennsylvania is the coolest place ever :D

 

Now that I have gotten sidetracked and lost your attention :biggrin: I would like to say that whichever choice you make will be the right one for you. Have fun and good luck :thumbsup:

 

(oh and by the way, great banner CommanderCrazy :D)

Edited June 21, 2011 by tttttt