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[Timo]

My brother is thinking about getting a second HD4850 512mb for his computer - will he see a large enough FPS increase to warrant forking out the cash? His specs are similar to mine (same amount of ram/same cpu)

[Rook]

My brother is thinking about getting a second HD4850 512mb for his computer - will he see a large enough FPS increase to warrant forking out the cash? His specs are similar to mine (same amount of ram/same cpu)

I may be crazy talking but see if he can get a Phenom II down the line, I believe they have quite a bit more cache than the Athlons. As for crossfire, never done it and don't know.

[Warsaw]

This is not entirely relevant, but I don't think it's worth making a new thread just for this.

I'm gunna be getting a new laptop for university, but I'm on a budget. The two computers I'm looking at are as follows

Lenovo IdeaPad Y550 ~$7000HKD (~$900USD)

• Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 2.0 GHz, 2 MB, 800 MHz
• 4GB DDR3 1066MHz
• 500GB 5400rpm Serial ATA
• 15.6" 16:9 WLED HD 1366x768
• nVidia GeForce GT 130M 512MB

or

Dell Studio 15 ~$7000HKD (~$900USD)

• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P7350 2.0GHz / 1066MHz FSB / 3MB (I may pay a ~$100USD extra to get 2.40GHz, the Lenovo's processor can't be upgraded)
• 15.6” 720p WLED 1366x768 Display with TrueLife
• 4GB (2X2GB) DDR2 SDRAM
• 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
• 500GB SATA Hard Drive

I don't really know much about current hardware, as I haven't kept up to date in years. I need a laptop primarily for photo editing and Photoshop, I work with pretty high resolution images, and do batch processing fairly often, so the things I do are fairly processor intensive. Both these laptops have their pros and cons, so I'm looking for a more knowledgeable opinion.

The screen resolution on both irritates me, but I can't find anything similarly priced with a higher resolution screen. Those two laptops pretty much fit right to the limits of my budget. If anybody else has any recommendations, I'd appreciate it. I'd rather avoid HP though, as I have bad experiences with my current HP laptop.

I am a sucker for the looks of the Dell, it also has a backlit keyboard and a slot loading drive. I'll probably pay the little extra to get the Intel 5300 Wireless-N card instead of the 5100, as I've heard it's much more reliable. I'd much prefer the Studio XPS 16, but it's price is far beyond what I can afford. The screen resolution though...

E: My parents said they're willing to pay the $7000HKD (~$900USD) I might pay the extra several thousand or so to get a better laptop. Augh, I don't know HELP ME

2nd E: Augh, I just checked the Dell USA site, with student discounts for SCAD, and they have so many more different customization options for the Studio laptops. I'm so confused >__>

What's your budget? I ask because you'll definitely want a discreet graphics solution with the work you do. Lenovo makes a good laptop, but they very rarely put a discrete solution in; it's usually that Intel HD4500 crap. I know the IdeaPad Y450 (and Y650) can come with an nVidia GT105m (some sources say that you can get it with a GT130M in Asia, don't know how accurate that is), but other than that, most of them suck.

As for Dell, I'd definitely keep looking into their Studio (XPS or otherwise) line, they seem to have done good with that one.

E: Timo, a second 4850 will create very noticeable gains in frames. Crossfire scales better than SLI, so it's worth it.

[343guiltymc]

These laptop GPU names are really confusing me........Is the GT130M similar performance to the 9600M?

[Warsaw]

It's a rebadged 9600M GT.

GT120M = 9500M GT
GT130M = 9600M GT
GTX 260M is pretty much an overclocked 9800M GTX.
GTX 280M is pretty much an underclocked desktop 8800GTS.

Yeah, nVidia pulled that asshat renaming scheme again, misleading consumers into thinking that the new high-end mobile cards had something in common with the GT200 architecture. They don't, they are just G92 cores again. ATi, on the other hand, has mobile cards that are identical to the desktop ones in architecture, just with lower clocks (and in the case of the Mobility HD4870, it has GDDR3 instead of GDDR5, putting it roughly closer in performance with a desktop HD4850).

[343guiltymc]

So did Nvidia ever fix their mobile GPU overheating issue?

[Varmint260]

Yo! Guess my post got a little buried. Bottom line, my question:

Can a 550W Optimax TITAN power supply running 24A on the 12V rail supply a computer with a Phenom X3 2.2GHz and a GeForce GTS 250 1GB?

[Reaper Man]

Yeah, I think I'm going Dell. I found a great deal on the dell website,

Dell Studio 15
1080p display
500gig hdd
512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570
4gigs of ram
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600 (2.8GHz/1066Mhz FSB/6MB cache)
Intel 5300 Ultimate-N Half Mini Card (3x3) with MyWiFi
Backlit keyboard
3 Year warranty

With student discount etc
$1288 (worth $1800-something, weird though because yesterday I could've sworn it was $1228..hmm)

[InnerGoat]

Yo! Guess my post got a little buried. Bottom line, my question:

Can a 550W Optimax TITAN power supply running 24A on the 12V rail supply a computer with a Phenom X3 2.2GHz and a GeForce GTS 250 1GB?

Yeah it will be fine until that PSU dies and takes everything with it down the road

[Rook]

everything in my computer runs on the 500w PSU that came with the case am I cool yet