Trying to Choose a Gaming Laptop

Hey all,

I'm trying to decide between two laptops. One has the Core Duo T2400 (1.86 GHz) and the GeForce Go 7900GTX (which I've heard GREAT things about), and the other has the Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHz) and the GeForce Go 7600 (256MB memory). I know that the Core 2s are better by a fair amount, but what do you guys think as far as gaming goes? They are right around the same price (although the Core 2 is a tad bit cheaper with a little bigger hard drive). They both have the same amount of memory, although the Core 2 also has a higher res (1440x900 vs 1680x1050). I play a fair amount of high end games like CS:S and BF2, so I want good performance. Unfortunately they won't let me add the 7900GTX to the Core 2 machine.

What would you guys do?

Thanks!
corndog

 

what video card does the core 2 duo lappy have? if its any 79XX series card the core 2 will run circles around the core duo + 7900GTX

HA u edited while i was typing! where are you getting the builds from? what's your budget?

 

Builds are from Toshiba's website. I have $1600 credit there and was trying to configure some stuff. They do actually have a Core 2 with the 7900GTX, but its around 3 grand. I can't really afford much more than the $1600, and those two models I mentioned are both around that price.

Thanks!

 

Find out if the motherboard with the T2400 is upgradeable to a Core2 chip. In the future, if you need more processing power, it would be nice to have an upgrade option w/o having to purchase a new laptop. If you are going strictly for gaming then you can't go wrong with the Go 7900GTX. Just don't expect stellar battery life with that thing.

[edit] Even though the processor is slightly older, the Go 7900GTX plus a smaller resolution should be able to handle your newest games for a while. If you go for the higher resolution with the slower graphics card, you might run into some problems with the card not being able to push out max settings at a high resolution.

 

yea i agree. go with the core duo w/ 7900GTX. you might want to see if you can get one with 2 gigs of RAM as well

 

Yeah, if you want 2 GB, do it before you buy, otherwise you'll have two 512MB sticks (assuming you start with 1GB, they might fill up both slots anyway) and have to buy two 1GB sticks to replace them.
I also agree that you should check if the CPU (maybe even the GPU) is upgradeable. It depends on the model, but you can upgrade the CPU later if you go for the cheaper Core Duo/7900GTX solution.

 

Okay guys, thanks for the help. From what I've been reading, the difference between the Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo isn't really that big in gaming compared to the difference in the video cards. I also found out that the Core Duo system also comes with a 9-cell battery instead of the 6-cell in the other one, as well as having a single-stick gig of memory. From the graphics card performance reviews as well, the 7900GTX seems like the way to go.

Thanks again!
corndog