AMD + NVIDIA laptop

captain_twinkie · Post by **captain_twinkie** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:05 am

I am looking into getting a new laptop, and since I have been a AMD fanboy for quite sometime I want to get a laptop with that, especially since I do have a distro of OSX that can work on a AMD cpu, I would also like nvidia video card on it, any recommendations?

MetalBeast · Post by **MetalBeast** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:19 am

HP-Pavillion 9000 and up.

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 9:18 am

I'm pretty happy with my Asus laptop I got off of newegg (once I got rid of Vista that is). The only problem is you can't customize them at all, its just off the shelf buying and the selection isn't so impressive that they cover everything.

captain_twinkie · Post by **captain_twinkie** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 10:31 am

Krom,

Whats the model that you have?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:17 pm

It is a Turion 64 system @ 1.8 GHz, came with 1 GB of ram and has a geforce 7600 go and a 160 GB HDD, even though it is a 64 bit computer it came with Vista home premium 32 bit loaded on it. I threw away the copy of Vista and loaded XP Professional (32 bit) on it, upgraded it to 2 GB of RAM.

As far as performance goes, it is fast enough to handle half-life 2 (granted not at the full 1440x900 desktop resolution), and most other games I can throw at it assuming you turn down the details a bit. The video card isn't the fastest out there but it gets the job done well enough when the unit is connected to AC power. It also doesn't melt your lap too much as long as you have it sitting on a board of some kind (pretty much required because it has vents that shouldn't be blocked on the bottom). The screen is 17\" and doesn't ghost too much, I can play D1/D2 on it with no problems. It has 5 USB ports, wireless LAN (wireless G), bluetooth 2.0, TV out, analog and optical SPDIF audio out, DVI out, DVDRW + lightscribe, pretty much everything a good multimedia laptop should have.

One issue is the top is a bit easy to scratch, mine already has a couple scratches on the cover from setting the AC power block on the top of it. Getting drivers and software for loading windows XP on a laptop these days is also a bit of a pain thanks to Microsoft pushing Vista on all these notebook computers that are years behind being able to run it well. But it is well worth it in performance and space savings getting rid of Vista and keeping XP running on these. Also since memory is so cheap make sure you buy an upgrade to max, it helps out a lot since these laptops have very slow HDDs.

captain_twinkie · Post by **captain_twinkie** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 12:30 pm

Thanks Krom, you have helped me find a winner. Also I was looking on new egg and i saw the only systems they have are open box systems, is that what you bought? And also how is the warranty for the system?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:05 pm

The one I got was retail new in box with a one year warranty. You would be hard pressed to find notebook manufacturers willing to offer a longer warranty since around 75% of notebook computers fail within 3 years. It isn't that the computers are poorly designed, it is just that they take far more abuse than a equivalent desktop computer and are less serviceable overall.

captain_twinkie · Post by **captain_twinkie** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:10 pm

Well Krom I would like to thank you for helping me pick out my new laptop, I got in the mail on Wed, I ordered http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 834220170R

I really like the system, and the interesting thing, I went to order 2 1 GB sticks of ram for it, and I accidently ordered 1 2 GB stick, so I toss it in anyway, just to see if it boots with 3 GB of ram in it, and to my suprise it does, even though all over neweggs and asus's page says it maxes out at 2 GB, so that was really nice for me.

captain_twinkie · Post by **captain_twinkie** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:07 am

So I hate to revive a old topic, but when I ordered this system It came with 1 1 GB stick in it, and the tech specs said it supported 2 GB of ram in it, so I thought I ordered 2 1 GB sticks, but when I got the order I got 1 2 GB stick, so i im like what the heck, I tossed just the 2 GB stick in and it posts, so im like, thats cool. And I toss in the 1 GB stick in for a total of 3 Gb and it posts despite what the tech specs say. Then one day at work I bring my system in and take a co-workers 2 GB stick and toss it in and I was suprised the BIOS only saw 3 of the ram. So has anyone else seen a system that only supports 3 GB of ram?

Tunnelcat · Post by **Tunnelcat** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:34 am

Check ha5mvo's #7 reply here as well as the discussion.

http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az= ... &mode=full

TechPro · Post by **TechPro** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 12:01 pm

Gee, inaccurate specs shown by the manufacturer or by the retailer. What a surprise.