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My first laptop

post #1 of 4
8/1/07 at 11:56am
Thread Starter 
Hi everybody! I am excited to have finally joined a respectable laptop expert community to vent my questions...it seems like most of the internet is a confused and self-indulged bunch who are more interested in flaming each other than being useful and backing up their claims.

First, the System:

I have just ordered an Inspiron 1720 from Dell sporting a 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB 5400RPM hard drive, a 1900 by 1200 Glossy 17" widescreen and a GeForce 8600GT...all for barely over 2000 dollars.

The reason I chose a dell over some cheaper but equal systems was due to the fact that I tend to break things and Dell has wonderful tech support (I payed about 500 dollars for the 4 yr in home warranty, LoJack support and accidental damage coverage.)

Second, the Questions:

1. I am a gamer and I am wondering how my favorite games will run on this puppy. These include Battlefield 2 and mods, Half-Life 2 and mods, and some future games such as Quake Wars and Crysis. I would appreciate some estimates as to what kind of performance I will see in these.

2. Will the 5400 RPM hard drive simply slow down game LOADING times or will it actually effect my in-game performance? If it effects my actual gameplay then I may consider buying a Seagate 7200RPM, but if it simply effects loading times then I can deal. I am a patient man.

3. How easy exactly is it for me to go to Newegg.com, order 4GB of memory and a 7200RPM hard drive and install it myself? I have some experience installing hardware in desktop computers.

Thank you all so much any answers will be greatly appreciated!
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post #2 of 4
8/1/07 at 3:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by insomniac34 View Post
1. I am a gamer and I am wondering how my favorite games will run on this puppy. These include Battlefield 2 and mods, Half-Life 2 and mods, and some future games such as Quake Wars and Crysis. I would appreciate some estimates as to what kind of performance I will see in these.
Should run decently well w/ HL2 and BF2, we will see about Crysis but i doubt you will ahve issues. Sadly the current DX10 cards are nowhere near the performance of DX9 cards...that is, the 8600 won't be as good as a 7950.
Quote:
2. Will the 5400 RPM hard drive simply slow down game LOADING times or will it actually effect my in-game performance? If it effects my actual gameplay then I may consider buying a Seagate 7200RPM, but if it simply effects loading times then I can deal. I am a patient man.
yup, will only screw your loading times, but even then not so much, load times depend on 2 factors: speed, and density. whereas you are lacking some rpms in speed, you make up for it by having a 160gb hdd.
Quote:
3. How easy exactly is it for me to go to Newegg.com, order 4GB of memory and a 7200RPM hard drive and install it myself? I have some experience installing hardware in desktop computers.
this depends from system to system. i've seen laptops where its really easy, and i've seen ones where you wanna blow your freaken brains out. not sure about that dell model, but if dell desktops tell us anything is that all their proprietary crap and wiring on the inside is a pain in the a$$ to work with, so i assume their laptops are slightly more on the difficult edge of the spectrum, but still fairly doable. the one thing i must warn you about though is since you did spend $500 on a nice warranty, i'd be a shame if you voided it by opening the computer yourself.
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post #3 of 4
8/1/07 at 6:55pm
Replacing the hard drive on my Thinkpad was pretty straight forward. You shouldn't have any problems.

RAM is easy as well. Your model might have RAM access doors on the bottom, or underneath the keyboard.
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post #4 of 4
8/1/07 at 7:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by abf View Post
Should run decently well w/ HL2 and BF2, we will see about Crysis but i doubt you will ahve issues. Sadly the current DX10 cards are nowhere near the performance of DX9 cards...that is, the 8600 won't be as good as a 7950.

yeah it should handle games like HL2 and BF2 well, it may not be as fast as a top end card in the DX9 games, but the added value of DX10 support is nice. it likely wont make much difference right this second with the fact that most games in the near future are going to be supporting both dx9 and dx10 but in the long to very long term it may make a difference. still the sad reality is if you want pure outright speed right now the top end of the nvidia 7 series is the way to go.


Quote:
Originally Posted by abf View Post
this depends from system to system. i've seen laptops where its really easy, and i've seen ones where you wanna blow your freaken brains out. not sure about that dell model, but if dell desktops tell us anything is that all their proprietary crap and wiring on the inside is a pain in the a$$ to work with, so i assume their laptops are slightly more on the difficult edge of the spectrum, but still fairly doable. the one thing i must warn you about though is since you did spend $500 on a nice warranty, i'd be a shame if you voided it by opening the computer yourself.

dells are usually not hard to upgrade for the ram and such. i seem to remember hearing that the ram on the 1720 is a bit of a pain because only one slot is accessible from the underside of the machine while the other slot requires you remove the keyboard to access. i could be wrong though so google will have to be your friend for that one. the good news is that it wont void out the warranty on the machine if you do get the extra ram and add it yourself.
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