Try to look for alternatives too, I heard that Dell is the Apple of Windows PCs, they like to overprice.

If you had read my post you would know I have to have a laptop for college. I know desktops are better for gaming but right now this is my best bet.

@:BroCop: If you want I can post the link to the computer on Dell's website?

@MikZer: If it was not coming directly from Dell I would be very wary of it. But I love the 3 year service plan I'm adding to it. (Just in case ;) )

Oh, I didn't know it was from Dell, you shouldn't have anything to worry about then.

Alright guys the laptop is on it's way. Ordered it today and I got a FREE Xbox 360 to go with it. Now the waiting game for it to arrive!

Oh dear lord please do DevilDrummer. (post teh linkz)

This.

Smoothly.

We'll see about that. The problem with the Core i7's that laptops have is the TurboBoost and how it actually works. It advertizes 2.9GHZ as its top speed, but that's only when using ONE core. If you plan on using all four like a lot of us do, or 3 or even two, you're going to be severely under-clocked compared to todays modern desktops. Furthermore, the 525M is the equivalent of a mid-level gaming graphics card, so do not expect to max your details out unless it's on a small monitor, thereby keeping it at a low resolution. I believe you said it was a 17R though which means it will be fairly high resolution unless you want to crank it down and make things look chunky.

To take an except from Notebookcheck.net:

"The gaming performance of the GT 525M is similar to the GT 425M as the clock rate differs only by 7%. Therefore, the gaming performance of the GT 525M is sufficient for medium detail settings in modern games like Battlefield Bad Company 2. Less demanding games should run in high detail settings. The best resolution to choose is about 1360x768 due to the limited performance."

Furthermore, keep in mind that laptop video card numbers never match up to their desktop counterparts. So don't be fooled. A good example of this was the Asus G73 gaming laptop that several retailers carried last year. It advertised having a 5870 Mobile graphics card in it, but the cards actual performance is somewhere between a 5750 and a 5770 desktop graphics card. Meaning : Medium details. This was again, coupled with the older "Gulftown" Intel Core i7 processor to make the spec sheet a bit misleading. Newer laptops now carry "Sandy Bridge" Core i7's which are better, but still have not fixed the clock speed problem with TurboBoost. You can now get up to 3.2GHz rather than 2.9, but that's still only running on one core. Keep in mind this is not a glitch, this is the way the processors were designed.

The next laptop I would look into would be AMD's new A8 series "Llano" Fusion APU processors. They have a consistent clock speed that's higher than the Core i7 on all four cores, features dedicated video (sans-GDDR RAM) lower power consumption, less heat emission, cost significantly less and are almost always coupled with a true dedicated graphics card.

Don't let my little speech take away from what that laptop is. It's a pretty heft spec sheet, but a lot of people go into buying something like that expecting it to be a desktop replacement when it comes to gaming.

It is not.

And for those curious about the Free XBOX 360 comment, your XBOX 360 will be a 4GB model. A lot of electronics retailers did that promotion for a couple of weeks and then dropped it because Microsoft wasn't paying the companies back for all the XBOX's they had to buy to meet the demand. It applies to laptops $699 and above, and you can choose from a very limited selection. You can visit Microsoft's Facebook page for more info.

Edited July 11, 201114 yr by unr3al

We'll see about that. The problem with the Core i7's that laptops have is the TurboBoost and how it actually works. It advertizes 2.9GHZ as its top speed, but that's only when using ONE core. If you plan on using all four like a lot of us do, or 3 or even two, you're going to be severely under-clocked compared to todays modern desktops. Furthermore, the 525M is the equivalent of a mid-level gaming graphics card, so do not expect to max your details out unless it's on a small monitor, thereby keeping it at a low resolution. I believe you said it was a 17R though which means it will be fairly high resolution unless you want to crank it down and make things look chunky.

To take an except from Notebookcheck.net:

"The gaming performance of the GT 525M is similar to the GT 425M as the clock rate differs only by 7%. Therefore, the gaming performance of the GT 525M is sufficient for medium detail settings in modern games like Battlefield Bad Company 2. Less demanding games should run in high detail settings. The best resolution to choose is about 1360x768 due to the limited performance."

Furthermore, keep in mind that laptop video card numbers never match up to their desktop counterparts. So don't be fooled. A good example of this was the Asus G73 gaming laptop that several retailers carried last year. It advertised having a 5870 Mobile graphics card in it, but the cards actual performance is somewhere between a 5750 and a 5770 desktop graphics card. Meaning : Medium details. This was again, coupled with the older "Gulftown" Intel Core i7 processor to make the spec sheet a bit misleading. Newer laptops now carry "Sandy Bridge" Core i7's which are better, but still have not fixed the clock speed problem with TurboBoost. You can now get up to 3.2GHz rather than 2.9, but that's still only running on one core. Keep in mind this is not a glitch, this is the way the processors were designed.

The next laptop I would look into would be AMD's new A8 series "Llano" Fusion APU processors. They have a consistent clock speed that's higher than the Core i7 on all four cores, features dedicated video (sans-GDDR RAM) lower power consumption, less heat emission, cost significantly less and are almost always coupled with a true dedicated graphics card.

Don't let my little speech take away from what that laptop is. It's a pretty heft spec sheet, but a lot of people go into buying something like that expecting it to be a desktop replacement when it comes to gaming.

It is not.

And for those curious about the Free XBOX 360 comment, your XBOX 360 will be a 4GB model. A lot of electronics retailers did that promotion for a couple of weeks and then dropped it because Microsoft wasn't paying the companies back for all the XBOX's they had to buy to meet the demand. It applies to laptops $699 and above, and you can choose from a very limited selection. You can visit Microsoft's Facebook page for more info.

This :P (Yes again).

We'll see about that. The problem with the Core i7's that laptops have is the TurboBoost and how it actually works. It advertizes 2.9GHZ as its top speed, but that's only when using ONE core. If you plan on using all four like a lot of us do, or 3 or even two, you're going to be severely under-clocked compared to todays modern desktops. Furthermore, the 525M is the equivalent of a mid-level gaming graphics card, so do not expect to max your details out unless it's on a small monitor, thereby keeping it at a low resolution. I believe you said it was a 17R though which means it will be fairly high resolution unless you want to crank it down and make things look chunky.

To take an except from Notebookcheck.net:

"The gaming performance of the GT 525M is similar to the GT 425M as the clock rate differs only by 7%. Therefore, the gaming performance of the GT 525M is sufficient for medium detail settings in modern games like Battlefield Bad Company 2. Less demanding games should run in high detail settings. The best resolution to choose is about 1360x768 due to the limited performance."

Furthermore, keep in mind that laptop video card numbers never match up to their desktop counterparts. So don't be fooled. A good example of this was the Asus G73 gaming laptop that several retailers carried last year. It advertised having a 5870 Mobile graphics card in it, but the cards actual performance is somewhere between a 5750 and a 5770 desktop graphics card. Meaning : Medium details. This was again, coupled with the older "Gulftown" Intel Core i7 processor to make the spec sheet a bit misleading. Newer laptops now carry "Sandy Bridge" Core i7's which are better, but still have not fixed the clock speed problem with TurboBoost. You can now get up to 3.2GHz rather than 2.9, but that's still only running on one core. Keep in mind this is not a glitch, this is the way the processors were designed.

The next laptop I would look into would be AMD's new A8 series "Llano" Fusion APU processors. They have a consistent clock speed that's higher than the Core i7 on all four cores, features dedicated video (sans-GDDR RAM) lower power consumption, less heat emission, cost significantly less and are almost always coupled with a true dedicated graphics card.

Don't let my little speech take away from what that laptop is. It's a pretty heft spec sheet, but a lot of people go into buying something like that expecting it to be a desktop replacement when it comes to gaming.

It is not.

And for those curious about the Free XBOX 360 comment, your XBOX 360 will be a 4GB model. A lot of electronics retailers did that promotion for a couple of weeks and then dropped it because Microsoft wasn't paying the companies back for all the XBOX's they had to buy to meet the demand. It applies to laptops $699 and above, and you can choose from a very limited selection. You can visit Microsoft's Facebook page for more info.

I did my research before buying this laptop. I understand that I won't be able to play GTA with everything maxed out and I don't expect to be able to. I'm just looking for something that will allow me to play it period.

Free Xbox came today and honestly for people wondering the only thing I had to upgrade on this computer to be eligible was the security software from 15 months to 24 months. If any of you do decide to order from Dell I would highly recommend using the phone their salesmen are very helpful and actually will help you find a better deal if you are on a tight budget.

15 month subscription? That's kind of an odd number. What kind was it? McAffe did you say?

Mine's as good as this, almost better. It's good to have laptops as these.