Need advice on a Graphics Card issue

Fuzzy Bandit · 12-23-2008, 05:36 PM

Yo,

Basically, my present for this christmas is a laptop. More specifically, a "Studio 15" laptop ordered from Dell. Me and my parents searched through a great many deals and deliberated a lot before settling with this specific model.
It's purpose is mainly for my image-editing. I'm REALLY into photography and will probably go on to study it at university. However, I'm also kind of a games guy. I usually play on an Xbox 360 we have at home, but I really enjoy the occasional game such as World of Warcraft or maybe Battlefield 2 or Battlefield 2142.

I assume that the spec I list below is good enough to play these games at a medium graphics setting, which I don't really mind, but the main thing that would drag me down (after doing some research) would be the graphics card. Now the laptop only comes with either a weird and evidentially awful graphics card, or the one below (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450). I talked with my parents about this issue but we decided to carry on anyway.

My question is: How much would a decent graphics card cost for my laptop (It's 15.4" by the way), and how much would a good one improve the level of graphics I could comfortably go to, or would other aspects of the computer start to slow me down?

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5800 (2.0 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache)
Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1
15.4" Widescreen WUXGA+ CCFL (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450

Thanks for the help,
Jack.

groudon185p · 12-24-2008, 11:30 AM

yes. the 3450 Is a nice card well sorta (laptop card) my friend has a 3400 and can run ut3 med DX 9.0c at about 60 fps about 45 in a big battle, Yeah that can run it.

12-23-2008, 05:36 PM	#1 (permalink)
Fuzzy Bandit Registered User Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 1 OS: Windows XP Home Edition SP2	Need advice on a Graphics Card issue Yo, Basically, my present for this christmas is a laptop. More specifically, a "Studio 15" laptop ordered from Dell. Me and my parents searched through a great many deals and deliberated a lot before settling with this specific model. It's purpose is mainly for my image-editing. I'm REALLY into photography and will probably go on to study it at university. However, I'm also kind of a games guy. I usually play on an Xbox 360 we have at home, but I really enjoy the occasional game such as World of Warcraft or maybe Battlefield 2 or Battlefield 2142. I assume that the spec I list below is good enough to play these games at a medium graphics setting, which I don't really mind, but the main thing that would drag me down (after doing some research) would be the graphics card. Now the laptop only comes with either a weird and evidentially awful graphics card, or the one below (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450). I talked with my parents about this issue but we decided to carry on anyway. My question is: How much would a decent graphics card cost for my laptop (It's 15.4" by the way), and how much would a good one improve the level of graphics I could comfortably go to, or would other aspects of the computer start to slow me down? Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5800 (2.0 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 cache) Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 15.4" Widescreen WUXGA+ CCFL (1920x1200) TFT Display with TrueLife™ 4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048] 250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450 Thanks for the help, Jack.

12-24-2008, 11:30 AM	#2 (permalink)
groudon185p Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: NSW, Australia Posts: 288 OS: Vista Ultimate Sp1 My System	Re: Need advice on a Graphics Card issue yes. the 3450 Is a nice card well sorta (laptop card) my friend has a 3400 and can run ut3 med DX 9.0c at about 60 fps about 45 in a big battle, Yeah that can run it.