Hi Guys,

buying a laptop and this is the most cost efficient Lappy i could zero upon:

Compaq Presario V3155AU

Processor: 2.0Ghz AMD Turion 64 MK-36
RAM: 1x512MB DDR2
HDD: 80GB 5400 rpm
OPtical drive: 8x Super Multi DVD Writer (+/-R +/-RW) with Double Layer support

Display size: 14.1" WXGA High Definition BrightView Widescreen Display
Display resolution: 1280 x 800
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150
Weight: 2.4 kg (5.4 lbs)
Dimensions: 23.7 cm (W) x 33.4 cm (L) x 2.6 cm - 3.9 cm (H)
So can you tell me what you think about this peice? It's costing me around $818 in India. Matter of factly, Laptops are costlier here than in the US. But it is a highly competitive price here. So guys tell how will this laptop fare up in graphics and processing functions?

How does GeForce Go 6150 compare with ATI Radeon xpress 1100 Chipset?
How does a AMD 64x2 1.60 Ghz dual core processor fare up against this 2.0Ghz 64x1 processor? How would either effect my gaming experience?

My opinion: the Geforce is more powerful than that radeon.
The Radeon 1100 apparently seems to be the same line as the Xpress 200M, which fares worse than the Geforce 6150 in frame tests.
Also my opinon (not necessarily fact): the Dual core is better than the single one, even though the single is faster, still you've got the multithreading of the dual core, of 2 processors at 1.60, which totals more than the single. more so since they're both 64 bit.
I think it'll fare ok in graphics. you might want to add another 512MB stick for overall speed. It'll run things like Photoshop alright, and possibly some light gaming, but it's not a heavyweight.

Hi Grafitti,

Thanx a load, your suggestion taken and another 512MB stick added keeping the price same :-) I compromised on the Hard disk space, and got it reduced to 60GB. However the LCD is now 15.4" Widescreen...
I hope it should fare a bit better with games with this.

Basically the extra ram will help speed access time, since the computer won't have to page as much onto the hard disk in virtual memory. Widescreen is always nice, but i don't think it'll fare all that much better in gaming. You're basically crippled by the shared graphics card's limit. even if you had 2 GB of ram, when playing a pixel-shader heavy game all that extra memory wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. but having a gig of memory will definitely speed up everything you do.

Yeah, when i got 1GB RAM instead of 512MB, i noticed a reasonable change in performance, as the access memory is increased. Your RAM is good but it will serve you much better in terms of heavy gaming if you make it 2GB. As for the graphics card, ill go with graffitis point on that. In games with high dynamic range lighting, such as the new half life two (episode one or lost coast, the showcase), you may experience some lag with your current graphics card and the game will definitely not run at optimum performance. Everything else seems pretty good, but i dont know how u will survive with only 60GB hard disk memory, as i have 160 GB sata and am just coping with it

Though for a laptop 60 GB is passable, because you can always upgrade the hard disk later when you have more cash. It's almost the easiest thing in a laptop to change. So if a few months down the line you decide you need 120 or 160 GB, just buy the hard disk, duplicate your old one on to the new, and then you've got 160 GB in your laptop, and you can stick the 60 GB in an external case that costs you $10, and you've got a second hard drive right there to back up your data to.

Yeah you are right, and not just that, I had around 2 80GB IDE hard disks lying around for which I bought a USB Drive converter. Now I plug one of them onto the converter and am able to carry whatever extra data needed. Also it helps because then data sharing between more than two computers becomes easy. Also having a double layer DVD writer, I can simply have a InCD formatted 8GB DVDRW which almost doubles up as a second hard disk.

I tried out a few games, and realized that a little bit of graphics lowering was required before I could get them running butter smooth.

I'd say you will need a better 'graphics card'. Take a look at some of the 7 series geforce go cards (http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforcego7.html)

As for the cpu, it all depends on what games you play. If a game you play is multithreaded it will benefit greatly from having that extra core but if the game isn't multithreaded then you'd be better off getting just a single core cpu. Also if you tend to do alot of media work such as encoding video, using photoshop etc then you will benefit from a dual core cpu.
Basically, find out what types of games you are going to be playing. Are they multithreaded or not? We will probably see more multithreaded games in the future. I would say get a dual core regardless though but you are going to suffer a bit of speed if you get a lower clocked one than a single core cpu.

Overall, you need a better video adapter. Cpu won't matter that much in gaming (depends on what games you play again)

-HellFire

Yes. What exactly did you buy the laptop for? Gaming? Or a mobile workstation?

Generally, compaqs are not rated for gaming, they're rated for mobile workstation or for general use. However, they will run games on low settings on stock hardware which is usually a geforce 6150 for some models