I bought a refurbished HP laptop as a gaming laptop in 2011, but I am wondering if it is starting to have problems. It cost me $499, but I don’t know if that was too cheap. I might just need a $60 repair, if so I’ll keep it but if it starts having problems I’ll likely replace it.
This laptop has dedicated graphics, can hold 16GB of RAM (although I only have 6) and has an AMD A8 CPU. Those are good enough to play my games, although I don’t know what kind of benchmark I’d need to determine if my games are playable. I’ve tried playing some of my games on a desktop that has a $30 graphics card and some games work and some don’t. According to benchmark.com, the graphics card on that PC and intel HD3000 (which is a fairly standard integrated program for laptops) are about the same speed, so I assume the games wouldn’t work on a laptop with integrated graphics either.
My big thing is if I buy another laptop if this one breaks, I’d want one with dedicated graphics because I don’t know if the Intel HD3000 graphics are fast enough.
Is $500 too low, should I be looking at $800 or so? I think I’d prefer a toshiba or ASUS their reliability is better. HP is near the bottom, worse than ACER at having problems within 2-3 years.
Define gaming laptop. From what you seem to mean, you could probably go even cheaper. Definitely get better than the HD3000, though, if you can. If you’re sticking with Intel, you want a generation above that, at least. Also check out AMD and their integrated cards.
For what most people want in a gaming laptop, you need a discrete graphics card. I haven’t been pricing laptops lately, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you could one with a lower end card, which apparently would be good enough for you.
It really depends on what games you plan to play. I have a nVidia card in each of my machines that does the trick, you can get a decent one for $60 or lower. I’m playing a couple of current MMOs now and my machine is good enough for most games.
One thing to note about Intel cards is that they don’t support OpenGL 3.x+ or DirectX 10+. Even if the card well outpaces other cards in terms of memory and speed, if it doesn’t support the correct features it won’t work. This COULD matter for some games, but it really depends on which games.
There isn’t such a thing as a true gaming laptop. They are always built with compromises in mind. Gaming is still the realm of the desktop and probably always will be for cutting edge games because those require space for components and power that laptops cannot provide.
That said, it sounds like you have a nice laptop and got for a good price. There is nothing wrong with that. Higher end,modern gaming depends on video cards and yours doesn’t have that. I only deal with desktop workstations professionally but I know there are video card solutions for laptops as well.
The best solution is to keep your current laptop for what you use it for and add a desktop for gaming. Those can be had for a similar price espically if you scout deals at sites like www.slickdeals.net for a while before you need one.