Laptop- Recommend a gaming GFX card.
 

My friend has a nice Sony Vaio laptop that's about six months old. He plays lots of video games, but up until now it was only casually (Warcraft, Doom 3, etc.) He's now playing World of Warcraft and while I personally think the game runs well on his computer, he's only getting around 15-20 frames per second at high resolution. After he saw how it ran on my desktop, he began bugging me asking if I could help find him an upgrade. Here's his current basic specs:

Sony Vaio pcg-grt360zg (http://www.epinions.com/pr-Sony_PCG-...ay_~full_specs)

Pentium 3.06ghz 533fsb
512 ram (not sure what kind)
NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5600 http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20030311316029.html

I figure that while his current GFX card seems to be pretty high-end already, there's got to be something a step up or two from NVIDIA or Radeon that he can look into. The only problem is that I have virtually zero experience with upgrading laptops and the possible hardware options involved. Can anyone recommend a higher-end GFX card than the one above that you think will be able to get him up in the 25-35 fps range running at high to the highest resolutions in such a game?

Thanks for any info guys. Take care.
-T

Have him get an alienware laptop or a gaming desktop. Laptops aren't upgradeable like desktops are. Hard drive and memory are basically the only things you can upgrade in a laptop except in the case of a gaming laptop where they now have replaceable video card modules. Processor's can be upgraded but to a very limited extent. Basically you friend needs a gaming laptop or a gaming desktop and not so much a sony geared for the office using business person.

I totally understand what you're saying. I just thought that his laptop might be an exception because it already had a decent NVIDIA card and figured that the industry might have shifted, allowing various setups. So are you sure that all recent Vaio's are stuck with the card they came with?

Thanks guys.
-T

nVidia is only starting to develop upgradable video cards for laptops now. Laptops + gaming = you'll never get the performance you want

yea for gaming laptops look at either www.alienware.com or www.voodoopc.com but with those.. expect to drop a decent amount of coinage


from what i remember the alienware laptops have a spot that will let you upgrade your video card on your own

go with nvidia, i've always used nvidia cards, and they've never let me down. I can play Halo with all the settings to the MAX. Plays perfectly, no lag, no choppiness, no problems.