Originally Posted by Blackhearted

Um... I may not be an expert on the power of laptop GPU's but i think the 8600m GT is slightly weaker than the desktop counterpart. And i could guarantee that if the desktop version wouldn't comfortably handle games at that things native resolution without a lot of sacrifices, that the weaker notebook version wont either.

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

Don't underestimate the 8600m. I helped engineered that little baby, and it can pull its own weight. It will be able to run many games at 1920x1200, and it can make Vista cry for mercy. It will have no issue running GW1 at full rez, with VSync and full graphics and 4xAA, steady 60FPS. GW2? Well, probably 30FPS. It can run Crysis at 1920x1200 at medium settings and some good custom tweaking on the options. It is a great little card with a much smaller TWP than its larger brother, the 8800 or 8700. This will help with battery life and mobility, which I don't think the OP wanted to lose entirely. This laptop isn't a desktop replacement. You have to realize that this is a notebook, and most notebooks cannot compete with their desktop equivalents, at least not with any hope of being unplugged from the wall.

I do believe this to be the best option for the OP because of the native resolution of that screen, and it packs enough power to handle most of the newer games at decent settings. Even if he has to move the resolution back a bit, the resolution is still very high, and it gives a lot of wiggle room. You can always lower pixel count, but you can never add to it (at least not without a microlaser, Tesla toolset, and ummm, I can't remember the rest of the junk used for LCD production.)

Originally Posted by Blackhearted

Wow. Getting crysis to run decently on an 8600 series chip at a res like that(past what i'd really recommend 8600's for myself, personally) is kinda surprising. GW1 i'd figure wouldn't have much trouble though, since it's pretty old. Also, i know it's not a desktop replacement. I just compared it to the desktop variant of the since it's exactly the same except for slightly lower clocks on the rops, tmu's and shaders, iirc.

And yea, you could maybe drop the res a bit but with LCD's that usually comes with a bit of a hit on your screens image quality. I remember how bad windows and stuff looks on LCD's, even smaller ones, with the default xp drivers that only give you like.. 800x600 and 1024x768 and junk like that before you install the drivers lol.

Originally Posted by Rahja the Thief

For those of you who are too lazy to go to my link... Here are the main reasons I chose that lappy.

CPU Type Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2G
Screen 17" WUXGA
Memory Size 2GB DDR2
Hard Disk 250GB

Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Video Memory 256MB GDDR3 VRAM

Screen Size 17.0"
Wide Screen Support Yes
Display Type Wide UXGA
Resolution 1920 x 1200

Note the bolded features, for that extra, ooooh, and ahhh.