Laptop to play the Sims 3

[Tonka777]

I have been tasked with finding a laptop that will play the Sims 3 comfortably for as little money as possible, and preferably from a company with finance options.

There are some on the Dell site that look promising, but the Sims 3 capable GPU is the bit i am unsure about. Of course i have looked at the Sims 3 requirements, but they do not list every GPU out there and give no indication of performance.

One of the laptops i was looking at on the Dell site has a Radeon HD4330 as standard, with the option to upgrade to a 4570. Will the 4330 be suitable or should i be looking for something better than that?

Any advice appreciated!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get this notebook as it has the Mobility Radeon HD4650 DDR3:

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default..._CAMPAIGN=box6

This is the same notebook without an OS:

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default..._CAMPAIGN=box6

The Mobility Radeon HD4650 DDR3 is basically a downclocked version of the desktop HD4670 DDR3 graphics card.

[Tonka777]

Thanks for the reply Cat.

Those Mesh machines look quite pricy to me, and its the second time i have seen you recommend Mesh laptops in recent weeks, are you connected with them at all?!

Any idea how the 4570 compares with the 4670? I'm an Nvidia person, so not sure how the numbers work on the ATI GPU's.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Those Mesh machines look quite pricy to me, and its the second time i have seen you recommend Mesh laptops in recent weeks, are you connected with them at all?!

No!! OTH,find the cheapest notebook with a Mobility Radeon HD4650 DDR3. It is the cheapest notebook I have seen that is capable of some decent gaming and I don't see why this should mean I work for them or something silly like that just because I recommend it. Many companies put slower memory with their graphics cards and at least Mesh have used the DDR3 version of the HD4650 whereas many other companies use much slower DDR2.

The desktop HD4670 has 320 stream processors which is the same number as the HD3850 and HD3870 cards. The desktop HD4670 has performance about the same as a 9600GSO 384MB and is a bit behind the 9600GT.

The Mobility HD4650 DDR3 is much faster than the Nvida 9700M GT and the GT330M.

It is basically an underclocked desktop HD4670 DDR3.

[Tonka777]

Thanks for the info Cat, no offence was intended by asking if you were connected with Mesh, i was just asking the question!

So, back to the original question, what laptop GPU should i be looking for to play the Sims 3? Its not a very demanding game, so high end GPU's are not needed, but it would be nice to run it with decent settings.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This web page should be helpful:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI...0.13883.0.html

[kurosagi01]

Don't bother with Nvidia mobile graphics because they are rubbish in my opinion.
Almost all ATI mobility GPU are all counterparts to the desktop with just lower clock speed.

Definitely try getting the 4570 if you can it do all your casual gaming need on the go.