I'd like a laptop that can run Skyrim. Will any of these do?

My budget is about $600. Here's what I've found thus far:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158183

http://us.gateway.com/gw/en/US/content/model/LX.WY102.012

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158191

Are any of these capable of running Skyrim and other modern games (like Battlefield 3) reasonably well? If not, do you have any other recommendations?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this.

For 600 I don't think you could get a decent laptop that could run skyrim. But you could build a dektop that could run Skyrim easily.

that laptop (the gateway) is about as good as you can get for that price.

purely for games go the gateway. its got the A8 which has a large onboard graphics but should also still have a separate card that works in conjunction with it. tehre sjhould be a sticker under teh keyboard taht says DUAL GRAPHICS, but the specs only list the onboard 6620g....but if it doesnt have that separate card, then none of them really stand much of a chance

No get a desktop.V4LENT1NE

I would, but unfortunately I need something portable for school use as well. Will any of the ones I've found (or anything at all) run Skyrim reasonably well for $600?

The intel based one you linked would be the only one that might run Skyrim on low but it wont BF3 run. What is your budget?04dcarraher

My budget is about $600. Here's what I've found thus far:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158183

http://us.gateway.com/gw/en/US/content/model/LX.WY102.012

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158191

Are any of these capable of running Skyrim and other modern games (like Battlefield 3) reasonably well? If not, do you have any other recommendations?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this.

Idioth_ND312

Skyrim at medium/high details on AMD A8-3500M APU's Radeon HD 6620G, HP Pavilion D6-6117dx laptop

Battlefield 3 on AMD A8-3500M APU's Radeon HD 6620G, HP Pavilion D6-6117dx laptop

Radeon HD 6650M based laptop would be faster than 6620G, but AMD A8-3500M APU would have better battery life and gaming performance. The HP laptop with Radeon HD 6650M has 17 inch size screen i.e. it's abit large for mobility.

Gateway's laptop has slightly faster AMD A8-3520M over HP's AMD A8-3500M APU.

[QUOTE="V4LENT1NE"]No get a desktop.Idioth_ND312

I would, but unfortunately I need something portable for school use as well. Will any of the ones I've found (or anything at all) run Skyrim reasonably well for $600?

I have a Dell XPS Studio with an i5 m430 2.27ghz 4gb ram and Mobility Radeon hd4670. It cost me just a hair over 1000, but that was almost 2 years ago, so I imagine something comparable would be damn close to price range by now. I run Skyrim at mostly high settings, very well. I also run Crysis 2 well enough to play, but it could be better. Actually, after upgrading to version 1.9, and getting real graphics options, I turned everything down all the way (the lowest setting is called "high" -HA!), and it still looks better than it needs to, and runs pretty much respectably except for some slowdown during really busy scenes. Also, whatever you get, if you're going to be playing any games from the last 8 years on a laptop, get a good tray/surface dealy, with a big fan. They're noisy but they're lifesavers. My laptop used to always do pretty well running modern games for about 10 minutes, until it just got way too hot, and got slowdown from overheating. Now, I only ever play games if I have it hooked up with the fan, and it can run just about indefinitely with good performance, and barely even gets warm to the touch.

I have a Dell XPS Studio with an i5 m430 2.27ghz 4gb ram and Mobility Radeon hd4670. It cost me just a hair over 1000, but that was almost 2 years ago, so I imagine something comparable would be damn close to price range by now. I run Skyrim at mostly high settings, very well. I also run Crysis 2 well enough to play, but it could be better. Actually, after upgrading to version 1.9, and getting real graphics options, I turned everything down all the way (the lowest setting is called "high" -HA!), and it still looks better than it needs to, and runs pretty much respectably except for some slowdown during really busy scenes. Also, whatever you get, if you're going to be playing any games from the last 8 years on a laptop, get a good tray/surface dealy, with a big fan. They're noisy but they're lifesavers. My laptop used to always do pretty well running modern games for about 10 minutes, until it just got way too hot, and got slowdown from overheating. Now, I only ever play games if I have it hooked up with the fan, and it can run just about indefinitely with good performance, and barely even gets warm to the touch.

the_bi99man

You can obtain lower settings via Crysis 2's advanced settings manager.

Crysis 2's advanced settings manager enables Crysis 2 to run on my tablet at playable framerates.

Crysis 2 on AMD C-50 APU

[QUOTE="Idioth_ND312"]

My budget is about $600. Here's what I've found thus far:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158183

http://us.gateway.com/gw/en/US/content/model/LX.WY102.012

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158191

Are any of these capable of running Skyrim and other modern games (like Battlefield 3) reasonably well? If not, do you have any other recommendations?

Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this.

ronvalencia

Skyrim at medium/high details on AMD A8-3500M APU's Radeon HD 6620G, HP Pavilion D6-6117dx laptop

Battlefield 3 on AMD A8-3500M APU's Radeon HD 6620G, HP Pavilion D6-6117dx laptop

Radeon HD 6650M based laptop would be faster than 6620G, but AMD A8-3500M APU would have better battery life and gaming performance. The HP laptop with Radeon HD 6650M has 17 inch size screen i.e. it's abit large for mobility.

Gateway's laptop has slightly faster AMD A8-3520M over HP's AMD A8-3500M APU.

[QUOTE="Idioth_ND312"]

[QUOTE="V4LENT1NE"]No get a desktop.ronvalencia

I would, but unfortunately I need something portable for school use as well. Will any of the ones I've found (or anything at all) run Skyrim reasonably well for $600?

Each game's recommended settings would be enough for me. I'm not sure if that would be any better than the 360 or PS3.

I have over 40 hours into Skyrim with my school provided laptop that has Intel HD 3000 graphics. I play on all low settings, but at the screens native resolution. I get probably 30fps average. It dips sometimes and goes above that at other times. It doesn't play Crysis, BF3, Black Ops (but it does play MW2 well), or other newer games like those. But it does play Portal 2 on mostly high and it plays HL2 and CSS with everything maxed out along with TF2 and Killing Floor.

So if you want one that is capable of playing Skyrim then get one with Intel HD 3000 graphics. It is suitable for basic gaming and a few newer games as well. Here is one I found that has a better CPU than what I have:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158135

I don't trust these kind of videos, ESPECIALLY when there is no frame counter. It may look ok in the video, but actually playing the game, with that hardware, would be a completely different story. Notebookcheck says 6620G only manages 23 frames in Skyrim, 720p low settings and 25 in BF3, SUB-720p low settings.C_Rule

I don't trust them with some of thier statements i.e. they are not the only ones with multiple laptops.

notebookcheck claims desktop 5570 uses faster GDDR5

"HD 5730 should be similar to a Radeon 5570 (except the desktop version uses faster GDDR5)."

there's adesktop 5570 with DDR3 i.e. this SKU just refuted notebookcheck's statement.

With Radeon HD 6250M (i.e. my tablet), I disagree with thier statements e.g Starcraft 2 remarks link. Thier test Toshiba NB550D (Euro) netbook's 1GB of system memory will cripple the AMD C-50 APU.

My C-50/Z-01 has 384 MB shared VRAM from 2GB main memory. Starcraft 2 gameplay on AMD C-50 APU which debunks notebookcheck claims on Starcraft 2 being unplayable.

I only use notebookcheck as a quick guide. For specfics, I'll check somewhere else.

Other factors can influence the final frame rate count e.g driver version, game's patch version, memory speed, memory size and 'etc'.

AMD Llano 6620G Benchmarked with various RAM configurations

From Link

Skyrim Test
Laptop Specs:
CPU:AMD A8-3500M APU
Memory:8 Gig DDR3
Video Card:AMD Radeon HD 6620G
With FRAPS 9 FPS Without 41 FPS
AA:Off
Resolution 1366X768

Recorded on Medium Settings

On High Settings FPS is about 30 and on Ultra FPS is about 23

PS; This user has used FRAPS software.

For the record, I play Skyrim(latest patches+drivers, Feb 2012)at high/ultra details on my Radeon HD 5730M (a.k.a. 6570M since AMD's recent drivers renamed my laptop's GPU name).

It seems that coupon code's expired. Any other options?