I'm not liking the one year warranty :(

Probably not highest setting smoothly... but you can get high enough settings comfortably. I had a 4870 1GB + Phenom II X3 720 and my fps would dip to 35 in a frag fest on high-ish settings at 1680x1050. And now I'm playing it on integrated HD3300 on lowest settings so it scales pretty well.

Hey all. So I plan on getting a pair of gaming headsets because I love the idea of communicating with others through voice while playing a game. But I'm also quite picky with sound quality. I actually wanted to get a 5.1 surround sound system, like a Logitech Z-5500, but room space is an issue. :( Anyway, I'm currently eyeing gaming headsets from Creative. I'm looking at the World of Warcraft edition gaming headset, which has gotten good reviews, and their new Tactic 3D Alpha, which I have yet to see a review for. I know that these headsets aren't TRUE surround sound, but if they do the job well, that's good enough for me. Any feedback on these 2? Any other options I should consider? Cheers.oobermensch

Well, if you are picky about sound quality.. then avoid 99% of gaming headsets and logitech-brand speakers. I'd recommend the Audio Technica AD700 with an attachable mic. If you want speakers, go with a pair of m-audio bookself speakers or a receiver + speaker set up.

Maybe on low settings (lulz). Your fps is probably going to dip steeply at some points.

Here we go, people not knowing what they are talking about. Yes, I believe you can, and it might get even better with one or 2 patches down the road. I have pretty much the same laptop, a MBP with i5, 4 gigs or RAM and a geforce 330m (running on bootcamp with windows 7) . It runs above 30 fps with textures on high, no aa though. But it runs just fine.

usule

Here we go, COD4 MW2 benched at ~48 fps on LOWEST settings and ~18 fps on medium settings with 1366x768 res + 310M + i5-520 + 4GB.

Source: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-310M.22439.0.html

get an 8400gs for crysis max settings full hd res

unless, you are actually serious.. then stick with your console

The Orange Box.

I'd recommend getting an after market cpu cooler cause stock amd fan is loud and annoying

Currently looking at the Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB Super Overclock, because of the lower noise levels. Any other suggestions? My preference is a relatively quiet video card around the $200 price range (give or take $20-$30). My monitor is 1680x1050 resolution and I have a Phenom X3 720 at 3.2Ghz. I don't mind ATI or Nvidia.

I had a pair of AD700 before. Couldn't stand it because their "wing" design made me feel dizzy when wearing the headphones. Otherwise, a good headphone for sound stage and clarity but not for boom. They leak a lot, so you may want to consider a closed headset, but you'd be trading sound stage and clarity for boom. One thing to note, the AD700 are extremely bright.. I could go deaf listening to the high pitched guns in Mass Effect 2 at normal volumes.

For desktop, I use Infinity Primus P362 + Denon 1610. Relatively cheap, too much bass, and a decent soundstage.

I recommend to stay away from Logitech and most 2.1 systems. Why? Logitech makes mice and rubber dome keyboards and 2.1 is generally just an excuse to spam uncontrolled bass to make up for cheap speakers. The bass is annoying on my old Logitech. It extends all the way to the midrange like those (guess what brand) speakers. And if you lower the bass, it sound flat. But I'm sure it sounds great with hip hop and rap.