A new laptop... not so Xtreme questions

[Smartidiot89]

My girlfriend finally grew tired of here netbook (Intel Atom, 945) and we're getting rid of it, so I plan to put some cash in between to get a her a real laptop.

I've decided a Dual-Core CPU is a must as she likes toying around abit with Photoshop (not professionally), and also she likes "gaming". I was thinking that a HD3200 GPU should be more then enough for some simple games with halfdecent settings, such as The Sims 2/3, Spore etc. she's a girl :p:

My question is does anyone on this forum have experience with HD3200 in a laptop environment and can give me some personal experience on how it performs?

On a sidenote can you give me an idea of what CPUs/chipsets are friendly for some undervolt?

Thanks in advance!

[AndrewZorn]

the 3200 is still integrated, right? If so, I don't think you'd have good sucess with even stuff like Sims and Spore.

[Semicycle]

This may help..
You may want to search around for benchmarks for the 780g/780v .. They use the same 3200 video portion in the chipset

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/mainboard/amd-780-740-chipsets-p1.html


I can't believe I'm about to give you this second link, but here goes
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-780g-chipset,1785-10.html

[Smartidiot89]

the 3200 is still integrated, right? If so, I don't think you'd have good sucess with even stuff like Sims and Spore.


This may help..
You may want to search around for benchmarks for the 780g/780v .. They use the same 3200 video portion in the chipset

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles3/mainboard/amd-780-740-chipsets-p1.html


I can't believe I'm about to give you this second link, but here goes
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-780g-chipset,1785-10.html
It seems to perform quite close to the HD3450 so it should be more then enough since a laptop really doesn't have that high res...

Anyone with some personal experience with HD3200?

[Chumbucket843]

get 40 nm mobile graphics. they are a rare find but worth it

[570091D]

get 40 nm mobile graphics. they are a rare find but worth it

+1

if you are willing to wait a couple of months, we should have more 40nm stuff from both ati and nvidia. the 3200 chipset is good, but it runs HOT and doesn't offer much for battery life. i have a friend who uses a laptop with 3200 integrated graphics for lan gaming.

[ToTTenTranz]

get 40 nm mobile graphics. they are a rare find but worth it

They're not rare, they're really not in the market yet.


The HD3200 is really very old and slow. A 80-shader 4370 should be the absolute minimum for someone who's going to play games - even if it's sims and spore.