Holy shit new laptop

[Masamune]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114631

For $650, I got:

AMD 2.2 ghz Turion x2
3 GB ram
ATI 512 mb dedicated GPU
300 gig sata HD


This machine is simply fantastic and I recommend everyone get one right now.

[ShadowTiger]

(Pardon the ignorance) - The ATI 512 MB Dedicated GPU is the Graphics Card? Or what is it?

[Masamune]

Yes. Much of the time, laptop GPUs will use system memory to make up for whatever memory it lacks. Which sucks. So the fact that this laptop has its own dedicated video memory is awesome.

[erm2003]

Toshiba laptops are nice too. I have had mine for almost 2 years now and it's been reliable. Congrats on your new purchase!

[Aliem]

Ah, that's cool. I've never seen a laptop that didn't have it's GPU integrated.

That's a really good machine for the price. Gotta love Newegg.

[jerome]

AMD 2.2 ghz Turion x2

Is that a dual processor? (x2 is what I am referring to). Sorry for being a bit slow on this, but my "newest" computer is my laptop I bought in Dec. 03. It's a single 2.4GHz. I just started paying attention to computer crap again recently and noticed the processor speeds going doing, but I guess they are doubling them now. Does it help a lot?

And computers are coming with 3GB of RAM now? Cool.
Of course, from what I've heard, Vista uses most of it... right?

Oh yeah, awesome deal on the computer as well.

[biggiy05]

I've been staring at this laptop for a while. I'm tempted to buy it today so I have it by the end of the week or at least start of next. How do you like it? It's more than worth the cost. I just need a swift kick in the rear to make myself buy it.

[Masamune]

Yeah, this is a dual core processor. I'm not sure what benefits I'm gaining from it, but from what I can tell, everything runs fluidly and quickly. I'm able to play games like Team Fortress 2 at decent specs around 60 fps, and Age of Conan runs at about 30 fps using the default "high" spec settings. There's a neat little volume dial on the front which I love, WMP buttons below the screen, a webcam I'll never use, eSata port, HDMI port, a port which i think is s-video, analog video, and the speakers are pretty decent for laptop speakers. I like this thing a lot still, and I'd recommend it if you have the money.

EDIT: the only thing I don't like is how easily the keys, wrist areas, and top cover smudge. When I took it out of the box, it was super shiny, but after like 3 minutes of me lifting the screen up, turning it on, typing shit, it turned into a smudgy piece of shit.

Double EDIT: holy shit, it's 850 now. Thank god I bought it when it was 650.

[biggiy05]

Double EDIT: holy shit, it's 850 now. Thank god I bought it when it was 650.

Yeah I'm going to keep an eye on it and hope it goes down in price again in a few weeks.

[Nicholas Steel]

What IS the dedicated GPU? can you run GPU-Z or something?

[AtmaWeapon]

Yeah the smudging is just part of super-glossy plastic. Your skin has oil on it, and this rubs off on the plastic. The solution is to buy matte plastic, which doesn't show the oil until it's all saturated and nasty. Or bathe every once in a while. I like glossy stuff, so I'll just put up with it when I go shopping.

Those of you amazed by the dual core technology and integrated video card (which lately is common on higher-end laptops) might be interested in learning that many laptops now have color displays and can play audio in sterophonic sound! You can use "wifi" to download entire phonographs in minutes and listen to them while lounging. Clever chaps have even figured ways to "program" games on these contraptions! (seriously this is all stuff that happened like 3 years ago)

[Masamune]

Atma: I don't think I've ever seen someone take so long to say "you don't bathe" and "this technology has been around for a while". Go away.

Franpa: I know off the top of my head that the model of the card is an ATI Mobile Radeon HD 3650 if that's what you wanted to know. But here's what GPU-Z had to say about the rest of it.

Name: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650
GPU: M86
Technology: 55 nm
Release Date: 2008
Die Size: 118 mm^2
Transistors: 378M
Device : 1002 - 9591
Subvendor: Toshiba (1179)
ROPs: 4
Bus Interface: PCI-E 2.0 x16 @ x16
Shaders: 120 unified
DirectX Support: 10.1 / SM4.1
Pixel Fillrate: 2.4 GPixel/s
Texture Fillrate: 2.4 GTexel/s
Memory Type: DDR2
Bus Width: 128 Bit
Memory Size: 512 MB
Bandwidth: 16.0 GB/s
GPU Clock: 600 Memory: 500 MHz
Default Clock: 600 MHz Memory: 500 MHz

I don't know what a lot of this means, but I'm sure it's awesome.


Also, looking at the other Satellite Toshiba laptops, it looks like this card comes standard on a lot of them between the $800 and $1600 price range. There's a $2000 Satellite that sports an nvidia geforce 9800. Wowwee Zowwee!