WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE

[david small]

Cybercom laptop VANCOUVER RAM2000. AMDATHLON VP-M 2600+ PROCESSOR 512 MB DDR RAM 60GB HARD DRIVE. SUPERCOMBO DUAL DVD WRITER. 15.4 WIDE SCREEN. ATi IGP320M with up to 128 shared graphics 16 BIT SOUND NETWORK CARD WIN XP TV-TUNER. This is at my local shop for �800. I have never heard of Cybercom, I want it NOW. Should I make the purchase or will it be tears befor bedtime. I want to run games, newer the better. Please reply as quickly as possible . all advice appreciated.

[mattie]

The basic spec of this PC looks ok but - If I was buying a PC in order to play games, eg Doom3, the forthcoming Half-life2 etc, I would have a PC as follows - P4 3.2GHZ, 1Gb Ram, big hard drive (120GB) or two SATA drives if I could afford it. A soundblaster Audigy2 for decent sound and a good set of surround sound speakers. An ATI based X800 or Nvidia 6800GT or 6800 Ultra 256Mb video card running Windows XP pro. Now if you consider that these video cards can cost between �290 to �400 each, it will put the specification of the machine you are looking at into perspective. When buying a PC you get what you pay for, I would want to know the make of motherboard, make of ram, can it be easily upgraded. I would definately stay away from a PC that has shared graphics, and pay extra for a decent graphics card.

[mattie]

Sorry missed the bit about it being a laptop, so the bit about graphics cards and hard drives and upgradeability doesn't apply. However graphics performance on laptops for games can be a problem, especially for new games. But I repeat the point that you get what you pay for.

[dodgyshirt]

As mattie says,laptops with integrated graphics are not suitable for game-playing. A few are available with separate GFX cards, look for one of these.

[broadside]

Yeah IGP (integrated graphics processor) laptops arent very good as they rely on the laptops CPU and RAM to play games, get something with a Geforce FX or an ATI Radeon 9000, 9600. I have a fujitsu laptop with 9000 and it runs everything i throw at it in full detail, IGP wouldnt be able to do that at all. If you want a cheap laptop that plays games good go to DABS.com and look at the Fujitsu Amilo D with Pentium 4 2.8ghz, 512ddr ram and Radeon 9000, thats what I got! and its only �750 now I paid over 1000 a year ago for mine and its still playing the latest games!