Inspiron 9400 ..how powerful?

Pro. F

I´m looking for a laptop for gaming.
portability & battery aren´t important but price is; €2000 or less preferably.
I´ll be playing games like HL2, Battlefield2, Doom3. and prob a lot of online.

i´ve been looking all over the net; this Inspiron 9400 looks good to me..
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&oc=N01945A&rbc=N01945A&s=dhs&sbc=iedhsrsinspn_9400_2
..but i´m unsure:
*that´s a pretty good graphics card ..right??
*could any body give me a description/estimate of the performance i´ld get out of this laptop.
*also any advice on:
-which screen- would it be beneficial upgrading (1440x900) to (1920x1200)?
-which processor- 1.66 GHz to 1.83 GHz for only €72 ..worth it? or is 2.16Ghz essential?

Oh ye, i´m living in spain now and i may be moviing to some other part of the globe within the coming year, if that´s important.
any help welcome.

ARGINITE

Ya the graphics card is a good one.
Go with the slightly faster processor 1.83 GHz and also up grade the hdd to 80GB (7,200 rpm) SATA Hard Drive [add € 72.60 or € 3/month1], the screen is fine but if its not to expensive then upgrade that to.

Rags

Ya do the above but go for the 1stick of 1024MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1x1024) instead of 1024MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2x512). Better speed plus when you will need to upgrade it in a year or so u can just stick another 1gig stick in.

Thats the setup I was gonna go for, 9400 with upgraded hd to 7200rpm and the upgrade in ram and proc. Still bit pricey for 2grand no? Still looking around for a decent laptop with 256graphics and 1 gig of ram for less but not much luck.

Pro. F

Thanks for the help guys
Rags:

Rags wrote:

Ya do the above but go for the 1stick of 1024MB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1x1024) instead of 1024MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2x512). Better speed plus when you will need to upgrade it in a year or so u can just stick another 1gig stick in.

ok sounds logical but i´m afraid i´ve got a newb Q: i´ve heard about this upgrading RAM by sticking in another stick but i don´t know nuthin´ about it. is it expensive, risky; is it internal or external tinkering? will it kill my warranty?

Rags wrote:

Still bit pricey for 2grand no? Still looking around for a decent laptop with 256graphics and 1 gig of ram for less but not much luck.

man i´ve looked all over, basing my search from the ´where to by laptops´ post here. this is the best that i´ve seen. AGHH computer companies:mad: give us more for less now!!

Rags

Well I've never done it for a laptop but its supposely very easy thing to do. Open it up and stick it in. Might kill the warranty but for a great spec machine like that by the time u think of upgrading the ram the warranty would be up anyway. So i wouldnt worry about that at all for now. Its just longterm planning I call it:D

Well the only place I can see with good prices is jes computers. Check these 2 beasts. But the problem with them is they only accept money order and I'm worried if its safe, anyone deal with them before on a big order?

http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=22699
http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=21927

B00MSTICK

With Dell laptops changing the RAM is one of the few things that doesnt kill the warranty so your ok from that perspective. If 2k is too much you could go with the 9300, It may not be as pretty specs wise i.e slower ram/ less powerful graphics but if you dont want bleeding edge then theres ~700 euro savings

Pro. F

Thats cool about the RAM upgrade Boomstick.
my prob with the Inspiron 9300 is the ATI Mobilty R X300 card - from what i´ve heard, its pretty weak ..i´ld at least like my edge to be slightly grazzed..

ARGINITE

The x300 is pretty rubish card, look at some of the Acer laptops.
Oh and if you order from jes you will end up with a german keyboard, which is a real pain.

B00MSTICK

Ah, they removed the Geforce 256mb 6800 option from the list, guess I'm lucky i got mine before they ditched them. You could try ring them and see what they say, if they're just out of stock or what. Alternatively you could search for the aforementioned card and throw it in. Im 100% sure that you can upgrade it. ebay.com is your best bet, Go 6800 as keyword. If you do manage to get one they overclock very nicely. Ive also just found that you can install a 6800 Ultra or a 7800 into them aswell, Im not going to go down that road just yet but in a year or so if I feel i need the extra thrust then a new processor and 7800 GTX will do nicely.
Seen as we're on the topic of OC'ing I'll also mention that some people have used SoftFSB to OC the processor. I havent quite got this working yet ( probably something to do with the variable speed)

9300 FAQ : http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?p=762373

7800 upgrade : http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=113866

Pro. F

Ye, the Geforce 256mb 6800 in there would rock. saw a review on cnet.com of the 9300 with that card and it looked well good. i was thinking of getting on the dog´n´bone to Dell and see if they would up-grade the card; even just to a better ATI one. i´m not holding out much hope though, cause if it´s cheaper than the i9400 then it would be just taking away from sales of the i9400. but i´ll give it a lash.
As to upgrading it myself- man, this be my first time buying a laptop! I´d rather pay the extra for a i9400 than start tinkering. its quite a small diff in price all considered, like €100.

that notebookforum looks like a good resource for faqs and the like, nice one Boomstick

glynf

Selling a go 6800 Ultra on the fs board at the minuite if you're intrested;)

Moojuice

I go the Top Dell XPS gaming laptop with the 7800 Graphics card, full ram 2.26 processor. I can play F.E.A.R with everything turned up full and there are no problems. It is fantastic, great feature set with the laptop too and it is solid so far. The inspiron is nice too. Havent tried any games on it but I know some one with one with the full 2 gig of ram and the 1.83 duo core processor and the 7800 graphics card and it is a very nice machine.