laptop buying advice

[BR_]

I'm stuck getting a PC laptop so I have a few requirements that must be met. However, I cannot find a single company offering what I want. Any of you guys know of a company that will build the following:


AMD Mobile Athlon
Geforce4 Go
512MB RAM
40 or 60GB HD
15"
Firewire
DVD CDRW Combo Drive
Video Mirroring
VGA Out
DVI Out (if possible...not the highest priority)
Win2k (I refuse to accept the XP license agreement)


Please help!

[Nooyawkah]

Tough one! Ask in the notebook forum, they'll probably know.

[mjc]

I closed the Notebook one...this is a Buying/Upgrade question...so keep it here.

Ok first, laptops/notbooks are not exactly the latest and greatest technologies, they tend to lag a little behind.

Second, it is very difficult to find one without the latest and greatest offering from M$, so you may have to take what OS bundle comes with the beast, wipe the drive (or maybe image it to CD....) and then install your choice of OS. That said I have seen some that come without any OS...

http://www.lynncomp.com/laptops.htm

you want something like this?

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/02q2/020516/radeon_igp320m-03.html

[BR_]

Originally posted by mjc
I closed the Notebook one...this is a Buying/Upgrade question...so keep it here.

Ok first, laptops/notbooks are not exactly the latest and greatest technologies, they tend to lag a little behind.
Understood. I'm only asking for features that I've seen on p4 notebooks. I just want those same features with an AMD processor.

Second, it is very difficult to find one without the latest and greatest offering from M$, so you may have to take what OS bundle comes with the beast, wipe the drive (or maybe image it to CD....) and then install your choice of OS. That said I have seen some that come without any OS...
If I have to I'll buy one with XP and wipe the drive.

http://www.lynncomp.com/laptops.htm
I've been there before. Their AMD notebooks came with subpar components like everyone else's.

you want something like this?

http://www.tomshardware.com/mobile/02q2/020516/radeon_igp320m-03.html

Actually those specs are pretty much up where I want them to be. Unfortunately that laptop blew it in 3d department and the resolution is limited to 1024 x 768. If there was any other notebook that was similar to that one that ran a geforce4 go card in it, that would be what I want.

Thanks for the help so far.

[/QUOTE]

[mjc]

Sorry, BR_, but I don't think you'll find what you are after until at least this fall...a "custom" laptop is not a "real" item. There are just so many manufacturers of them and that is it, it is not really a DYI project.

The two absolutely critical items are the AMD mobile and GeForce Go?

99.99% of the laptops on the market are not going to used as gaming machines...so I wouldn't exactly say that they have "subpar" parts...they will function more than adequately for their intended use...and fair to better than fair in most games. I'm sorry it doesn't really matter if you are cranking out 100fps or 150fps that is much better than your eyes can do, so it is just a number in some benchmark program...

[BR_]

Originally posted by mjc
Sorry, BR_, but I don't think you'll find what you are after until at least this fall...a "custom" laptop is not a "real" item. There are just so many manufacturers of them and that is it, it is not really a DYI project.
I know it's not a DYI project but I was hoping there would be a company somewhere that would give real BTO options.

The two absolutely critical items are the AMD mobile and GeForce Go?
I despise Intel and ATI. I suppose if I can't get an athlon with something better than a crappy s3 graphics card and sdram, I would suck it up and just get the damn Pentium. I just hope it doesn't have to come down to that. However I cannot settle for an ATI card. I have a policy against supporting them in any way.

99.99% of the laptops on the market are not going to used as gaming machines...so I wouldn't exactly say that they have "subpar" parts
When Mobile P4s come with DDR and geforce4 cards and the major brands only ship their AMD processors in low-end computers w/out DDR and using crappy s3 cards, I think I can fairly say that that is subpar.
...they will function more than adequately for their intended use...and fair to better than fair in most games. I'm sorry it doesn't really matter if you are cranking out 100fps or 150fps that is much better than your eyes can do, so it is just a number in some benchmark program...
Btw even though gaming is not my focus here, your 100 vs. 150 fps argument is flawed. With the currently shipping mobile athlon based laptops, you would be lucky to get 40. Did I mention that I haven't seen a major brand offer an AMD laptop with resolution greater than 1024 x 768? That's ridiculous.

[Nooyawkah]

I haven't seen a major brand offer an AMD laptop with resolution greater than 1024 x 768? That's ridiculous.

Of course I know nothing about this, but... my home 15" LCD screen has a max res of 1024x768. Wouldn't you have to go bigger to get a higher res? I'm curious.

[BR_]

Originally posted by Nooyawkah
Of course I know nothing about this, but... my home 15" LCD screen has a max res of 1024x768. Wouldn't you have to go bigger to get a higher res? I'm curious. [/B]

No you don't have to go bigger. There are plenty of pentium based notebooks that support resolutions up to 1600 x 1200. I want at least 1280 x 1024 on my 15" LCD.

[Nooyawkah]

Thanks and good luck with whatever you buy.

[saphalline]

...they will function more than adequately for their intended use...and fair to better than fair in most games. I'm sorry it doesn't really matter if you are cranking out 100fps or 150fps that is much better than your eyes can do, so it is just a number in some benchmark program...

Sorry, mjc, gotta agree with BR_ the newbie on this one. Laptop/notebook graphics stink for games! One of my friends has used laptops exclusively for the last year and a half, and his newest model has a mobile Athlon with Win XP and one of the best mobile ATI graphics options you can get (I think it has 16MB of DDR graphics RAM). With that much power behind it, he still only gets barely playable frame rates on his 1024 x 768 LCD screen in his Half-Life mods with just about all the graphics turned down to minimum (except 32-bit color). And that's a 4-year-old game! He recently watched me play Jedi Outcast on my Athlon 1.2GHz with GF2 graphics card at 1024 x 768 and was positively green with envy! :D Even though we have quite similar "specs", my desktop far outstrips his laptop at gaming, by about a factor of 5.

I've seen gaming benchmarks done on the best mobile graphics that have come out for the last year, and not one is able to approach the level that desktops were at a year ago. Even the GF4 Go struggles to keep QIII above 30fps at 1280 x 1024, and that's with the new-fangled 32MB of DDR graphics RAM that it now has. My GF2, on the other hand, can keep QIII:TA above 60fps with everything turned up to the max and 20 simultaneous frags on the screen. I think mobile graphics is starting to get to the point where it can produce playable frame rates at native LCD resolutions with year-old games.

It is for this reason that you are right, mjc, about laptops/notebooks not being used for gaming. Perhaps BR_'s expectations are a bit high, and maybe will never find those ideal portable specs, but ya can't blame anyone for trying to get decent game performance. :cool:

[mjc]

I was trying to exagerate to make a point, once you get above acertain number of frames per second, anymore becomes just a benchmark bragging point.

Some of the P4 setups are hitting the 100+ mark. The P4 notebook in the Tom's Hardware test topped out at 138fps in Q3 Arena and the P-III and 105fps...that is at near desktop levels. So they are getting there, but the problem is they are P4 only solutions. It is not like a desktop where you can swap a lower performance video card for a better one whenever you feel like it. Like I said, it may still be too early to get some of these higher performance video solutions for the AMD chips.