Help buying a laptop.

[smartengine]

I'm getting a laptop for school/gaming with a budget of about 1000$.

I've narrowed it down to two models. One has an Intel i5 2410 and a nvidia 540m, and the other one an intel i3 2330 and a nvidia 555m

One thing is sure, 555m is a much better graphics card than the 540, but would the i3 processor do a serious blow to the performance?

I have a friend who owns a laptop with an i5 460, and a nvidia 525m, and he can run most games on medium settings. Now the 2330 is one of the stronger i3s, and the cpubenchmark places it above the 460, but notebook check places it under the 460. So that's kinda confusing.

I'd be really grateful if someone with experience with this kind of stuff would help me out.

P.S. I'm off to bed now, so I'll be reading the replies in the morning.

 

[Saint of M]

Get a two year warenty, you'll need it.

 

[ResonanceSD]

You'll really notice a difference in performance with an i3. Remember, you can upgrade a gpu later on without the hassle you'll get when you just want a faster PC.

 

[smartengine]

You'll really notice a difference in performance with an i3. Remember, you can upgrade a gpu later on without the hassle you'll get when you just want a faster PC.

How can I upgrade a laptop GPU?

 

[ResonanceSD]

You'll really notice a difference in performance with an i3. Remember, you can upgrade a gpu later on without the hassle you'll get when you just want a faster PC.

How can I upgrade a laptop GPU?

Like a desktop. Take it out and put a new one in. It's quite a bit more of a pain than doing it in a tower, but it's still possible to do if you feel like you need the grunt.

 

[Supernova1138]

You'll really notice a difference in performance with an i3. Remember, you can upgrade a gpu later on without the hassle you'll get when you just want a faster PC.

How can I upgrade a laptop GPU?

Like a desktop. Take it out and put a new one in. It's quite a bit more of a pain than doing it in a tower, but it's still possible to do if you feel like you need the grunt.

That's only true on a small number of really high end gaming laptops, generally sold for $1500 or more. The vast majority of laptops cannot have their GPUs upgraded, you are stuck with what you buy.

 

[Mafoobula]

In truth, the CPU isn't doing as much as you might think while gaming. Even so, Sandy Bridge CPUs are hugely efficient.

So, yeah, if you had to, go with the i3/555 combination.