I am looking to get a mid-range gaming laptop. Dell has a good deal going on for their XPS with 4 Gigs of ram and a 7200 RPM hdd. I was wondering about the Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT. I don`t know if I should wait to see if Nvidia comes out with a newer version....a better card, or if I should stick with this deal.

Any suggestions? When does Nvidia usually do their product releases?


http://configure.us.dell.com/dells [...] psnb_m1530

The 8600m GT is a nice midrange card, able to play most newer games on medium graphics. It's a good choice if you play things like WoW and older games and such, because you can play those maxed out with the 8600m GT

Agreed^^^
However look @ DELL VOSTRO 1500 too, it has the same features and its cheaper than XPS M1530 (because the XPS looks nicer and has a better design)

NVIDIA GeForce 9-series Mobile GPUs Revealed

Last major release was the 8800M GTX / GTS back in Nov.

That is a really good price. Actually though I'd prefer the option to go with 2GB and the next higher mobile GPU for the same price.

ASUS F3SV-B4 C2D T7500(2.20GHz) 15.4" 2GB 8600M GS $1250

ASUS M50Sv-B1 C2D T8100(2.10GHz) 15.4" 3GB Blu-ray GF 9500M GS $1400

Dell Ideastorm: 256MB Geforce 9500M GS Upgrade for the M1330! Possible!!

You could always ask about the 9XXXM releases on Ideastorm and see if you can get any hints there.

I hope they release a new card for the Inspiron 1720, that way I'll likely be able to swap my 8600 for a new one.

Gateways P -FX series looks pretty sweet.
There online line up is here:
http://www.gateway.com/systems/series/529598006.php

The entire XPS line seems overpriced every time I look at it... not saying they're not nice machines... just saying you're going to pay out the arse for them.

Like Skywalker said... the Gateway w/ the 8800 GTS is a much better bargain if you're into gaming on a laptop.

You should definitely check out the Vostro 1500. Its the laptop I am using, it has as good or better components than your configuration, and can be had for about 1200 versus the 1800 you are looking at.

Yes, I too have heard very good reviews on these. They say price to performance for gaming can't be beat with these.

Something like this seems like a better buy:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspag [...] ductdetail

I'm sure there are even better prices/buys out there. This was just a quick look. Where do you like anyway?

Here is a nice review on it too:

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/sh [...] i=3273&p=1