Is it worth it? That's the question!

[sekai]

Hey there,

So a while back, someone had given' me a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop.
it's roughly a year old now i think.

The laptop in question was dead, the motherboard got fried, though i've test the rest " CPU, RAM HDD and such and all is fine "

at the time i did not need it, since i had my trusty netbook and i was fine with it, though now i'm starting to travel a lot and would like to be able to play games, since i can't always have my desktop around me.. (Desktop on planes, oooh yes sound good to me)

so before i buy the new motherboard i want to know if it would be worth it to get the version that has a Discrete graphics card slot (though i need to buy the card separably)
The cards in questions that i have the choice are, nVidia GeForce 8400m GS 128mb (50$ off ebay with the proprietary connector for the motherboard) OR nVidia GeForce 8600m GT 256mb(120$ with proprietary connector)

in total this will come to 300$ spendings to recondition this laptop, will it be worth it getting one of those 2 options ? or should i just stick to the motherboard with onboard graphics " Intel GMA 3100x i think " and only spend 120$?

Thanks in advance

PS: sorry if this is kinda long/bloated with details, i tend to do that often without noticing....

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

If it were me I would rather have a new product for a few hundred more that has better specs but I don't know what your budget is (especially if you want to play games on it).

 

[Trap05]

Depends what you're hoping to play on it....even the 8600gt 256mb isn't that fast anymore. Also $400 seems like a lot to spend on a laptop that's at least 2 years old and has already died once.

 

[sekai]

Depends what you're hoping to play on it....even the 8600gt 256mb isn't that fast anymore. Also $400 seems like a lot to spend on a laptop that's at least 2 years old and has already died once.

First off it's 300$ sorry about the typo there

though i'm not going to be doing big gaming, i don't mind runing things on low though the reason it died the first time was cause of a power surge during a lightning storm, the classic of a power line getting striked, yup..

the system had 4GB of ram, an Itel Core 2 Duo @ 2.40GHz, and two 360 GB WD drive in it, also has an HD monitor on it as well as the HD-DVD player.

though i mainly play source games such as Team fortress 2, some bit of CSS and half-life.
might play Mass Effect 2, some people report have good fps and no lag with such a setup.

I don't have much money anymore since it all went for my studies and won't have a job for another year or two... also the netbook died so yeah, a replacement that could offer some decent power is very welcomed, i was just wondering if the 8600m GT is worth the spending, if not, i'll stick to the 120$ mobo with the intergrated Intel gpu.

Thanks for the input though, have a nice day =)

 

[Trap05]

Well if you hope to game at all you'll need the 8600gt at $300 it's not so bad and if cash flow is tight that would seem to be your best option.

 

[sekai]

Alright, thanks for the response