Help me with CPU/video card for (pc) notebook. I am so lost!

[vegas-steven]

Well it's laptop shopping time...

I made the mistake for going into bestbuy and with a budget I had bought some amd hp notebook that sucked. It had a 4200 "card" in it only 128mb dedicated.

So returned it and was again sold on a $749.99 hp with an ati 4250 card that has some video issue and I have to return it.

So now I'm so lost as to which direction to go re: video card and CPU. I don't game a lot but I'll buy Starcraft 2 and maybe play a fps...

So Here's my question:
Im mainly not gaming just streaming hd video and editing hd video occasionally and Photoshop.

-i3 vs i5... Splitting hairs? Or super important?
-integrated vs dedicated video. Will I be able to play ANYTHING with integrated video? Or am I sol.

I'm done with hp and amd.

And I have to buy from bestbuy as that's where i have the credit from original purchase..
And i gotta buy soon I guess.

 

[Spiffey]

Can I offer a humble suggestion?

I think you're more likely to get an answer to this question if you post it on a PC-based forum.

I suggest Tom's Hardware; there are a lot of PC gamers and builders on there who would be able to give you sound advice and the information you need - no matter what your technical expertise.

Here's a link to the main forum. And here's the link to the laptop section.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[aznguyen316]

I wouldn't mind helping you out.

i3 and i5 aren't exactly splitting hairs as the i5 perform much better than i3's, although there are newer i3's with higher clock speeds now, but even an i5-430m is better than most i3's out there, so yeah i5 if you can first and foremost. Especially since you mentioned editing video and photoshop. A decent CPU is good for that.

Discrete all the way. Most integrated at Best Buy are very poor. If you want to run SC2, you'll want a halfway decent GPU as it's fairly GPU intensive.

I'll browse Best buy for ya and suggest some laptops (I'm bored at work lol).

do you have a screen size preference and a price range?

*edit*
Asus i5-430m + 360m for $855

this is the best gaming laptop under $1000 at best buy. It has a 16" screen although a lower resolution of 1366x768. But the CPU is an i5 and is superb, especially for your work w/ video & PS. The GPU 360m 1GB vram is newer and powerful. It's a bit larger in size and weight but not bad, especially for a 16". You can hit around 10,000 on 3dmark06 if that means anything to ya lol. It'll most likely be able to max out Starcraft 2 and run most modern FPS games without a problem. Battery life is fairly poor though.maybe at max 2 hours of normal usage. BB may be clearing this model out soon so check for store availability or just buy online. Either way it's at a great price for what it offers.

--
if you want something a little lighter, but not near as powerful in both CPu/GPU I suggest the SonyCW 14" I think now they just have i3's in them but with a 330m card which is decent. But since you've gone through a couple laptop purchases, I don't see why you wouldn't like the Asus model I linked.