I want to update my pc to be able to run oblivion (and other latest games) and high texture mods like better cities etc on high settings, and decided on a:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Dell-Laptops/xps-17/pd.aspx?refid=xps-17&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

I thought, to hell with money (im looking at the ￡899 one) it has some pretty extreme specs and would kindly ask for the opinions on it from this wonderful community.
And i was looking at alienwares but a decent one is ￡1200, but thats a bit too much for me.

Any fast responses will be appreciated as i need to buy it before the offer finishes on the 9th, so thanks for any help before hand.

Btw is it safe buying from the Dell website?

Are you looking for a laptop or a desktop? If you're willing to buy desktops I'd consider a custom build. You can get much more bang for your buck that way.

The graphics card isn't that great (you'll certainly need some FPS patches if you run anything like Better Cities), but it has enormous texture memory so that's nice.

No desktops are not an option for me im afraid, but i understand it would be cheaper, as for the card, will it play any game out at the minute? there is some room for customisability, like ram amount (up to 16gb) processor, i'll prob keep the i7 quad core (i know oblivion can only utilise 1 core). I will prob buy in the morning now aswell btw so bit more time.

if the option down from that offer (the ￡879 one) card is better, the 435 i could get that but will lose the i7 processor :/

actually is that processor good the i7? as the i5 has 2.66ghz but the i7 has 1.73 ghz but more cores...

What do people think about the package as the whole, with the ram, processor and GPU?

Do you have to buy from Dell? If you can buy from somewhere like Best Buy or Newegg.com, you can buy something significantly more powerful for the same price.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174;+Core%26%23153;+i7+Processor+/+17.3%22+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+640GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/1257894.p?id=1218243761956&skuId=1257894
^Should be a lot more powerful with a Mobility 5870

Crap, the forums keep shortening my link. Anyone care to tell me how to insert a link into text

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152204
^One off Newegg that's slightly more powerful and cheaper.

no dont have to, but it seems like a good package, and i dont think i trust those sites with nearly a ￡1000. Im not that up on hardware so advice on that package would be helpful, (the dell ￡899 one)

The other option im considering is HP envy models what would you say on those, better?

May I recommend looking into an Alienware made PC. They specifically design most of their PC's for gaming. Plus, they are owned by Dell now, being that you seem to have trust issues with other places. I don't own a laptop, not do I ever plan on getting one, so I haven't looked into prices. But I'm sure you can find one that meets your budget.

Alienware don't do budget, they do selling things for more than they're worth. You're buying the brand name, not just the components, so it's a lot more expensive that it needs to be.

yes thats what ive discovered and HP seem to be more expensive, with less powerful specs...

this computer needs to last about 4+ years for gaming, so it needs to be good, and this dell xps 17 caught my eye but any advice on the overall package (￡899) one would be appreciated. But im going to be moving around, so desktops are a no for me at the minute guys.

Okay. That doesn't surprise me. Like I said, I've never looked into pricing. They make powerful machines though.

Well, everything but the graphics card looks fine, the 445M is a pretty midrange card, but iirc it's based on the same architecture as the 400 series of desktop cards, so supports all the modern technologies you could want. You will not, however, be playing modern games on high settings. You will most likely be able to play games for 4+ years, though at the tail end of that you'll probably be scraping the barrel. The laptop looks good, but it's not a gaming laptop.

I'd honestly recommend buying a gaming desktop. As prices are, a decent desktop and a decent non-gaming laptop is likely to work out cheaper or at the same price, and you'll get both more power from it, and, crucially, the ability to upgrade for significantly cheaper than buying a whole new PC.

ive looked online and its meant to be a fairly decent card, it has 3gb vram so doesn't that help? what about the previous offer the geforce 435m card?

tbh i just want to be able to play oblvion and the upcoming skyrim at a fairly high level.

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/10/12/19/gxd.png

Vanilla Oblivion you'll run fine, it'll struggle with graphics mods, but skyrim being one of those modern games I mentioned likely won't run decently above medium. The 435M is a lower end card from the same range.
While, yes, the card is decent, it isn't a heavy gaming card, it's a decent budget choice, but if you take a look at some benchmarks you'll see that running modern games on high settings is a no-go. If you were just buying it for now, then I'd say it'd do the job, but if you want to not upgrade for over 4 years you're going to need something with a bit of power.

nvm, wrong card, but what other laptops could i then get?

Powerful but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over priced machines. I considered one when getting my laptop and just about puked when I looked at the prices.
I would suggest looking into Asus laptops. I bought one from staples for 800$ canadian and its a dream machine. I dont things on the highest setting and I get a constant 30 fps in-game, but simply because I have OSR capping it at that. I got a good holiday deal on mine, but if you look around the net, you could get a good one for approx 1100-1200 canadian. I dont know how much that is in pounds sorry.

Divide by about 1.5 for British pounds, although buying from the UK will make things more expensive. I would recommend an ASUS as well. I always use their components when I do a new build. I also have an ASUS monitor and it's excellent. I don't buy from Dell anymore. Their stuff is cheap - in a bad way. I actually had a desktop pc catch fire once and that was before their massive battery recall! They also have special versions of the OS that can be a pain to configure and upgrade.

ok i'll have a look into asus, but this 445m card, currently im running oblivion on a 8400m gs 256mb card and it runs smoothly on fairly low settings with mods, so surely this card with 3GB vram! will run it on high? and other games too

and ive been reading reviews and a lot of people say its a great gaming laptop?!? confused...

and also found out this card is rated higher than the one in a mx11 alienware and if that can handle any game then this definately should

You said you want the laptop to last for 4 years for gaming? Good luck with that.

The 3GB of RAM is fairly meaningless, considering you're only going to be gaming at 1600x900. Oblivion, fairly heavily modded, does not go over 1GB at 1920x1080, depending on AA/AF etc.

Look at the http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Mobile/156 section at Anandtech at the different quality levels for gaming. You'll notice most laptops basically svck with modern video games, let alone games coming out in four years.

Basically if you have to stick with a laptop, you need to get the best GPU you can. And a 445M or whatever is not going to cut it. You'd probably need a 485M if you want to game for four years on your laptop, and that's still probably stretching it. A decent (and cheaper) alternative would be the 470M, it's actually newer and faster than the 460/480M despite the naming scheme. You could also go with Mobility 6970 which is just as good as the 485M. Anything less will barely give you a gaming experience with the current games.

You can have as much VRAM as you want, but it's not going to help you if you can't process fast enough. Don't fall for marketing tricks, look up benchmarks.

I cannot find a 485m in a laptop, four years was a estimate, lets not forget the rest of this laptops specs, along with the cpu and ram, it should last, what maybe 2 years then?

The trouble is i guarantee, most of the people here are desktop gamers and are comparing the two, i am not trying to get a laptop as good as a desktop for gaming, but a laptop which is a decent machine, but all help is appreciated though guys.

Oblivion doesnt utilize just one core. Set the iThread in the Oblivion.ini up to 20-40, and the havok thread to 3 - 5.
Both cores on my PC are 100% load ( don'T forget to install OBSE and OSR plugin, and use a tool to set the Oblivion.exe for using 4GB memory adress space)

The game doesn't even do anything with the iThread settings according to the OBSE team. The Havok threads do something supposedly, though.

This from a post by JdeRau, where he is quoting one of the OBSE creators (Ian Patterson):

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-XPS-17-Notebook.42921.0.html it says " the GeForce GT 445M is overall a very attractive graphics card in terms of performance for money, and a very good choice for gamers. In comparison to the ATI competitor, the GeForce GT 445M is set up perfectly."

Yes, but look at some benchmarks. It's not hitting 60fps on anything above medium across the board.