MacBook vs Surface

Stuck between two laptops:
Dell
-i3-5005U 2GHz dualcore
-Nvidia GeForce MX series (2GB)
-500GB Seagate
-$993

HP
-Pentium 3556U 1.7GHz dualcore
-Nvidia GeForce 940 m (2GB)
-1000GB Seagate
-$917

Everything else is basically the same.
At first glance, I thought it didn't matter and I'd just grab the HP, but honestly... that processor looks pretty weak. It might struggle to even run Grand Theft Auto IV, whereas the Dell at least has an i3 hitting 2.0GHz.
What do you guys think? Is it worth paying $67 more just for a decent processor if I have to lose half my storage space? Also curious about the difference in power between these two Graphics Cards.

The gap between those processors isn't actually that massive. On the flip side, that 940 m is a way stronger graphics card than what you're getting in the Dell, and honestly, that’s going to do a lot more for your gaming experience than the CPU ever will.

Yeah, you really need to start prioritizing graphics card power like Jeffrey Chavez6 said... And I seriously hope both of them are just standard 1366x768 resolution. If they happen to be any higher than that—you might as well forget about gaming altogether.

darkowl72 said:Yeah, you really need to start prioritizing graphics card power like Jeffrey Chavez6 said... And I seriously hope both of them are just standard 1366x768 resolution. If they happen to be any higher than that—you might as well forget about gaming altogether.

Both are 1920x1080... What do you mean "nothing from gaming"? Can't you just run games at a lower resolution than the monitor allows?
If not, I saw the exact same model with 1366x768 resolution for a cheaper price... should I just grab that one instead?

Games usually run at the native resolution—basically whatever the screen was built for. Sure, you can drop the resolution, but cheap, budget panels often handle downscaling like garbage, making the image look like absolute trash. Plus, changing the resolution actually makes the Graphics Card work harder to render everything, which ends up tanking your FPS.

Resolution is directly tied to how much power your Graphics Card needs. The higher the resolution, the beefier the card has to be just to push a playable 30 FPS, which is really the bare minimum before things get unplayable. There are tons of threads on this topic if you want to dig deeper; it'll make things a lot clearer for you...

When it comes to actual gaming, most people stick with Nvidia GTX cards...

darkowl72 said:Games usually run at the native resolution—basically whatever the screen was built for. Sure, you can drop the resolution, but cheap, budget panels often handle downscaling like garbage, making the image look like absolute trash. Plus, changing the resolution actually makes the Graphics Card work harder to render everything, which ends up tanking your FPS.

Resolution is directly tied to how much power your Graphics Card needs. The higher the resolution, the beefier the card has to be just to push a playable 30 FPS, which is really the bare minimum before things get unplayable. There are tons of threads on this topic if you want to dig deeper; it'll make things a lot clearer for you...

When it comes to actual gaming, most people stick with Nvidia GTX cards...

Thanks for the detailed breakdown. I'll probably just go with the one with the lower resolution then.

+ Do you think an Nvidia GeForce 940 m could handle titles like Grand Theft Auto IV, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, or Far Cry 2...?

I'm not much of a gamer myself, so I can't give you an exact answer—it really depends on what you're playing—but that 940m struggles even at lower resolutions with a lot of titles. Check this out:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-....138027.0.html

You'll see the FPS results for various resolutions there, so just look for yours. If the numbers are green or borderline yellow, you're probably fine to play. At the bottom of the page, there’s a full IGN list with benchmarks for tons of different games. If you want to check a different card, just type the model into the search bar (like a GTX950m) and it'll pull up those results too.