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Ok, I have recently been building a laptop spec for college on hp.com. Up until now, I had a perfect spec which landed exactly

on $1,400, which is my comfort zone for spending at the moment. Unfortunately, HP recently took down some of the offers the

had, and now the spec I used to have adds up to about $1,513. So, while I COULD spend that much, I would rather not.

While looking through options that I could downgrade and still have a great computer, I decided that the only thing I might be

able to downgrade and still have a very capable system was a drop from a 2.53 GHz duo core to a 2.4 GHz duo core. Keep in

mind that I mainly want this system for games, and unfortunately a laptop is my only option (Otherwise I would build my own).

My main question is whether a 2.4 duo core can match up to today's gaming needs. Would it be able to run a game like

warhammer which has a 2.5 requirement? Is overclocking a laptop processor a bad idea? If I'm wanting to have a powerful

up-to-date gaming computer, is the downgrade worth it? Hopefully I can get some answers so I can get this bad boy as soon as possible.

I doubt that the difference between a 2.4 and 2.5Ghz CPU would make or break your game play.

Overclocking isn't really a great idea in the first place, I think even less so for a laptop, heat and all that. Conversely, I doubt that you'd even notice a 2.4 to 2.5Ghz overclock anyway.

The laptop's limitation in gaming performance is the same as a desktop's, it's mostly the graphics card. Since a high end video card has a high power requirement you run into significant heat and battery life considerations.

A Core 2 Duo at 2.0-2.2GHz is fast enough for for almost any game. It's the cache that will matter more, so as long as both the CPUs have the same amount of cache, 2.53GHz vs 2.4GHz will not make a difference as cap said above.

That being said, I'd prefer a powerful desktop for gaming much more than a laptop, not only because of the battery life and heat output as cap explained above but also because building a relatively powerful gaming PC is far cheaper than getting a laptop with the same specs.

a cheap gaming rig can be built for 600.00 to 800.00 dollars today.

Thanks for the replies. While I understand that building a gaming desktop would be cheaper and more powerful, I unfortunately need the laptop for college. Otherwise I would build a desktop. So from what I can tell, the 2.53 isn't worth the extra $100?

Nope, it isn't.

What about the difference between a 2.4 duo core and a 2.26 duo core? Worth $50? Just trying to narrow down my options.

As I said, look for differences in cache memory rather than in frequency. If the 2.26GHz CPU has a lower amount of L2 cache than the 2.4GHz model, then it's not worth getting. If the L2 cache size is the same, then it's a good option IMO.

Ok, I just found out that both the 2.26 and 2.4 have a 3mb L2 cache. The 2.53 has a 6mb L2 cache. The 2.53 is $100 more than the 2.4 and $175 more than the 2.26. Is the 2.53 worth it?

I'd spend the extra 100 bucks... the 2.53 is the wolfdale version... lower power consumption and cooler... big bonus for the laptop....

Are you going away to school? The reason I ask this is you could probably buy an adequate laptop for school work and a gaming desktop for close to the figure you're suggesting for a laptop alone, rather than blowing $1500.00 or so on a laptop that can do what you need in gaming.

Of course this does suppose that you have some desktop peripherals laying around. (keyboard, mouse, monitor)

Here's the Newegg page for mobile processors, you should be able to interpret the specs to make an informed decision about the price vs performance questions. The prices of the mobiles are outrageous compared to the desktop CPUs.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...157&name=Intel