Will pay $$ for laptop

[Bairkillur]

This may be off topic, and if it is, the moderators can move it. Here's the prob:
I have a Dell Inspiron 8200. It my primary gaming machine cuz I don't like to get grief from the wife for tying up the mac unless I'm in a high level instance. Lately, the lappy performance has been sub par, especially in BG's where a low fps can mean death. In AV, I'm averaging 2 fps. The lappy is a 1.83ghz P4, with 1gb RAM and a 32mb GeForce2 Go vid card. I've scoured the forums and it would appear I have no choice but to upgrade, but the upgrade options are expensive, and severely limited. So, I am in the market for a gaming laptop. If anyone has one or has a line on one, give me a shout. I don't wanna fork out 2400 for a dell xps or alienware monster, but I don't wanna buy a compaq refurb either. I figured, if you can't trust your friends who can you trust? Plus if you sell me a lemon, I know where to find you.

[SilBob]

How much would it cost to replace just the vidcard?

[Bairkillur]

Well, I do not know if the vidcard can be replaced with anything other than the 64 MB nVidia GeForce4 440 Go, which isn't much of an improvement. That is the ONLY option that Dell gives. Plus, it's $200. Seems a bit high for a 64mb card. I did find it on ebay for $92, but I thought I would put a feeler out there. Plus, I'm taking it to Comp USA to see if they can put another vid card in it tomorrow.

[ozzit]

I'm not a laptop expert but my wife wanted one so on boxing day we spent $1000 canadian for a hp. Its an AMD dual core, 1 gig ram, 128 nVidia card. It plays WOW very smooth even with vent up and me downloading stuff at the same time. So anyway the point being that it shouldnt cost you that much to get going.