So I've been looking at buying a laptop for a while now. The reason being mine has been giving me trouble for a few years now, limiting the amount of time I can work on it (it crashes if I stay on too long) and having a busted screen, forcing me to hook up an external moniter, and having no battery and a faulty power cord so it shuts off if the cord moves at all.

That said, I'm upgrading to something powerful enough to run Unity 5 and make 2D games with sprite based graphics. The problem? I know nothing about computers beyond the most basic stuff. I do know that my old one was powerful enough to make the games I was working on and it's processor was a dual core 2.0 GHz Intel. So I figure as long as I get a laptop that runs the same or a little better, then I'm good for a while.

Now then, the one I'm looking at right now is a Dell Latitude E6430 with a 2.6GHz Intel i5-3320M Dual Core Processor, with 3MB Cache, and a Max Turbo Frequency of 3.3GHz.

What I want to know is, if my previous computer was good enough, should this one be good as well? It looks better to me, but I don't want to buy unprepared.


Additional info if needed:
8GB DDR3 RAM and Nvidia 5200M
7200 RPM hard drive
Dedicated graphics card

I hope I even wrote those out right. lol
So yeah, what am I looking at here? Is this a solid buy at $300? And will it perform as well as, or even slightly better than my old laptop which, again, had a 2 GHz dual core Intel processor (that's all it says). It was a Vaio made in 2009 I believe. I won't be able to buy it for a little over a month probably, but I would like to be looking ahead of time. Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks in advance for anything you can tell me.

I've looked more into the laptop you've got posted, and I'm slightly concerned about the ram within the graphics card itself. It's got 'up to 2gb', which isn't all that much. If the laptop you're using now is sufficient, then this one should be a bit of an upgrade (but it won't blow your mind). You'll enjoy the upgrade though, and it's a pretty cheap price overall. If you want to go for a more severe upgrade, you might have to dish out some additional cash. Again, though, if what you're currently using is working, this will feel like a bit of an upgrade.

If you're on windows 10 (or 8, I think), you can right click on the start menu icon and click 'System', it should give you more info.

Of course, I would keep this one saved and keep looking around, it's wise to keep your eyes open.

merf : Ah, okay. So then this is an improvement, at least slightly? And yes, I literally only use my computer for game development, and it's been cutting it so far, and I can't forsee any reason why it would stop working. I've only had trouble with one project, and that was the mockup game that you saw a few years ago using Unity's preinstalled assets, including grass and trees that reacted to wind, water, 3D landscaping, and billboarding. So yeah...if I could run that with minimal lag then any sprite based stuff should run like a dream (And so far, always has). In fact the one puzzle game that I made using 3D assets I made in Blender ran fine, even with collision detection and physics at play.

The only other thing this laptop will be used for is my mom's hidden object and match three games, and those run fine on my current computer too. Plus her computer (which is her primary gaming source) is so old it runs Cyber XP and has small enough RAM that it's measured in MBs if I recall correctly, so she should be set with anything I get. lol


Thanks a ton, man. You really helped me out here. And yeah, I'll keep an eye out for anything better, but only if it's cheaper too. I didn't want to go anywhere near $300 even, but that's about as low as I can go on the price and end up with something worth getting for my uses it seems.

Wouldn't recommend this laptop if you want to run Unity or any engine. Generally if you want to dedicate yourself to learning any engine I wouldn't use a laptop. But if your set on it I'll give you the minimum specs you should have if you want to run an engine without any issues. Just so you know it's going to get expensive if you want anything good.

RAM is more important when using an engine since you'll be rendering and might be keeping other applications open like photoshop or 3D modelling softwares. I'd get at least 6-8GB (preferably 8)

If you're focused on only 2D sprites your GPU won't need to be too powerful. Get something with at least 2GB VRAM and a 1000Mhz+ clock rate bare minimum.

For your CPU a quad core and 2.7 Ghz+ should be perfectly fine. Normally I'd go with 3.0+ but you won't find many with that base clock on a laptop.

I'm not sure what your budget is but I'd go with Lenovo Laptop IdeaPad 510 for around $1000. Any decent one if going to be around that price but you could probably build a better desktop for that price. But don't get that laptop. You won't get the best use out of it.

Blubcreator : Eh heh...no, I can't afford anywhere near $1,000, and am grudgingly paying $300 even. I think you missed the idea behind this purchase though, and that perhaps you overestimate the amount of power it takes to run Unity game engine. As I said, my current laptop is a 2009 Vaio with a dual core 2.0GHz processor, and it runs Unity just fine with everything I've tried in 2D and even the only true game I've worked on in 3D as well. Admittedly, this one I'm looking at right now will not come close to my needs for bigger 3D projects (I've seen that already, as you can see from my reply to merf), but I won't be able to make anything of that scope that's worth playing for a long while -- I can't make good 3D models, skeletons, etc. nor can I script 3D movement yet.

To clarify, I'm making games that are about as intense as an NES or SMS title. I appreciate your feedback though. That might come in handy for a later purchase. And yes, I would much rather get a desktop for it, but due to budget limitations and a need for at least one functioning laptop around here, I have to compromise and settle on working on a laptop.


tornadocam : HP Pavillion. Now that's one that I nearly got (and it looked good enough) for $250, but I heard that I needed an Intel processor, and it had an AMD. If an AMD would work as well, I'd much rather get the cheaper one. I just don't know enough about these things to decide, and I can't afford to pay $250 and not be able to use it. :/ Any idea whether it could run Unity game engine?

I'm not sure how much power you need to make a game, but I know for traditional rendering work that you want at least 8 threads and a pretty beefy GPU. On a budget, I wouldn't go for less than an i5 and a GTX 1050Ti. If you're okay with a desktop, this becomes a lot more reasonable on a budget