eMachines MX4624 AMD Sempron 3300 Worth Puchasing???

I was wondering if anyone else has this LAPTOP?
Will it play any games? (GUILD WARS perhaps?)
Does it run COOL And QUIET?

Any other input would be great.







Product Features

AMD Sempron 3300+ Processor And 2.0GHz Processor Speed

• 15.0" Type Display with 1024 x 768 Resolution
  
• 40GB Hard Drive (4200 RPM)
  
• 512MB memory for multitasking power, expandable up to 1GB.
  
• DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
  
• ATI Radeon Xpress 200M Chipset (RS480M)
  
• Weighs only 2.84 kg and measures just 3.6 cm thin for easy portability.
  
• 4-in-1 Digital Media Manager
  
• Removeable Storage: Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Multimedia Card (MMC)
  
• Network Card: 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 Port), Intel PRO/Wireless LAN (802.11g), SecureEasySetup
  
• I/O Ports: 4 x USB 2.0 Ports, 1 x VGA External Connector, 1 x S-Video External Connector, 1 x IEEE 1394 Port, 1 x RJ11 (Modem), 1 x RJ45 (Ethernet LAN), 1 x Microphone, 1 x Headphone / Audio Out

 

I bought this and am writing a review right now.

It is a budget, basic laptop. It runs quiet but not is not cool at all. Only vey light gaming would work here.

It is great for the price but with your needs it sonds like you should look elsewhere.

SV

 

amd machines are not known for running "quiet/cool" at full throttle

stay away from integrated vid card system if you plan some serious game playing, many would argue that CPU speed would compensate for the "integrated" card

however when an ATI Radeon Expres 200 CHIPSET (note "chipset" and not video card) machine (as in this model) is combining with the low end X300 card, it then would satisfy medium game player at a fair price.

cheers ...

 

Funny you should mention Guild Wars as I bought this laptop for my sister because it could play GW. It was cheap ($580+tax CAD), relatively light, and was sufficient for her use. It replaced a dying Compaq Armada M700 which couldn't play games (it had 8MB of video ram if I recall).

A couple things about running GW on this laptop. The first thing I did after opening the box was to set the video memory to 128MB in BIOS, which left XP with only 384MB RAM, which was fine for surfing and office work, but GW lagged a fair bit at 1024x768, no AA, quality slider in the middle. Fortunately I had a spare stick of PC2100/DDR266 512MB so-dimm leftover from something that I put into the laptop to bring it up to 1GB total (128MB video/896MB main memory). This allowed GW to run much smoother at the same settings as before.

I tried to turn up the quality slider more, but encountered a bit of lag again. I suspect it is because the other 512MB stick that I added was 133MHz so it forced the system to run both at 133MHz instead of the original 166MHz that it shipped with. Since the onboard Xpress200 runs off of system RAM, the video performance is directly related to the ram speed. I'm pretty sure it would run at a higher detail level if I swapped out the 133/166 mix that's in there now for 1 GB of proper PC3200/DDR400/200MHz RAM.

About the cool and quiet bit, I found that it was relatively cool and quiet, even after a couple hours of GW. The air blowing out of the exhaust was just barely warm (room temp was about 20-22*C).

Overall, I think it is a really good buy if you are only considering it for relatively light gaming (don't even think about Oblivion/FEAR/etc) and general internet/office use. It also does not have s-video/composite out, so it's unsuitable for a media/divx/xvid player (it does have a 15-pin VGA out for external monitor/projector).

The only thing that really sucks is finding the drivers for it on the eMachines website because the MX4624 is not listed anywhere. The good news is that the drivers for the W4620 are the same and will work with this laptop.

 

Not that this laptop doesnt sound good, but I would buy the 4620 over it. Im just prejudice against Sempron/Celeron.

 

Indeed, the 4620 is an amazing machine. (see my review for more info...)

Anyhow, 1 GIG of RAM is a MUST in these machines...but other than that, I can play virtually any game on the market with the X200 (X300 base) video card. But, as mentioned previously, it is not as stellar with only 512.

Cheers!

Ryan