Inspiron 8500 or 8600 for Gaming???

GO with the 8600 ..... The Pentium-M processor is not a sacrifice but an improvement. The processor offers a 1MB L2 cache! The ratio of clock speed to general performance is easy to factor and is listed on Intel's website. Take the 'M's processor speed....lets say for example 1.4Ghz and multiply this by 1.9 (1.6X.1.9=2666Mhz) ....this will give you an equal idea of the power of the processor to a Pentium 4 destop processor in general performance.

 

Secondly, the GeForce FX 5650 128Mb card will better benefit you in Final Fantasy IX due to the simple fact of the card being more powerful. The game is a DirectX 9 game and all FX cards support Direct X 9 graphics. The 8500 GeForce 4 4200 go is a powerful card but simply put is a little dated.......and does not support Direct X 9 graphics. I would consider a Inspiron 5150 with a 3.06 Ghz HT and UXGA display + 64MB FX5200 video card as a second choice over the 8500 for power and performance.  Don't short yourself on the display .....Get the WUGA on the 8600 or UXGA on the 5150. The 5150 is cheaper than the 8600 and very powerful in all areas....if you have to cut cost .....go with 1-256Mb Dimm on your order....The Dell configurator for memory is too expensive to upgrade 'direct'. You can get certified memory for your Dell Notebook at half the price by simply doing a search on google.com.

You won't notice much speed difference between the P-M 1700 and the P4-M 2.4.  In fact, I'd recommend saving some cash and getting the P-M 1600 if you get an i8600.  The P-M 1600 is about the same speed as the P4-M 2.4 Ghz.  For Direct X 8.1 and old games, the GeForce 4200 Go is the fastest video card available right now from Dell.  If you want support for Direct X 9 games, the GeForce FX 5650 is your only option currently.  The GeForce FX line does not do nearly as well in Direct X 9 as the Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 cards.  Unfortunately, Dell does not offer the Mobility Radeon 9600 yet.  If they do offer it in the future, it should be faster than the FX for Direct X 9 and faster than the 4200 Go in Direct X 8.1 and older.  Basically, the Mobility 9600 is currently the fastest mobile video card -- but Dell does not offer it yet.

I would stear clear of the i5150 if you are primarily going to be gaming.  The GeForce FX 5200 while technically supports Direct X 9, is not in actually capable of playing Direct X 9 games with acceptable framerates (unless you plan on playing Half Life 2 at <10 fps).  Even in Direct X 8.1 and older games, the GeForce FX 5200 performs lower than the GeForce 4 4200 and the Radeon Mobility 9000 64 MB.  The GeForce FX 5650 has a similar performance problem with Direct X 9 games, but at least it can produce acceptable framerates in some Direct X 9 games and good Direct X 8.1 framerates.