ASUS N53SV-B1--a good choice?

[HaunterMooneyes]

Hi guys,

I'm about to make the switch from a Mac to a Windows laptop so that I can play games again. I really like the Mac for internet purposes, but I desperately miss my games (especially the Sims) and as I'm studying abroad in England next semester, I'd like to have access to them in my free time if it strikes my fancy. At the moment, I play on my mother's old old old desktop when I go home (from 2004, no dedicated graphics card, 2GB DDR RAM, 512MB hard drive, etc).

Right now I only play Sims 2. If the laptop has the capacity, I'd also like to start playing Sims 3. Mostly, the laptop would be for open-ended timesuck games like these, but I might also branch out into more involved games (like Half-Life 2, which I've also played on the XBox 360) if the laptop can handle it.

The threads here have been a great help to me. I also did some research about which laptop graphics cards are the best and watched some Youtube videos to get a good feel for what each level looks like. From what I've heard and seen, the NVidia GeForce GT 540M or 550M are both good choices. I've also heard good things about ASUS, both from people here and from one of my IRL friends who owns an ASUS laptop and runs Sims 3 on it.

I went to Newegg and found this:

ASUS N53SV-B1
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel Core i5 2410M (2.3GHz)
6GB DDR3 RAM (4 slots, able to support 16GB DDR3)
640GB SATA Hard Drive, 5400rpm
BD Combo optical drive (here's a question--will the Sims 2 discs run in this? It's supposed to read Blu-Ray, DVD, and CDs. Has anyone had any issues with these drives?)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M (1GB dedicated graphics card)
Intel HM65 chipset
(Link (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230077))

I have the Sims 2 and all expansions except Bon Voyage. No Stuff Packs, and I don't intend to buy any. I'm pretty sure that all of the discs are CD-ROMs; I purchased all of them when they were individually released, so I have no combo packs etc. If I got Sims 3, I'd probably get the base game and Pets.

What do you guys think? Will it run Sims 2? Will it run Sims 3? How high will I be able to set the graphics?

[ellacharmed]

I can't comment on the BluRay drive as I don't have one, you have to wait for others to comment on that.

But the 540M doesn't look good for Pets (see my signature), not coupled with an i5 at any rate, maybe not even with a stronger CPU. A lot of folks who complain on boards have cards that have less than 100 processors on the GPU chip - http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-540M.41715.0.html - Nvidia calls them pipelines.

If you are a "completist" and plan to get all the EPs for Sims 3, you'd be better off with a stronger GPU to "future-proof" that laptop. As I've said time and again the GPUs that have all Greens are the ones above the middle mark. See the trend for Sims 2 and 3 and you'll see a pattern.

What is the budget, anyway?

[HaunterMooneyes]

The budget is $1,000, and no more.

I'm not a completist for Sims 3, really, and I'd be perfectly happy with a laptop that could play Sims 2 and the EPs I have for that on high and work well. Sims 3 would be a nice addition but being able to play it isn't a deal breaker.