I've been developing for ages, but now I'm starting to get into shader development and my current ancient bag of nails doesn't even have any shader units, never mind being as slow as a week in jail.

I'm not into having the cutting edge, but I've started to think about this and if I can replace my (also fairly old) desktop with a fairly decent laptop that would be a bonus.

Core features I'd like are good compile speeds, ability to run Adobe CS Suite and develop camera raws fairly fast, and allow me to get my mitts on 3d graphics programming a bit more.

I don't ever intend to run crysis . I'm more into smaller indie games (but those that still benefit from good hardware), or games which are about 3-5 years old. I still enjoy half life 2 and oblivion now and again.

My budget sits at about £500 - £700.
I have the chance of getting a used Dell XPS M1710 laptop for under £400 in good condition. T5600 1.86ghz cpu, 4gb ram, geforce go 7950GTX.

It looks a bit like knight rider, but is it any good?

Any other laptops around this budget which are worth a look?

D

Picked up the same model with a faster CPU for £250 so maybe that will keep me going until I have more speed lust. I find developing on an older system keeps me sharp anyway.

Cheers,

D