Need new laptop

[tlbrulotte]

I'm looking for an inexpensive laptop that i can play Sims 4 on. My old laptop died and i need to replace it. It's been 7 years since i needed to buy one and I'm not sure what best to get. Seriously... no more than about $400. I use it mostly for social media, writing and self publishing. Sims 4 is my gaming extent.

 

[jaguarskx]

Buy the following Acer laptop for $349 with the i3-7100u CPU and integrated Intel HD 620 graphics core. Also buy and install the 4GB stick of DDR4 RAM for $52 to bring the total up to 8GB of RAM.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Notebook-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1519398593&sr=8-3&keywords=acer+i3-7100u

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC4-19200-Unbuffered-260-Pin/dp/B019FRDKWI/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1519398664&sr=1-3&keywords=4gb+ddr4+sodimm


It should be fine to play the Sims 4 at 1336x768 without any issue. Playing at 1080p resolution should be possible with medium. This is basically the best you can hope with only a $400 budget. The extra 4GB will improve performance because:

#1 - Two sticks of RAM means the RAM will be running at full speed rather than half speed. This can improve performance by 10% to 20%, but it varies by the game.

#2 - Integrated graphics uses system RAM that means Windows, the Sims 4 and the Intel HD 620 will be using the same RAM. 4GB of RAM is really not enough and it cause Windows or the game to crash when there is simply not enough. At the very least having only 4GB of RAM means the laptop will need to constantly swap data between RAM and the hard drive which can drag down performance.

The following video demonstrates how to install RAM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVSGCWwDfs0