

Of course the game would have been much "funner" with the GT 550m, the Intel HD 3000 was good enough if eye candy and very high frame rates are not a major concern. I was able to complete ME3 at the highest difficulty level (Insanity) with just the Intel HD 3000.

While no where near as powerful as the dedicated nVidia GT 550m, I actually found the Intel HD 3000 to give adequate performance in Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 3. I tested the Intel HD 3000 on my laptop with a couple of games. The Intel HD 4000 is generally good enough to play casual types of games like the ones you mentioned especially since the laptop only has a 1366x768 resolution screen. But I was thinking for the money, this computer might suit his needs just fine. From researching, I know that the graphics card is the most important and the 4000 is not the best. He is not a huge gamer but does play a little bit of nescape, minecraft, etc. Sony VAIO E15 Series SVE15125CXS 15.5-Inch Laptop\Ģ.5 GHz Intel Core i5 dual-core processor I am thinking of getting my son this computer for Christmas.
