HP Dv7-4285dx Notebook Gaming/Upgrade Question?

[LN_BlankZ]

Hi,

I recently bought a new laptop at bestbuy, and I asked the geek squad guy for a good gaming laptop, and he pointed me out to the dv7. I have to say that for the price, this laptop does enough for me at the moment. I do wish that it would play most new games at higher settings, normally I have to settle for middle to low settings, but I could mess around with the settings a bit to get it to my liking, but also playable.

I would like to know what type of upgrades I would be able to do to my laptop? Such as:

How much ram can I upgrade to from my current 6GB?

Would I be able to upgrade my GFX card? (probably not)

I would like for the games that I play to have less lag/framerate issues and better performance.

So my question is, would upgrading my graphics card give me better performance with more ram? or is it that my graphics card is just to weak? My laptop can play most games on the highest settings, my only problem is the it lags a bit. How can I fix this problem?

Thanks,

BlankZ

[Wave__Fusion]

What I'm about say isn't very nice, but its the honest truth: Best Buy is probably the last place to go for a gaming laptop.
With that said, I won't steer you wrong into an Alienware laptop.. they can be fast but cost 2x more than they should.

Because most computers now have on die intergrated graphics, most Best Buy laptops don't have dedicated cards anymore.
They make more money not offering them, and most people don't need them anymore.

You have an AMD 6370. It is a renamed 5470, and unfortunately its only an entry level dedicated card.

I don't know what you paid for that computer, but my best guess is just over $1,100 right?

IF you buy directly from HP, you can get better part options, including graphics cards.

I also have a DV7, and it has a quad core i7-2720QM and a AMD 6770.
Besides my obvious processor advantage, my GPU is at least 5 times faster than yours
The most important thing is, it only cost me $1,249 after taxes

If you have a spare machine at home, I strongly recommend you return your Best Buy laptop (if you still can) and reselect online. You can't change your graphics card out of that one, and as to your other question..

You have a maximum capacity for 8 GB of ram, but getting that won't improve your situation. if its movement lag, rather than simple frame loss, its probably your processor that is too slow. Depends on the game, but its either the CPU, GPU, or both

I chose the DV7 Quad edition here on HP's site, comes with free blu-ray and 2 year warranty too.
Be sure to select the 6770 GPU and not the 6490
Good Luck