Goodbye Thinkpad T30, Hello ASUS G51vx-A1

It's hard to find good deals on used laptops. Yeah, I've done it before - my current Thinkpad T30 was purchased used more than 5 years ago on eBay. I probably could have found another one but given how long I tend to own hardware, I deicided that this time around, I'd look for something new.

Alright, I know, I know. Cop out.

Anyway, my new machine has more than 4x the processing power, 4x the RAM, 62x the graphics memory, and 21x the storage of my T30. It's an ASUS G51vx-A1 with quad-core processor and dual hard drives. With 5% Bing Cashback and $100 rebate from ASUS, the delivered price will be $1,504 from J&R. It's on order.

I looked at what Lenovo had to offer and frankly, it paled in comparison. I could have saved a bit and gone with a dual core, but with the video editing that I'm starting to do, a quad core processor is the way to go.

Now, about this gaming thing. I haven't played a computer game in ages. Given this machine's capabilities, I might have to check out what's available. My preference is for strategy related games. Any suggestions?