I want to use the following laptop for some low-end gaming @ 1366x768 whilst I am away from home. Namely Left4Dead, DayZ and Battlefield 3. Specs are as follows:
HP DV6 3131tx
Intel Core i5 460M 2.53Ghz
Mobility Radeon HD 5650 (1GB Dedicated)
4GB DDR3
500GB HDD 5400RPM SATA2
I was thinking a 120GB Samsung EVO SSD would be the best upgrade route, but will this provide much actualy benefit to gaming?
Where would I find a caddy to replace my DVD drive so I can keep the 500GB also for storage?
Sadly an SSD upgrade is not going to improve frame rate. It'll help with the loooong load times on BF3 though.
You can run l4d on anything because it's so well optimized. I ran it on my 6 year old laptop at constant 60fps at your res.
An SSD would only make loading things quicker. Once it's loaded, the actual graphics/game performance will be more or less the same.
The SSD would definitely increase overall performance on your laptop by massive amounts, though. Well worth the investment.
Also buy a cheap 2.5" hard drive enclosure to turn your 500gb drive into an external HDD which you can plug in via usb.
Does that model have an msata slot hidden somewhere inside? Sounds like a bit of a hassle, but might mean you get DVD, HDD and SSD all at once.
If not, maybe your DVD is actually removable and you can put your old HDD in a caddy something like this: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SATA-2nd-HDD-HARD-DRIVE-Disk-cadd…
Ssd only helps with loading times, graphics card does all the work