I'll try to keep this short.  Kid, who is somewhat rough on his "toys", finally had his 3 year old Asus K55N crap the bed on him (bad mobo, not worth fixing, going to part out most likely).  He wants an Alienware laptop, but IMO he's not ready for such a responsibilty yet (form over function to him).  That being said, I found what I think is a pretty good budget replacement from Dell on blackfriday and wanted your opinion.  

He mostly plays TF2, Gary's Mod, and Payday 2

Had Asus:

A8-4500M processor

7640G integrated GPU

Eyeballing Dell, $230 on black friday

i3-4005U

Nvidia 820M 2GB

I think despite being a 2 core, the I3 will perform better than the AMD.  That being said, what about the 820M vs 7640G?  I used GPU charts online, and the 820M seems to be ranked lower, even though being one year newer (13 vs '12).  I need to make sure this laptop is on par with what he currently has or ill never hear the end of it.  The alternative is 4-600 for a used alienware, and again, don't think he's ready for that yet.

Anyone?  Is the 820M GPU on par or better than the 7640G integrated?

The 820M is better

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7640G.69836.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-820M.108477.0.html

The 820M is barely any better than the integrated GT2 and only comes with slow-clocked DDR3. I don't know if it's worse than the 7640G, but certainly not much better. Any more modern AMD Laptop APU like the A10 7300 should beat that easely if coupled to DDR3-1866

However, for that price, you won't find much better than that

Why have you talked yourself into "3 year old budget PC" and "used Alienware" as the only options here?

First of all, thank you all for the replies.

I think I've narrowed it down to a budget of 400 or less because he is just too rough with his stuff.  laptop was bought christmas of 2012.  Before the mobo went on the ASUS, I had to replace the screen once and keyboard twice.  Case screws, by the end, were ripping through the plastic, causing the case to split a little everytime he opened the laptop (hinge metal popping up on upper plastic)... i actually wonder if this caused flexing and death of the mobo.  That, and the A8-4500m always ran pretty hot...

He wants an alienware because it lights up different colors, etc.  They start around 400 used for something decent... but I figured that $230 model would get the job done (tougher plastic too most likely) for another few years and him showing more responsiblity.  Make sense?

Alienware PCs build quality is not very good imo. If you want a "tough" PC I would go with Lenovo.

I've heard Lenovo was pretty good.  How about dell (i know they make alienware).  Dell is also $229... this of course assumes I can snag one on BF.

Thanks for this.  Good comparison and it looks like 820M is clearly better based on FPS benchmarks... I had seen these pages before but never scrolled down enough to see the game benchmark comparisons.  Still not a beast of a card I know, but it is better.

You will have a tough time finding a better laptop for the money. Only big draw back is it is a Dell which has the worst build quality of all the major manufactures. I work in a Phone/PC repair shop.... if only you have seen what I have seen lol. 820M should be sufficient for your needs

Lenovo's are built like tanks on the inside and have the best build quality of any brand. I would put Asus in 2nd place in that regard