Gaming laptop, multi-tasker,

[SneakyRussian]

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2860QM (2.50GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM (PRE-ORDER, ETA END OF MAY)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
320GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD3200BEKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£59)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
USB Options
4 PORT USB 2.0 EXTERNAL HUB + STANDARD USB PORTS
Firewire & Video Editing
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC3000S Ultimate Cooler, 220mm fan, upto 17.3inch (£35)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Headsets (VOIP)
CREATIVE® HS-800 FATAL1TY GAMING HEADSET (£26)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,602.00 including VAT and delivery.

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Purely built for speed, gaming and 4+ years of life. To save money gonna use old mouse if that brakes i got a hardcore ball mouse for a back up

No seriously I think thats a hell of a laptop!

One thing that I want is SSD, however right now they are too expensive. This thing will have space spare for SSD in future.. might replace HDD all together.

Really really want mamba wireless mouse, but id rather pay that price for a better processor

ALSO! Why no one wants to wait (from other builds I seen) for the Radeon card? By many stats it should be slighty worse than upcoming 200 dollar more expensive 680. However its not a fact. But many tech labs say its better than 675, although for overcloak. But hey, if its built for overcloak.. surely it will last longer?

At the moment in my 4yr old toshiba I have a radeon card.. and damn i am suprised how much it heats up, but keeeps on going!!!


You guys approve?


btw a stupid question : windows ultimate does it offer any better performance of usual home edition?

 

[mantadog]

No point in the windows upgrade for gaming, no performance to be gained from that.

That is indeed a very high spec laptop. However i would save the money on the processor and drop it a notch to the 2.4Ghz version as a maximum. The extra 0.1Ghz is not going to give you any performance gain, and the price for the siny upgrade is crazy. If you think a SSD is too much money then you should look at downgrading that processor. You can spend the money on a SSD or a mouse or whatever, but spending it on that processor is crazy.

 

[SneakyRussian]

No point in the windows upgrade for gaming, no performance to be gained from that.

That is indeed a very high spec laptop. However i would save the money on the processor and drop it a notch to the 2.4Ghz version as a maximum. The extra 0.1Ghz is not going to give you any performance gain, and the price for the siny upgrade is crazy. If you think a SSD is too much money then you should look at downgrading that processor. You can spend the money on a SSD or a mouse or whatever, but spending it on that processor is crazy.

Thats what I thought - crazy money, but isnt in this case the 2860 a faster processor all around? I mean its not all in that 0.1? Generally a better processor?

Also I keep looking at SSD. Right now slightly changed quote for the Seagate momentus hybrid.. only 30quid more expensive.

Is the SSD that good? For same money i would only have 180gb space tops.. then it gets too expensive :/

How reliable is it? HDD Been around for ever, like windows xp, reliable technology?

 

[mantadog]

It is the same chip, same architecture no magic bullet just a very slight clock speed increase. The benchmarks give it a 6% lead, and the raw figures of clock speed vs clock speed say it should only have a 4% advantage. That is well within the margin of error, also it may get a little boost from a couple of extra MB of cache on the chip to account for that extra 2%. However i would drop to the 2.4 GHz version if i were you, simply not worth it in my opinion. You will never notice it in the real world.

The hybrid drive is a good compromise if you tend to use many of the same applications over and over, that is where that drive comes into it's own with the small built in SSD to act as a cache drive.

A SSD is still a considered purchase for most people, i do think it's worth having one in a build over £1,500 or so. They are super drives, very quick and reliable. If you can live without the space get it, if not you will be fine with the scorpio or the hybrid

What do you mean with you last question? The HDD itself or the machine as a whole?

 

[SneakyRussian]

Thank you very much! Ok I will drop the processor and will have a look at SSD!



Last question was referring to SSD technology, how reliable is it? Reading from wiki its not new, however only recently became popular.

HDD has been around for ages, in my view fully developed to the max technology of magnets etc to make them last.

Worst fear of all I have is waking up and finding my pc would not want to switch on because the hard drive died and all work lost. I know I know you supposed to back up work etc if its precious. But sometimes you just forget

 

[SneakyRussian]

Ok I have looked at price drop after downgrading the processor and I can get either intel 240gb SSD, or the 240gb kingston hyperx SSD.

Now would you recommend Kingston as a cheaper version? I looked up and they have pretty much identical insides? What about reliability?


Also maybe having RAM by Kingston and SSD by Kingston, they kinda made for each other or a least tested together?


One more question, when ivy mobile processors coming out? Or they out already just not in stock here?

 

[mantadog]

A ssd is probably more reliable than a traditional hdd because it has no moving parts. As of right now intel leads the way with reliability so I would go for intel over Kingston myself. Not that their is too much in it.

No need to match the ram to the ssd it won't give you any advantaivy bridge is released, should be available soon, though their is expected to be a bit of delay until chips are available for building

 

[SneakyRussian]

Thank you very much! Considering the Radeon card I want is not available as of yet anyway, I will wait a bit and maybe see if I can get some price estimates on new chips from PCS people.

Thanks again for info!