Possible laptop build

[Dragilex]

Thinking of getting a good gaming laptop.

Chassis & Display
Vortex II:17.3” Glossy 1920x1080
CPU
Quad i7-2630QM (2.00GHz) 6MB cache
RAM
2x2GB Kingston Hyper-X Genesis 1600MHz DDR3
Graphics
1.5GB nVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M
HD 1
80GB Intel 320 series SSD
HD2
500GB WD Scorpio Black 16MB cache
DVD
Sony BC-5500H Blu-ray
Sound
Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro
Wi-fi
Gigabit LAN & Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 +bluetooth
OS
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Warranty
1 year collect & return (silver)

Advice welcome. I'm a bit behind the times when it comes to SSD vs regular HD. What's the advantage of matte screen over glossy screen as well?

 

[aquickquestion]

The 1600MHz ram won't work with the i7 2630. You'll need at least i7 2720 or above to use a 1600MHz ram.

Matte screen is useless unless you're outdoors a lot and there's a lot of sun glare. It stops you seeing your own reflection lol.

I wouldn't go for SSD. Doesn't sound like it's useful. Just get one hard drive and later add a SSD yourself when it's cheaper.

 

[Dealmaster13]

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/585020-2630qm-1600mhz-ram.html

Nevertheless, stick with 1333MHz

 

[sakumatu]

Matte screen is useless unless you're outdoors a lot and there's a lot of sun glare. It stops you seeing your own reflection lol.

Disagree. Absolutely matter of taste. Glossy screen shows everything on your background, what is lighter in colour than image on your screen. If this makes sense. But from another hand its crisp. With a big glossy screen you'll end up sitting in dark room. Personally I'd rather have less crisp than changing positions only because of the background.

To have something as a sample you can see nice huge apple sitting on the table acting like half mirror half screen. If things like that bother you, go with matte.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVlhfT4GgRU&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL


"Speaking as someone who use a glossy screen laptop every day, I’m constantly irritated by the reflections cast across my screen by the overhead strip lighting in the office and, worse still, the sunlight making my screen near unwatchable on the train to and from the office." taken from following story.


Read more: Glossy vs matte screens: why the PC industry’s out of touch | PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/0...-the-pc-industrys-out-of-touch/#ixzz1USjElTRv

 

[Dragilex]

Thanks for the 1333MHz advice, I did not know that.

I do like the matte'ness of my work laptop and LCD TV's - thanks for that food for thought.

As for the SSD, will having the smallest SSD not enable Windows and some essential programs loaded onto it (maybe a game install), make things turn on quicker and load up quicker. Do SSD's have less chance of failing or at least a longer life?

 

[Dealmaster13]

I use computers a lot and have tons of things to install whenever I install a new OS.

I currently have 40-50GB used after about one week of using my laptop, yet that's exclusing game installations. So 80GB should be fine for normal computer use, and then an external hard drive would be recommended for data storage - note you can even run games and the such off externals; and with USB 3 incorporated, it could be a great idea!

Smaller SSDs do tend to be slower however; you can find out more by clicking the question marks.

I believe SSDs are less likely to fail, but have shorter lives, or at least there is some type of flaw with the reliability of an SSD.

 

[Retron]

As for the SSD, will having the smallest SSD not enable Windows and some essential programs loaded onto it (maybe a game install), make things turn on quicker and load up quicker. Do SSD's have less chance of failing or at least a longer life?

After getting an SSD at work, I've since got one for my home PC and my new PCS laptop. I bought one for my dad at Christmas (much to his surprise) and I've installed one in a PC I customised for a wildlife centre I'm involved with. They're simply that good.

The reliability thing is to do with the fact that each memory cell can only be written to a certain number of times before it breaks - around 10,000 times for regular SSDs and 5,000 times for the newer models (which use smaller transistors).

There are several ways to prolong the life of an SSD though - keeping as much free space as you can on it and minimising writes are the big two. Moving temporary files (and browser profiles) to a normal hard drive helps, as does disabling hibernation and moving your Windows swap file to a normal hard drive.

I've been using an SSD on this desktop PC since January. It has Windows and Office on it and after 1400 hours of use it's still reporting 100% of its lifespan is left. Looked after properly they'll last a very long time!

http://online.hddlife.com/ssdlife/b0c3897cc2d5feba451f7572954547fc
is the status report for my drive.

Note that different drives have greatly differing read/write speeds. Some makes (eg Kingston, Intel) get faster with larger capacity while others (like the Mushkin I have here) are the same speed at all sizes. As a rough rule of thumb, look for drives with 250MB/sec read and write and you'll be sure of a lightning-fast system.

As a final note to the speed of them, on this PC I don't even get to see the Windows 7 logo form on startup. Nor do I on my laptop - it's great!

 

[Dragilex]

So SSD have a definite limited life but they do at least let you know how much life they have left. That is handy.