Vortex II laptop specs chosen

A

aquickquestion

Active member
After days and days of bashing many companies including PCSpecialist and haggling for discounts everywhere, I've finally selected my laptop!

Vortex II: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2720QM (2.20GHz) 6MB Cache
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
2GB AMD® Radeon® HD 6970 - DirectX® 11 (17.3" Vortex II)
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
GIGABIT LAN & INTEL® CENTRINO® ADVANCED-N 6230 inc BLUETOOTH
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (3,800 mAh)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Standard Build - Approximately 5 to 7 working days


Should I reduce hard drive to 320GB 7200rpm instead and later get a SSD when I have a budget set aside for that? Maybe lower the i7 to the 2.0GHz and get the 1600MHz 8GB RAM instead? I use Autodesk Maya a lot. I wanted to pick the faster wireless with 400bps but it doesn't have bluetooth so I went for the 300bps plus bluetooth instead. That fast enough if I want to download files like 60MB plus in an hours time? I don't do much online gaming. Think it's good enough for the upcoming Skyrim game once heavily modded.

Any suggestions before I stop whining and make my order and hope everything works?
 
Last edited:
O

onlynik

Enthusiast
aquickquestion said:
Should I reduce hard drive to 320GB 7200rpm instead and later get a SSD when I have a budget set aside for that? Maybe lower the i7 to the 2.0GHz and get the 1600MHz 8GB RAM instead? I use Autodesk Maya a lot. I wanted to pick the faster wireless with 400bps but it doesn't have bluetooth so I went for the 300bps plus bluetooth instead. That fast enough if I want to download files like 60MB plus in an hours time? I don't do much online gaming. Think it's good enough for the upcoming Skyrim game once heavily modded.

Any suggestions before I stop whining and make my order and hope everything works?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd drop the HDD to 250 then when you get the SSD it will transfer nicely, unless you are going to get a 480 GB SSD.

The RAM question has been asked many times, and your not really going to notice teh difference.

The wireless question is moot as it depends on your wireless access point.
 
R

Retron

Silver Level Poster
aquickquestion said:
Should I reduce hard drive to 320GB 7200rpm instead and later get a SSD when I have a budget set aside for that?
Click to expand...
No. It's only a tenner and you can never have too much disk space. It's better to get a big hard drive now than to save a tiny amount of cash (relative to the price of the PC) and have to throw it away when you need more space later on.

I faced a similar dilemma with my build: I'd chosen a 500GB Scorpio black HDD and planned to install an SSD when the laptop arrived. In the end I thought "to heck with it" and paid the extra £24 (as it was then) to go up to the 750GB drive. I don't regret it for a minute, it was a good price to get an extra 50% space.

Maybe lower the i7 to the 2.0GHz and get the 1600MHz 8GB RAM instead?
Click to expand...
By all accounts you won't notice much difference with the 1.6 GHz RAM. The 1.3 GHz RAM scores 7.6 on the Windows 7 system assessment tool and you're not going to see much of an increase on that!

Going for the cheaper i7 saves you around £120 - but it'll max at 2.9 GHz rather than 3.3 GHz. Truth be told you'd probably not notice the difference. A friend of mine at work has ordered a PCS laptop with the 2630QM in it and we plan to compare scores when his arrives (my i7 2720QM scores 7.5 in WinSAT and takes 59 seconds for the 4M test in SuperPi. A desktop i7 2600K scores 7.6 and takes 50 seconds respectively).

Think it's good enough for the upcoming Skyrim game once heavily modded.
Click to expand...
I'm sure it will be, Skyrim isn't going to be absolutely state-of-the-art graphics wise and that Radeon should have enough horsepower to play it with decent framerates (albeit perhaps not with everything turned on, but that remains to be seen!)
 
D

Dealmaster13

Gold Level Poster
Definitely don't get a smaller hard drive, nor a larger one. 500GB is the current sweet spot.

I'd personally drop down to the 2630 as quite frankly, I think that the price jump to the 2720 is huge (more than 2310 to 2630) compared to the 10-15% theoretical performance gain.

There is almost no chance your wireless adapter would affect any download speeds if you're capped at ~20KBPS (60MB in one hour as you state); you may notice a difference in signal strength at various distances from the router, however.
 
R

Retron

Silver Level Poster
FWIW, some hard numbers for the 2630QM and the 2720QM and selected other processors (we keep a database going at work):

i5 2500 (desktop): SuperPi to 4M places: 57 seconds. WinSAT: 7.4
i7 2720QM: SuperPi to 4M places: 59 seconds. WinSAT: 7.5
i7 2630QM: SuperPi to 4M places: 69 seconds. WinSAT: 7.4
i7 720QM (last-gen, 1.6GHz to 2.8GHz turbo): SuperPi to 4M places: 83 seconds. WinSAT: 6.9

In short - the 2630 is a fair bit slower on the SuperPi test but pretty much the same on the WinSAT test. Even the 2630QM is far better than the last-gen mobile i7.
 
G

Guru

Member
I didnt think the i7 2630QM supported anything using 1600mhz?? Only DDR3-1066/1333

Also doesnt support more than 8GB

I'm going for the 2720 because of these points.
 
D

Dealmaster13

Gold Level Poster
Sorry to be so bitter, but you would have thought that by spending so much money, you'd google about it, just as you would look into multiple notebook suppliers before choosing one.

Secondly, you're not questioning an Ebay random; you're questioning the Asus G74.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top