Just want to say a big thanks to PC specialist for building the machine and getting it out to me in great time despite upgrading to the fast track service on the 27th the laptop missed the build time due to specified hard drive being out of stock, but they upgraded it to the 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm) at no extra charge and also re-funded my fast track payment straight away, top service and will use them again.
Production Dates
Processed Date 21-08-2013
Pre-Production Date 27-08-2013
Build Date 02-09-2013
Test Date 04-09-2013
Awaiting Dispatch Date 04-09-2013
Dispatch Date 05-09-2013
Chassis & Display Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 6x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
I wanted to replace my previous laptop as it was showing it's age and could only handle game's on low-medium settings at best with the GTX540m, I decided to browse the forums here and check what people were recommending and myself ask what peoples thoughts were, I was directed to www.pcspecialist.com/review which showed machine's I had not yet seen, the vortex IV specification being more or less exactly what i was hoping for at a great price, I bought on finance which took 5-10 minutes from ordering to being accepted.
Receiving the laptop from DPD was great, viewing the tracking information on the day I was able to see a map with GPS tracking of the drivers exact location, allowing me to plan for it's much awaited arrival!
Packaged very nicely in a large box with Styrofoam protecting the smaller laptop box inside everything of course was undamaged and the laptop taken out of the box and proceeded to boot up, wow..the SSD is amazing, never again would you want to go back to a normal HDD for operating system usage, boot time is a case of blink..you miss it! :smartass:
The build quality of the laptop is great, it has a nice brushed black aluminum finish on the lid and palm rest making it easy to clean and looks the business, if you are going to get this laptop I'd recommend the coolermaster U3 with movable fan placement as the laptop is a perfect FIT and the machine will benefit from the added cooling over time when gaming, the keyboard itself feels nice to type on and is responsive and the back light is a nice feature, however the small return key takes some getting use to and so far is the only major gripe Iv'e had with the machine, for anyone who's gaming at there desk most of the time like me this won't be an issue, the next day I had bought a razer black widow ultimate 2013 for this purpose, the screen quality is amazing, a crisp and clear display with no glare (my desk is right next to a window, big thumbs up for this)
Performance as you'd expect is spot on, programs launch instantly with the i7/16gb RAM/SSD and game load times are super fast on the 750 6gb/s HDD also, Iv'e been playing BF3 on ultra and it's smooth as anything with the GTX780m, I'm hoping this will continue with the shortly releasing titles such as ARMA 3 and BF4, of course with such power also means lot's of heat, or in our case some very noisy fans to battle with it, they are noticeable when gaming however it's not a major problem if you are a headset user like myself, when exiting a game it can take a good 2-3 minutes for them to turn off, the max temp's iv'e had so far are around 76C, it's max being around 90C (from what I read it can be overclocked to near equivalent of some top desktop cards on the market)
Not had a chance to do any benchmarking but when I do I'll update here, if anyone has any questions let me know.
So far I'm very happy with it and can see it lasting me a good 2-3 years with the kinds of games I usually play being mainly FPS titles, however hopefully by then Iv'e moved into my own house and have the room to build a custom desktop, and of course I'll be back here to order it.
Production Dates
Processed Date 21-08-2013
Pre-Production Date 27-08-2013
Build Date 02-09-2013
Test Date 04-09-2013
Awaiting Dispatch Date 04-09-2013
Dispatch Date 05-09-2013
Chassis & Display Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4700MQ (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 6x BLURAY ROM, 8x DVD ±R/±RW & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
I wanted to replace my previous laptop as it was showing it's age and could only handle game's on low-medium settings at best with the GTX540m, I decided to browse the forums here and check what people were recommending and myself ask what peoples thoughts were, I was directed to www.pcspecialist.com/review which showed machine's I had not yet seen, the vortex IV specification being more or less exactly what i was hoping for at a great price, I bought on finance which took 5-10 minutes from ordering to being accepted.
Receiving the laptop from DPD was great, viewing the tracking information on the day I was able to see a map with GPS tracking of the drivers exact location, allowing me to plan for it's much awaited arrival!
Packaged very nicely in a large box with Styrofoam protecting the smaller laptop box inside everything of course was undamaged and the laptop taken out of the box and proceeded to boot up, wow..the SSD is amazing, never again would you want to go back to a normal HDD for operating system usage, boot time is a case of blink..you miss it! :smartass:
The build quality of the laptop is great, it has a nice brushed black aluminum finish on the lid and palm rest making it easy to clean and looks the business, if you are going to get this laptop I'd recommend the coolermaster U3 with movable fan placement as the laptop is a perfect FIT and the machine will benefit from the added cooling over time when gaming, the keyboard itself feels nice to type on and is responsive and the back light is a nice feature, however the small return key takes some getting use to and so far is the only major gripe Iv'e had with the machine, for anyone who's gaming at there desk most of the time like me this won't be an issue, the next day I had bought a razer black widow ultimate 2013 for this purpose, the screen quality is amazing, a crisp and clear display with no glare (my desk is right next to a window, big thumbs up for this)
Performance as you'd expect is spot on, programs launch instantly with the i7/16gb RAM/SSD and game load times are super fast on the 750 6gb/s HDD also, Iv'e been playing BF3 on ultra and it's smooth as anything with the GTX780m, I'm hoping this will continue with the shortly releasing titles such as ARMA 3 and BF4, of course with such power also means lot's of heat, or in our case some very noisy fans to battle with it, they are noticeable when gaming however it's not a major problem if you are a headset user like myself, when exiting a game it can take a good 2-3 minutes for them to turn off, the max temp's iv'e had so far are around 76C, it's max being around 90C (from what I read it can be overclocked to near equivalent of some top desktop cards on the market)
Not had a chance to do any benchmarking but when I do I'll update here, if anyone has any questions let me know.
So far I'm very happy with it and can see it lasting me a good 2-3 years with the kinds of games I usually play being mainly FPS titles, however hopefully by then Iv'e moved into my own house and have the room to build a custom desktop, and of course I'll be back here to order it.
