Vortex IV Laptop - Thinking of ordering in next few days!

JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
Hi everyone,

I have been checking out laptops on the web for a while now, checking out what specs you get for each budget and deciding how much I want to spend.
I am a 3D artist working in the games industry and need a new laptop setup so I can use more demanding programs like zBrush and Unreal Engine 4 without worrying about slow down and crashing. Seeing as I would be spending a fair bit on a new laptop, i thought there would be no harm in going for a good graphics card for gaming too!
I was attracted to PCS because of the great customisation, sturdy build quality, competitive pricing, good financing options and (from what I have seen so far anyway) good customer service.

Here's the spec I am thinking about ordering:

Vortex IV 17.3"
- 17.3" glossy LED 1920x1080
- Intel i7 Quad Core processor [i7-4710MQ] (2.5GHz) 6MB
- 16GB Kingston DDR3 memory [1600MHz] (2x8GB)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M (6.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX 11)
- 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD [SATA 6GB/s] (up to 555MB/sR 510MB/sW)
- 750GB WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKX hard drive [SATA 6GB/s, 16MB cache] (7200rpm)
- GIGABIT LAN & Killer 1202 Wirless Gaming 802.11N + Bluetooth 4.0
- Arctic MX-4 extreme thermal conductivity compound (thermal paste)
- Windows 8.1 64 Bit (DVD + license)
- CoolerMaster Ergostand II cooling stand
- 1 year dead pixel guarantee inc. labour & carriage
- 3 year Silver warranty (1 year collect & return, 1 year parts, 3 years labour)

Let me know what you think :)
 
mantadog

mantadog

Superhero Level Poster
Looks fine to me, unless your specifically looking to save money then I'd recommend sticking with exactly what you have.
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
mantadog said:
Looks fine to me, unless your specifically looking to save money then I'd recommend sticking with exactly what you have.
Click to expand...

I'd second that... I've got pretty much exactly the same setup except for 8gb RAM. It's awesome. The 870 is very impressive. I'm absolutely shocked at how good the battery life is if your just performing normal tasks ie not gaming. Fantastic rig, you won't be dissapointed.
 
JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
Sweet, seems very promising so far. It's cool to have a reply from an owner of a very similar build too.
 
B

buneacalin

Member
Looks good but I had very bad experience with SSD based on Sandforce controller ~2 years ago. I had some OCZ Vertex 3 with Sanforce controller and it was outstanding performance except it was generating BSOD and drive was not recognized in the BIOS and all these craps. It was not 100% the Sandforce controller issue but some kind of combination between motherboard bios (Intel) and the Sandforce controller. It gave me headaches for months including several SSD replacements :(. Since then personally I only trust Samsung SSD and Intel SSD because they manufacture their own controllers. I would vote for Samsung because I think they manufacture the memory as well. So with a Samsung SSD you will get probably a 100% Samsung components for your SSD which might make it more reliable.
Also I think 120 GB is quite at limit because over the time the OS and paging file and so on will eat you ~80 GB. OS files will grow in time because of updates and because of applications which are not fully cleaning their files and so on. And btw in HDD/SSD industry 120 GB = 120,000,000,000 bytes which means 111.758 GBytes :D. That being said you will have only ~30 GB available and ideally you should work on your games/project on SSD directly and ~30 GB might not be enough...
Maybe increase your budget and go for >200 GB SSD and also a better video card (880M) since you work in gaming industry...Keep in mind that this is a laptop and is not very easy to upgrade your components like you do it for a desktop PC :).
Edit: One more thing. I don't know much about the wireless network card (ie which one is better) but I would go with the new AC technology which is next generation wireless and first Gigabit wireless protocol. I'm almost sure the wireless network card is backwards compatible with N class and so on. When it comes to latency (gaming) I don't know what to say but definitely it also matters what router (receiver) you have. Besides cable > wireless in latency all the time :D. So for gaming go for wired connectivity :p.
 
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JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
@buneacalin
Nice advice, a few things for me to consider there. I will post an update if I change the setup (high chance I will now).
 
JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
So I have switched out the SSD for a 250GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD, but kept the same network card.
 
B

buneacalin

Member
Well it is just my opinion but please search on other forums where they discus SSD brands & controllers. Maybe things have been changed a lot since then maybe not... Regarding network card to be honest I will choose AC but I only have one more device with AC in my house at the moment which is my desktop PC which of course is always connected with network cable to my gigabit router :). It really depends how fast the adoption of AC protocol will be. It took ages to have a real boost in speed from older B/G protocol to N but with AC things seems to move a bit faster and I can see more and more devices having AC by default.
 
JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
We only have an N router as far as I know, so I couldn't use an AC without updating the router anyways. Correct?
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
JamieRIOT said:
We only have an N router as far as I know, so I couldn't use an AC without updating the router anyways. Correct?
Click to expand...

Correct, you'd need an ac compatible router. The intel wifi cards have pretty major issues which are heavily discussed in this forum and the internet on the whole. I stuck with the Killer n and it's been rock solid, no drop outs at all. I'd say stick with Killer. If they release an AC version later, I'm sure it would be easy to swap out.

The sandforce bsod issues were with the first releases of drives with the controller, and only happened on certain motherboards. That was all fixed a long time ago, so I wouldn't worry about that. I got the Samsung Evo 240gb and it's very good, fast and stable. It may not be the fastest on paper, but in real world performance, you wouldn't be able to tell any difference with an evo pro.
 
JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
Cool, thanks for the help SpyderTracks. I saw a few problem threads popping up after I googled the Intel AC-7260, so I think I will keep the Killer N.
 
JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
Just about to order this one. Same as the original posted spec, but switched the 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD for a 250GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD.
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
JamieRIOT said:
I was going to order this now, but PCS main site logins don't seem to be working.
Click to expand...
Seems to work for me, even though I'm actually going through my work VPN which slows everything down like you wouldn't believe.
You might want to try again, it may have just hiccup'd a bit when you tried.
 
JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
Hmm, doesn't seem to let me. Keep getting 'Error 404 - Page Not Found'.
Good link, I will take a read through that :)

EDIT: I entered my other email (unregistered on PCS) and I have managed to get past the Error 404 page now.
 
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JamieRIOT

JamieRIOT

Bronze Level Poster
Vortex IV 17.3" Laptop

Hi everyone,

I have been checking out laptops on the web for a while now, checking out what specs you get for each budget and deciding how much I want to spend.
I am a 3D artist working in the games industry and need a new laptop setup so I can use more demanding programs like zBrush and Unreal Engine 4 without worrying about slow down and crashing. Seeing as I would be spending a fair bit on a new laptop, i thought there would be no harm in going for a good graphics card for gaming too!
I was attracted to PCS because of the great customisation, sturdy build quality, competitive pricing, good financing options and (from what I have seen so far anyway) good customer service.

After debating which parts to buy and with good help from some people on the PCS forum, I finally settled and ordered this yesterday evening:

- 17.3" glossy full HD LED 1920x1080
- Intel i7 Quad Core processor [i7-4710MQ] (2.5GHz) 6MB
- 16GB Kingston DDR3 memory [1600MHz] (2x8GB)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M (6.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX 11)
- 250GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD [SATA 6GB/s] (up to 540MB/sR 520MB/sW)
- 750GB WD Scorpio Black WD7500BPKX hard drive [SATA 6GB/s, 16MB cache] (7200rpm)
- GIGABIT LAN & Killer 1202 Wirless Gaming 802.11N + Bluetooth 4.0
- Arctic MX-4 extreme thermal conductivity compound (thermal paste)
- Windows 8.1 64 Bit (DVD + license)
- CoolerMaster Ergostand II cooling stand
- 1 year dead pixel guarantee inc. labour & carriage
- 3 year Silver warranty (1 year collect & return, 1 year parts, 3 years labour)

Let me know what you think :)
 
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