Gaming Frankenlaptop advice, leaning towards an Origin model for about $3200

[idiot101]

Are you doing anything CPU intensive? For gaming, I don't think you need more than the base quad core if your are going with a single GPU. The Intel processors are sufficiently fast and don't really stress out when it comes to performance gaming on a single card. Please verify this fact. I do believe there are several articles online that attest to this fact. If you do need the enterprise features like virtualization support, then you will need to step up to the 3720QM.

If you don't have RAM intensive programs for work, then you don't require more than 8GB for gaming.

The numbers of the AMD 7970m that several early adopters are putting out are really impressive. If you are looking at a single card solution, then AMD is the way to go.

If you are traveling a lot, then investing in the Alienware M17x and NBD service from Dell would be a good option. Accidental damage protection can also be included for the bumps, scratches and falls it will experience no matter how careful you are. The best deals can be had when you call Dell and haggle with them. They normally drop the price significantly (about 10%-20%).

Are you going to use the RAID for gaming? The SSD itself doesn't offer any significant benefits to game play other than reducing loading times. Having two in RAID would be unnecessary.
Exploring SSD Performance In Battlefield 3, F1 2011, And Rift : Profiling Storage I/O In Three New Games
Go in for aftermarket SSDs. The Samsung 830 is considered the best on the market right now.

My 2 Cents

[Karamazovmm]

Here is my build

CPU: i7 3610qm
GPU: 7970m
HDD1: none
HDD2: none
ODD: whatever rocks your boat
WiFI: intel 6300

this should be around 1700, now you go to whatever is cheaper and get the crucial m4, at tigerdirect I found the 256gb model for 230, get 2 of those.

DONT do RAID 0, its not even real raid. The idea of raid is to get stability and reliability, and its limited for a few scenarios.

[Andycinoz]

Thanks for all the advice guys! I'll go and have a play with the other resellers sites and hopefully come up with something a mite more powerful for a little less money, and come back for more guidance!

I'm now looking at having 2 7970's in crossfire. Can I still get away with changing the CPU to the base model, or would it need some extra oomph to cope with 2 cards?

MrMM, I'll be honest, the idea of buying without a HD/SSD scares the willies out of me. How difficult are they to install, and would doing so invalidate my warranty, especially if I manage to balls it up (which I'm more than capable of doing!)

[Karamazovmm]

its quite easy to install, just remove the bottom plate and you have some fun, just plug those there and its done. And that wont void your warranty at all, you can repaste the cpu and gpu, put more ram (there are 4 slots for that), change the wifi card...

for xfire I dont recommend the p270wm since there are some issues with that model, I would wait for the m18x, they are coming with 7970m, it should be a few days, they didnt have the validated xfire as far as bill-dell told us, thus it aint being offered right now, but will be latter.

Be kind and give dell a call for some haggling, its well worth it. or go talk to allan in the salesperson thread, he can give you some nice discounts, the thread is in the aw section.

one interesting thread for you
*NEW* M17x R4 and M18x R2 GPU Part Number Lists

[Andycinoz]

Also, is anyone offering the 7970 in crossfire yet?

[idiot101]

No. Like Mr.MM has said, Dell may offer it in the M18x in a few weeks time.

[Andycinoz]

Ok, so I've found a very nice deal with Xotic that includes the 7970m, a 3720QM processor and the 2 SSD's, which I'm now reconsidering, for $2960 usd. Is anyone likely to beat that at the moment?

Edit; with a boot 60gb ssd and 500gb HD, it's coming in at $2485 with all the trimmings - I'm guessing 60gb would be enough for Windows?

Finally, what is system overclocking? I'm wary of o/c'ing on a laptop, as I've heard it can over stress the components, but if it's just getting rid of manufacturer fluff then I might go for it.

[WCFire]

Some thoughts:
- The 3720QM is an expensive processor upgrade that is overkill for the vast majority of people. You seem to have a high budget and if money's no object, then by all means go for it, but I would consider downgrading anyway.

- The money you save from downgrading the CPU can go into more substantial improvements like a bigger boot SSD. If you put that money towards a bigger SSD, you could put frequently used programs in there like games and such.

- I wouldn't recommend dual SSD's. Again, if you've got the money to spare, by all means, but there is a point where "enough is enough" and the money you're spending is bringing in diminishing returns. I'm not sure how big the SSD's are or if you intend to RAID them, but it would be more cost effective to go with an SSD+HDD combo. With the money you save from downgrading, you could go for a rather large main SSD drive, say 180-240GB, and have a 500-750GB HDD. This would give you plenty of room to store all the programs you need to be zippy on the SSD but still plenty of storage on the HDDs.

- System overclocking is overclocking the components, like the CPU and GPU, to higher clock speeds. You would see minor improvements from this and there is a small chance of malfunction (Xotic would likely do it safely). I wouldn't pay XoticPC to do this since you can do it yourself. Otherwise, this would fall into the "if you don't know what it is, you don't need it" category. I've always felt overclocks to be more for enthusiast interest moreso than practical power.

[Andycinoz]

Well, that sorts that out - went down to the basic processor and up to a 120gb ssd. The reason I spent the money on the processor was to future-proof it as much as possible - although I guess as a gaming laptop (weighing 12lbs, I don't know if that's the right word...!) it's more dependent on the (user upgradable) laptop!

Any idea if I'll be able to fit a second, crossfire 7970 in without the need for a hammer later on, or is the chassis too small?

New price $2395

[Karamazovmm]

what is the config that you are doing? and you can only put dual gpus currently in the m18x and the p270wm, in the poland aw site the 7970m dual gpus is already in the config list, it should be quite soon to arrive in the m18x