Good spec laptop advise

[k4p84]

Hi all,

Been a while since i posted up.

I am in the market for a good laptop.

Looks and power are important to me.

I have spec'd up this Viao:

£ 1,209.01

•Intel® Core(TM)2 Duo 2.80 GHz
•320 GB Serial ATA (5400 rpm)
•4 GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM
•Blu-ray Disc(TM) drive
•Vista® Home Premium - (64 bit)
•ATI MobilityRadeonHD4650 1 GB
•16.4" LCD, 1920x1080 + webcam
•English QWERTY keyboard
•SD and MS card slot
•AC Adapter
•3 USB 2.0
•Wireless LAN + Bluetooth®
•Colour: Silver
•Battery life up to 3 hours
•HDMI Output

That is a good set up for the price.

Can anyone find a better spec ?

Things to note are that it must not be a worse spec, must look good and should not be a brick, IE Alienware gaming house brick.

Cheers

Ed

[scaryjim]

It's a reasonable spec but at a massively overinflated price, IMNSHO. Plus Vaio's are an arse in terms of repair costs: I'm banning them at work because the company we outsource our emergency IT support to won't cover them due to the high cost of spares.

Dell do a Studio XPS 16 with base configuration C2D P8600 (2.4GHz), 4GB DDR3 1066MHz, 1GB Radeon HD4670, 15.6" 1080p display, 500GB HDD, and BluRay combo drive, all for £949. So, bigger hard drive, better graphics, faster memory, offset by a slightly slower processor (I doubt you'd notice the difference given the other improvements, tbh), for £250 less (and I'm sure you can use that money to upgrade other aspects of the Dell, too). Oh, that comes with the free Windows 7 upgrade offer, too. I wouldn't call it a bargain, but I'd go for that before the Vaio every time...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at the MSI GT725:

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17299

It has the Mobility HD4850 graphics card which is one of the fastest available for a notebook and is basically a downclocked desktop HD4850. The notebook itself has a very decent spec for the price.

OcUK seem the cheapest well known place to stock it:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...source=froogle

Also if you can find an Advent 6555 this is basically a GT725 with a 2ghz quad core and lower resolution screen and was available for just under £1000 a few months ago:

http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/h1913.htm

[k4p84]

I will have another look through the dell range, its a pity that they do the upgrade to the 2.8 on the XPS 16 but for a cool £440 extra putting it out of budget.

I will avoid MSI as i had a terrible MB from them and the customer service was how can we say, rather poor !

ED

[GoNz0]

dell outlet

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I will have another look through the dell range, its a pity that they do the upgrade to the 2.8 on the XPS 16 but for a cool £440 extra putting it out of budget.

I will avoid MSI as i had a terrible MB from them and the customer service was how can we say, rather poor !

ED

Their notebooks are pretty good and I have mine for years without any issues. You won't find anythng better specced for the price though as you would have to spend more to get a better graphics card.

The GeForce 9800M GTX would be broadly similar(slightly better) than a Mobility HD4850 and a GeForce 9800M GT would be worse.

This site maybe useful for you to check the graphics cards in the notebooks and their relative performance:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI...0.13975.0.html

The higher you go up the list the better the performance.

[k4p84]

I am interested in some light gaming but we have an Alienware M17 at work for Demo purposes and it cooked the motherboard within 30 days of us having it.

It makes me a little nervous about having a good CPU and GPU in such a small form factor.

I have every intention of using a laptop stand to help her out though.

ED

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am interested in some light gaming but we have an Alienware M17 at work for Demo purposes and it cooked the motherboard within 30 days of us having it.

It makes me a little nervous about having a good CPU and GPU in such a small form factor.

I have every intention of using a laptop stand to help her out though.

ED

From my experience this is what I would do;
1.)Build an SFF build for gaming.
2.)Buy a lighter weight notebook for general stuff.

[scaryjim]

I noticed the 2.8GHz upgrade was quite pricey on the Dell, but tbh I'm not sure you'd get that much of a noticable increase in performance going from 2.4 - 2.8...

[k4p84]

I have a good spec'd main rig :

Q9550 @ 3.2, under water
4GB DDR3
SLI GTX 280, under water
2TB HDD storage

This would be for work, lan, basically everything i ask of my main rig but far.....far more mobile

ED

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have a good spec'd main rig :

Q9550 @ 3.2, under water
4GB DDR3
SLI GTX 280, under water
2TB HDD storage

This would be for work, lan, basically everything i ask of my main rig but far.....far more mobile

ED

I would wait a few months longer TBH. Newer 40nm GPUs are coming out. The Mobility HD4860 is as fast as a Mobility HD4850 but consumes less power. However there are low yields on current 40nm GPUs so it may take a few months for any notebooks coming out with this GPU to appear.

Anything under a 9800M GT or 8800M GTX is not worth it since they will be much slower than a desktop 8800GT and TBH you are generally stuck with the same graphics card in a notebook too.

If you are going for LANs build a portable gaming setup based around a SG05.

For example you build the following setup for under £500:

SG05 ~ £77

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Silve...00W-80plus-PSU

Motherboard ~ £114

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Zotac...Board-Graphics

E7500 ~ £89

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...tiplier-Retail

4gb DDR2 ~ £40

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=1018761

320gb hard drive ~ £34

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/320-G...MB-Cache-89-ms

HD4850 512mb ~ £80

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/512MB...VI-XXX-EDITION

A slimline DVD rewriter should be no more than £50 with an adaptor.

[k4p84]

I do really need a laptop.

If i had enough cash then i would really like a SSF pc for lan'n too.

I can buy through work so a Dell XPS 16 is actually very tempting atm.

I think i will give it a month.

Are there any ideas as to when the next round of GPUs will be added to the line up?

ED