Tom's Hardware > Forum > Laptops & Notebooks > General Laptops & Notebooks > Lets spend some money. 17in Laptop.

Lets spend some money. 17in Laptop.

Forum Laptops & Notebooks : General Laptops & Notebooks - Lets spend some money. 17in Laptop.

Tom's Hardware: Over 1.4 million members in 6 different countries available to answer all your high-tech questions. Sign up now! Its free!
Ask the community Add a reply
Word :    Username :           
 
theoverman83   05-24-2009 at 11:50:01 PM

I have a 3 yr old Dell e1705 and am looking to get a replacement. I dont think I can work on a 15in screen, but im not sure. For the summer I will be home with my 24in external. After that I might be traveling again. It sucks to travel with a huge/ expensive laptop, but I dont see any other option.

I was thinking of getting an Alienware M17 as their prices seem pretty competitive lately. My main concerns are which upgrades are necessary and which are just for fun . Let me know what you think.

Can the HD 3870 run a 30in external monitor at its full resolution (in case I get one in the future)?

What is the benefit of getting dual graphics cards?

I want to upgrade the processor to one with 6MB of cache. Quad core or dual core and why (i've heard that there is no real reason to get the quad core as the software cant effectively utilize them)?

Is windows vista premium worth it? I want good old XP, but its not offered. I was planning to get 64bit so I can use all of my ram. Are there any other pros/ cons to getting a 64bit OS?

I am considering getting a RAID config. However, it would add some weight/ durability issues for my travels. Is it worth it?

Ive heard mixed things about SSD's. 128GB is fine for me, I have an external. I dont care about the price really. Will I notice the difference? Will I have reliability issues? Should I strip 2 SSD's in RAID 0?!?!

Any input is much appreciated. I would love to future proof my computer at reasonable prices and avoid the problems that come with getting technology that isnt tried and true (such as Vista ).

Add a reply
Sponsored Links
Register or log in to remove.
Bronze Laptops badge lostandwandering   05-25-2009 at 04:05:05 AM
- 0 +

1) Dual graphics cards will help with higher resolutions and if you want to game on that 30'' monitor you will want the 2nd 3870.

2) dual cores are fine for the majority of games since most games can only utilize one or two CPU cores. However, upcoming games should begin to really take advantage of additional cores. If you don't have the money for one of the quad cores, go for a higher clocked duals (2.4 at least)

3) Have you used Vista before? I have an XP machine and a Vista machine and I can honestly say that I prefer Vista. SP1 fixed a good deal of bugs and I find that it runs pretty smoothly.

4) depends on the RAID setup. If it is RAID 0 you get some performance increases, but if one of those drives fails, you loose everything. So there are risks involved.

5) SSD's have come a long way and are pretty stable. If you run programs that are constantly pulling data from storage, you will see a huge gain. SSDs fly in terms of seektime compared to regular HDDs.

Also take a look at sagernotebook.com. They sell some pretty awesome systems at pretty good prices.

------------------------------ LAPTOP: Sager NP5760|T7200|2gb DDR2-667| 100gb 7200rpm HDD| 512mb 7950GTX|17'' WUXGA

Desktop: Core2 E7200 | Corsair 2gb DDR2-800 | Gigabyte EP35-DS3L | 250gb Seagate Barracuda | MSI GTX260 (192 SP) | Corsair VX550 | Antec 300 case
Reply to lostandwandering
Bronze Laptops badge frozenlead   05-25-2009 at 05:59:36 AM
- 0 +

^+1 and especially +1 to the recommendation on sager notebooks. They're much cheaper, and still monsters of power.

Message quoted 1 times
------------------------------ Sager NP5793 | T8100 2.1GHz | 4GB DDR2-667 | 8800mGTX 512MB | 320GB 5400rpm | 1920x1200 17", 24" | Win 7 x64
 Reply to frozenlead
Bronze Laptops badge lostandwandering   05-25-2009 at 06:23:59 AM
- 0 +

frozenlead wrote :

They're much cheaper, and still monsters of power.



Actually, Alienware dropped the price on the M17 and it is decently priced now. However, this is because OCZ (who was supporting and distributing the chasis) had suddenly and completely dropped it from their line. No warning was given to vendors. :pfff:

------------------------------ LAPTOP: Sager NP5760|T7200|2gb DDR2-667| 100gb 7200rpm HDD| 512mb 7950GTX|17'' WUXGA

Desktop: Core2 E7200 | Corsair 2gb DDR2-800 | Gigabyte EP35-DS3L | 250gb Seagate Barracuda | MSI GTX260 (192 SP) | Corsair VX550 | Antec 300 case
Reply to lostandwandering
Ask the community Add a reply
Tom's Hardware > Forum > Laptops & Notebooks > General Laptops & Notebooks > Lets spend some money. 17in Laptop.
Go to:

There are 1249 identified and unidentified users. To see the list of identified users, Click here.

Forum map
Bestofmedia Forum ©
2000-2009 Bestofmedia Group
Page generated in 0.531 seconds
Please mind

You are about to answer a thread that has been inactive for more than 6 months.
If you still wish to proceed, please ensure that your posting is original and does not duplicate or overlap any prior responses to this thread.

Add a reply Cancel
Sponsored links
  • Ask the community now
  • Publish
Ad
Related Topics
See all relatives topics
They won a badge
Join us in greeting them
How do I win badges?