Does this seem okay?

[_Francesco_]

Just looking for quick feedback before I finally place an order for a Vortex III. At £1316, it's a bit over my intended budget, but seemed great value from what I've recently learned (or what I think I know at least!). After playing around with the customize options for several evenings, here are the salient selections for scrutiny:

15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)

i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB

16GB 1600MHz (4 x 4GB)

GeForce GTX 670M - 1.5GB Video RAM

240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

Most of the games I intend on playing/revisiting due to never being able to run them properly before include: Football Manager, Sims, Total War (new and old), Age Of Empires III, Civilization, 3, 4 and 5. I'll also be having a look at a couple of MMORPGs for the first time, and will more than likely be playing some of the newer games in the future which will support quad cores.

Other intended uses include: Browsing, Skype, and watching movies.

I'm not the most knowledgeable of users, so any feedback feedback is very welcome. Thank you!

 

[Craigsup]

I'd recommend decreasing the SSD to 120gb and possibly increasing the Graphics card to a 7970M.
The 7970M is a lot more powerful than the 670m - however there is a delay on the shipment of cards so you'll have to wait a week or two.
You could also put in a 2nd HD - maybe 250GB or more to hold your multimedia. Or you could save up you money and then in the future buy an external HD.

 

[_Francesco_]

I knew nothing about the 7970M, so will definitely look up more on that if it's that good. Are there likely to be any compatibility issues with old games with this card?

How exactly does having a 2nd HD work parallel to the SSD? Would I be trying to make sure that only things I'm actively using (game folders?) are in SSD? How easy is it to transfer data between SSD and the 2nd drive? Also, might this make the laptop much heavier to have two drives?

 

[Craigsup]

The 7970M will work just like any other card. I don't think you will experience any issues. But for the performance of the card I would highly recommend it.

Having two HDs in the laptop won't be noticeably heavier as a SSD is fairly light and so are normal HDs. Having 2 HDs is just like putting a USB Stick into your computer. You'll simply just open up My Computer and select the Drive you want (C Drive, D Drive, F Drive etc). It's very simple. And to transfer data it's just as standard - drag and drop or copy and paste.

You'd put your Operating System and all the Games / Programs you would use very frequently on the SSD such as Steam, WoW, Diablo, Photoshop etc etc.
Then on the HD you put all the non-essential programs and all your media files. You may be able to fit ALL your programs/games on your SSD as it is 120gb or 240gb depending on your choice which would make it easier for you. However either way it is very easy.

 

[Dolleeh]

The 15.6" Vortex III only allows one HD unless you want to sacrifice your optical drive, so Craigsup's suggestion of having a 120GB SSD is unlikely to be sufficient as the only Hard Drive.

If you're happy to get an external HD then the current selection is fine however if you don't really want to carry around an external hard drive, I'd go for Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive. It will still be quick but can get up to 750GB which is loads more than the SSD.

Alternatively, if an optical drive isn't very important to you, you could get a Scorpio Black for your second HD which would hold everything which won't fit on the SSD.

 

[Craigsup]

The 15.6" Vortex III only allows one HD unless you want to sacrifice your optical drive, so Craigsup's suggestion of having a 120GB SSD is unlikely to be sufficient as the only Hard Drive.

If you're happy to get an external HD then the current selection is fine however if you don't really want to carry around an external hard drive, I'd go for Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid drive. It will still be quick but can get up to 750GB which is loads more than the SSD.

Alternatively, if an optical drive isn't very important to you, you could get a Scorpio Black for your second HD which would hold everything which won't fit on the SSD.

Ah yes. Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't realize that the 15.6" only had one Drive bay.
I'm too used to the 17" specifications!