EnigmaII - Gaming and work

[littlerascal42]

Hi all,

I'm very nearly ready to purchase a laptop after some to-ing and fro-ing between suppliers. I've including the spec I'm settling on below.

This laptop will be used along side a desktop PC. I will use it when I'm travelling and staying visiting friends houses to save me packing up and moving my PC around.

I mostly play World of Warcraft and so the sessions tend to be quite long which is why my primary concern with a laptop is overheating. Am I right in my understanding that SSDs use less energy than traditional HDDs and therefore tend to run at a lower temperature (not to mention a sizable performance increase)? I have a NAS drive which I save most of my work to meaning that the smaller capacity doesn't concern me as long as the other benefits outweigh the price.

I also think I'm right in saying that the Intel® Core™i7 Mobile Processor i7-620M is dual core? Also is it true that a lot of programs including many games aren't programmed to use more than 2 cores as the extra work it takes in program doesn't scale well with performance increases?

Also I'm a little confused about the RAM and all this dual and tri-channel business. However I guess going with a 4gb single card setup would allow me to expand to 8gb more easily in the future?

I may think of more questions but I think this wall of text is enough for now.

Please feel free to pick the system apart as I want to make sure I get all my info straight before placing an order.

Chassis & Display
Enigma II: 15.6" Full HD LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080) Super Clear Glossy
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Mobile Processor i7-620M (2.66GHz) 4MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 5650 PCI Express - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BC-5500H 4x BLURAY ROM/DVD WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£88)
Memory Card Reader
Integrated 3 in 1 SD Card Reader
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD (AS STANDARD)
USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
2 x Enigma Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (One Spare) (£39)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (Incl Disc & 1 License for 3 devices) (£89)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,260.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Phoenix]

SSD's are much better than HDD's, they perform a lot faster and don't need to spin around so they are quieter and cooler. The i7-620M does indeed have 2 cores with 4 threads available through hyperthreading. There are quite a few games that are able to utilize 3 cores now but with the hyperthreading technology present in the i7-620M you can have 2 real and 2 virtual cores available, and for world of warcraft 2 cores is perfectly good to run the game with. The i7-620M works best with dual channel memory (2 sticks at a time) but it would be better to get 1x4GB stick instead of 2x2GB sticks so that you can drop in another 4GB in the future if you can't afford it right now. The specification you've put together looks good but I'd probably go with the silver warranty because it's only an extra £5.00 but gives you much better protection in case anything goes wrong after a couple of months.

 

[PCS]

Great answers from Pheonix there, took the words right out of my mouth.

 

[littlerascal42]

Thanks for the advice!

I also have another technical question: can I take the battery out when it's plugged in and run it purely off the mains (To prolong the battery life)?

And a non-technical question, where has the single 4GB stick of ram gone? Is it out of stock at the moment?

Thanks.

 

[PCS]

I know you can power up the laptop without the battery plugged in, but I'm not sure if removing it when plugged in will result in a temporary loss of power. I'm guessing you can, but not sure.

I will investigate why the 1 x 4GB option has been removed.

 

[littlerascal42]

Thanks PCS

 

[Stat]

We can do without this sort of silly reply here on this forum please Stat.

 

[dmm]

I know you can power up the laptop without the battery plugged in,but I'm not sure if removing it when plugged in will result in a temporary loss of power. I'm guessing you can, but not sure.

I will investigate why the 1 x 4GB option has been removed.

I've done this a few times and it's fine; no loss of power at all I usually take my battery out when im plugged in.