Finally Ordered the Vortex III, Should I make any changes?

[Vortex777]

After much deliberately on whether or not to get the clevo p170em or p370 and after many orders cancelled from other resellers I've finally decided to go with the Clevo p170em due to it's battery life and better cooling system.

And I'm happy to do business with pcspecialist as they are professional, helpful and prompt compared to the other uk sellers I've been in contact with over the last few months.

Now I've sorted out the order, is there anything anyone recommends should be changed as I'm on the 6th day of pre-production Will the SSD 120BG Intel 520 series be fast and good enough long term or should I get the 180GB or 240GB intel ssd? Or is that overkill?

Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM) 16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 4GB)
Graphics Card NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 1TB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD10JPVT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ULTIMATE-N 6300 (450Mbps)
USB Options 3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire 1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor 1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Laptop Cooling Stands Zalman ZM-NC3500 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch (£38)
Carry Case NONE
Monitor NONE
Keyboard & Mouse INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Speakers NONE
Webcam INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

 

[Portland]

Unless you need the RAM for photo/vid editing, mebbe drop to 8GB. Maybe also consider the 240gig ssd. Programs are pretty chunky these days and it will fill up fast. Praps a killer card too.

Do you need the office and bullguard? One of the nice things about PCS is the lack of bloatware.

 

[Vortex777]

Yeah was thinking of lowering the ram and getting the 240 ssd, as ram can always be upgraded later.

Need the office, but the bullgard trial is free isn't it?

Thanks for the response.

 

[vanthus]

Need the office, but the bullgard trial is free isn't it?

Thanks for the response.

The bullguard trial is free,I had it on my computer till the trial run out then installed MSE.
It's easily uninstalled,I wouldn't call it bloatware.

 

[ryafre496]

i would lower ram. also change to 7970m to save money and cooler master 3 is cheaper than your cooler you are buying from pcs. with the money you save you could get a bigger ssd. just my 2 cents

 

[Vortex777]

Nah I'm sticking with the GTX680m with 3Dvision, better battery life, lower use of temps and better performance is worth the extra money. There's a reason why the 7970 is cheaper.

I've already lowered the ram and increased the ssd to 240gb, but nothing anyone tells me is going to convince me to go for a single 7970m.

 

[Portland]

Yup, I'm on a very similar spec and went Green Team. Slightly less power draw/heat, but the main thing is much more reliable (and more frequent!) driver updates. I shied away from SLI due to the £££ though.

Prolly end up with pretty much identical machines (other than I was cajoled into getting 16 gig of RAM in 2 * 8 sticks so I can fettle with other peeps' pics and videos!) Seem to hit diminishing returns on extra bang for your buck when you go much higher in CPU and GPU(s) similar for SSDs - would be lovely to have a huge RAID1 SSD capacity and another hard drive in lieu of optical, but the costs get scary very quickly.

I tend to use Office 2003 as I still don't get on with ribbons, plus any VBA I fettle with is exactly the same as work version.

Enjoy your machine

 

[ryafre496]

you wanted an opinion i offered it to you.

 

[Portland]

you wanted an opinion i offered it to you.

Fair play, there are strong arguments for the 7970, especially if budget is critical, and it will be actually better in terms of frame rate on some titles and benchmarks.

I did look at getting crossfired 7970s, but opted not to in case we want further kids.

Can't speak for Vortex777, but my personal issue is current performance of Enduro vs Optimus and driver blips in general, but I've had a good few AMD/ATI cards on desktops and laptops in the past (remember getting hammered for how much I spent on my first rage card - lol) so am not an Nvidia zealot by any means. 3D not a big thing for me tbh, just a wee bonus that I could output BLOPS 2 to the telly for a 3d blast in campaign mode say, but 3D is a factor for some peeps.