<Insert really interesting title to make people read/comment here>

[Fawkon]

Right here is my spec that I am planning to purchase:

Chassis & Display: Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3740QM (2.70GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM): 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card: 2 x AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk: 240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (500MB/sR,450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk: 500GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 3 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1103 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD

3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

2 - 3 DAY DELIVERY TO REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (£19)

Price: £1,774.00 including VAT and delivery.

The choice was between this and the 15.6 Vortex with an GT680m and seeing as how the 7970m Crossfired only worked out about 100 extra I had to go with the Vortex Elite.

What do you guys think, if you had to change anything why what would it be? (Bar changing to 680m, cannot justify price)

This laptop will be for everyday use, music recording (Guitar and Vocals) and some gaming (Dayz, Sleeping Dogs etc.)

Thanks for your input.

P.S Is that WiFi card external or internal?

 

[tom_gr7]

haha nice title...

anyway,

Can you go for a single 680m setup as opposed to a dual 7970m's? nvidia have really good driver support, and I'm always hearing of dual 7970 crossfire issues.

i'd drop the ssd to a 120gb version, and go for a 750gb hybrid drive. From my experience I dont find I need 120gb, only got my OS, main programs and bf3 installed there, so you could save some funds there.

I guess you could drop the cpu a notch, but if thats the one you want then go for it.

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

I feel cheated!

 

[Alloid]

I have the same kind of configuration.

But I went for the Vertex elite with dual 7970m

And I am happy, this cards are not ideal, but I have found the way to sort out couple of problems in the 1 game which I had. Also new drivers is very nice. I am happy with my choice.

 

[Fawkon]

haha nice title...

anyway,

Can you go for a single 680m setup as opposed to a dual 7970m's? nvidia have really good driver support, and I'm always hearing of dual 7970 crossfire issues.

i'd drop the ssd to a 120gb version, and go for a 750gb hybrid drive. From my experience I dont find I need 120gb, only got my OS, main programs and bf3 installed there, so you could save some funds there.

I guess you could drop the cpu a notch, but if thats the one you want then go for it.

Appreciate the reply. To be honest it sounds like AMD are slowly sorting out the driver issues with the card and I can't really justify choosing a single top end card when I can get two for £100 more, I really would like this laptop to still be a decent runner in years to come.

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

Crossfire HD 7970M are superior value to a single GTX 680M, for if any XFire game problems arise, you simply disable one card and retain the same performance as Nvidia's top product.

Fawkon, you have my attention, and here's what I would do: Intel 330 instead of 520 and WD Scorpio Black 500-720 GB @ 7200 RPM. Other than that, you seem to know what you're doing.

 

[ruscar]

Hi Fawkon,

That's a very similar spec to something I'm considering however I'm not sure I'd notice the difference between the i7-3740QM & the cheaper i7-3610QM apart from saving a few quid.

From what I know, 8Gb would be more than anything I'll need for the foreseeable future and will be easy enough and cheaper to add at a later date however, there is something very appealing about the over-excessivness 16Gb of RAM has!

As for the graphics card I'd have to go for the 680M. No driver issues no crossfire issues, runs cooler, consumes less power and it'll still run everything at full whack for some time to come!

Storage wise I'm torn between 2x 240Gb Intel 520 SSDs in RAID for the pure ridiculous speed or the more sensible approach of 1x 240Gb SSD and a 750Gb WD Black. Don't see the point in going for the Hybrid drive if you are having an SSD as your O/S & apps drive though. A question to those that suggested the Intel 330 over the 520 SSDs... Why ? Not suggesting they are wrong, I just want to understand their reasons.

As for the WIFI, unless I'm mistaken they as internal. Personally I've decided on the killer 1202. Cant see what makes it any better than the 1103, if anything it's worse as it doesn't have Bluetooth. 300Mbps is way, way more than any bandwidth I'll ever require for gaming on this laptop and if you need to transfer data any faster than that then use the Gigabit Ethernet wired connection. The main thing is the way the Killer cards maintain a low latency and I cant see that the 1103 is likely to do it any better than the 1202.