Before I purchase...

Hey Guys-

About to join the M17 club after looking around for quite a while. Planning on ordering today, but before I did so, I wanted to ask a few questions.

Here's my setup as it currently sits:

2760 2.4ghz
8gb ram
1920x1080 60hz
2gb 580M (price was lowered today/yesterday?)
500GB SATA


Questions:
1) Anything in the above that looks off/not worth the $?
2) Does the R3 come standard with 4 memory slots? I ask because I see that 4gb is only 2 DIMMs so I wanted to make sure I wouldn't lose those extra slots if I downgraded to that.
3) I've seen a lot of talk about the kingston Hyperx ram as a good upgrade, is the type I'd want?: Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1866 HyperX Plug n Play Laptop Memory Model KHX1866C11S3P1K2/8G or do I want the 1600 version?

4) How much of an improvement is the hybrid SSD? Would I see significant speed increases over the normal hdd?

Thanks a lot in advance for any help!

 

Yes 4 ram slots...
If i were you, go with the base ram config and upgrade yourself. Its a 5 min job if you want to slap in 8 gigs of ram...slightly longer if you want to use all 4 slots because slots 3 and 4 are under the keyboard and takes a little more work

I'd go with the base HDD too...then upgrade to a SSD yourself. Hybrid drive is faster...but SSD is the smoking fast. Once you get used to SSD speeds, you can't go back

 

Thanks for the feedback! I'm planning on going to 16gb ram so I was going to purchase 4x4gb. Would I want to go with the 1866 speed or the 1600?

 

Some people complain about instability after going with the 1866...and downclocking to 1600 for stability. Others have it working out of the box at 1866...so its hard to say.

Personally, i'd go 1600 just because i know they will work out of the box and i'll have no headaches with them.

 

I had 2 different sets of 8gb 1866 and had nothing but problems. I would go with the 1600.