Which upgrade should I get for my budget?

getting stock processor (i7-2670QM) and GTX 580m for sure but I wanted to upgrade further.

I want to get either:

1 - (1080p) 120Hz WLED w/ nVIDIA 3D Vision Bundle over the standard 1080p 60Hz WLED

or

2 - a 120-128gig SSD around 200

What would you choose and why?

Would you think 120hz is worth it or a faster hard drive immedietly?

I plan on eventually upgrading to SSD it is just a matter of when. I heard 120hz can lag more than 60hz? Not sure if this is true and what you guys think.


Thank you for your input!!

 

#2 w/ 1080p screen. 3D for gaming isn't worth it.

 

It's not even so much the 3d gaming, its also the 120hz, but yea I think the SSD is a better option too, just wanted some input, more posts/votes would be appreciated greatly

 

i would get the screen... add the ssd later. 120gig ssd was sold on newegg for only 120... ocz agility 3. ssd's are dropping fast!

 

This is my logic for considering the screen over SSD. Still researching this on google if 120hz is noticeable over 60.

Also I've never used SSD in my life so I won't be missing out whatever option I go with I think..

it's debatable still deciding! Ordering this baby in about 6-7 hours so would LOVE more input by then!!!!

 

Human eyes can't perceive past 60fps except in extremely rare cases.

 

While this is somewhat true, 120hz does help with smoothing out games, v-sync, and of course 3d is a nice little bonus. (source: hours of googling about 120hz )

Still looking for input / answers. Thank you guys for the help!

 

No actually. If you're talking about perceiving individual frames, then it's actually somewhere around 30-40. If, on the other hand, you're talking about seeing the difference between different framerates, then it's around 100 or so.

Anyway, I'd go with the SSD. Laptop GPUs just aren't that powerful (the 580M being about the same as a 460, which isn't that great of a card in and of its own right) and you're not helping its case by adding as 120Hz panel, and asking it to do twice the work on a game that it may or may not already struggle with.

The SSD on the other hand, will make everything very snappy, and will give you a noticeable bump in speed all-round.

 

If you are getting it from the Dell website, get neither. Although the SSD is decent. I'd opt for the base CPU, the 580m, regular 1080p screen and stock everything else. Get a SSD separate.

As for the 120Hz debate, the human eye sees just higher than 60FPS but no higher than 100FPS. The benefit of the 120Hz screen is not just 3D but for movies. With a 60Hz screen, a 24fps movie doesn't sync well with it thus the computer must employ a 3:2 pull down where the first frame is shown 3 times, the second twice, the third 3 times etc cause uneven stutter. With the 120Hz display, a 24fps movie is synced with 5hz per frame. Perfect cinematic motion.

 

from your two choiced id go with the screen. very easy to upgrade the ssd later. bit more of a challenge to upgrade the screen.

 

Thank you guys for all of the responses. I opted to get base CPU, GTX 580M, and regular 1080p 60hz screen.

I got an amazing deal on my m17x-r3 and I'm going to wait until GOOD 256gig drives go down to about 300 or so. If anyone wants to help me find a SSD sooner or knows a bit about SSD's I'd love it. Thanks again guys.

If a mod wants to lock this or mark is answered thats fine.

 

I could be letting my Patriot Wildfire go soon. Good drive, boots windows in less than 10 secs

 

Newegg.com - Corsair Force Series 3 CSSD-F240GB3-BK 2.5" 240GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Not quite 256GB or $300, but close on both counts. The Force 3 drives are excellent, and (so far as I've read) seem to be the best out of all the SF 6Gb/s drives, with virtually no problems at all with Corsair's latest firmware.

 

I read the reviews on the link you gave me and it seems like people are having major issues with it including blue screening and losing data... strange?

your thoughts / suggestions?

 

From the looks of it, all of the bad reviews - barr one - are from a few months ago. I'd have a look on the Corsair forums to get a better idea of problems. Bear in mind though that people rarely post things like "This drive is perfect, and excellent, just posting to say how happy I am with it.", usually, it's for problems.

I haven't looked into it much myself, but from what I've gathered, Corsair's drives are the safest bet of the SF 2281 drives. If you want one that doesn't use the problematic controller, you're looking at the Crucial M4 or OCZ Octane. Both of which are expensive.

 

Will be definitely purchasing this drive, thanks!!

Looking at the Corsair forums, apparently the 1.3.3 firmware fixed all of these issues from months ago like you said.

Plus I don't plan on ever using sleep mode(main issue of SSD's apparently) on my M17x R3 since it better boot up relatively fast, if not sending that right back and going back to Clevo/Sager or a brand like asus or MSI

 

widezu, would you recommend patriot wildfire? there is one hell of a deal on 240GB patriot on amazon right now, 350 bucks!

 

I would take a Wildfire over any Corsair. They use 34nm nand instead of 25nm nand. The former pairs very well with the SandForce controller. They are basically the same as the Max IOPs but the 120GB ones have the same speed as the 240GB versions. I really recommend it. If you can find a good price, then get one. I've done the LPM fix as well and with the newest firmware it is like a rock. So stable and fast.

 

Amazon.com: Patriot Memory 240 GB Solid State Drives PW240GS25SSDR: Electronics

this is good right? I may really be going for this one today

 

$165-175: Kingston HyperX SH100S3B/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III

or

$195: Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III

I don't care about the extra 8gigs, and both have about the same amount of positive reviews.

Thoughts?

 

I haven't really looked into the Kingston drives. I know a lot of people that use M4s though, and they're all very happy with them. Zero problem so far, with about... thirty or so people that have them in their rigs* in the last few weeks.

* One of the other forums I'm active on, where I spec desktops for people daily. Almost all of them include at least a 64GB M4, and none have reported any problems yet.

 

I already ordered the Kingston one but I am cancelling the order now and just going with the 128gig M4 I think. Thanks!

 

Crucial M4 is amazing, tis almost comparable to the second coming of Jesus

Good choice!

 

Maybe not that far

 

Guys - enthusiasm is good... please try to be a little more mindful of forum rules and avoid language or comments that might be offensive to some members of our Community.

 

If you want you can close this thread, I've already chosen my upgrade and laptop being shipped.