Thinking About Upgrading my Laptop, and I have issues

With a number of big PC gaming titles hitting the shelves this holiday season (Battlefield 3, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim) I was thinking of upgrading my laptop but I, naturally, have a problem.

The machine I have now originally costed a little over 3000$ (no hating on the price please) and the system I want to get is like 600$ cheaper and a lot better. I was wondering if anyone in CANADA knows of any vendors that accept old computers and give money. I already tried Dell and they said that they no longer have the trade in feature (Was thinking of trading in the old laptop, and having some sort of credit value from that go towards purchasing the new one as well as having them transfer my data over to the new laptop).

The jist of what I want is some sort of trade in thing that can get me some money, and can get my data transferred over to a new system.

Can anyone help me?

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This is the new one I was hoping to have built a few months down the road.

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
Memory: 6GB DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS)
Graphics: 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M
Hard Drive: 1.5TB Raid 0 (2x 750GB 7,200RPM)
LCD Panel: 17.3-inch WideFHD1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED

Price - $2,379.99

Thoughts? Will it run the games I listed above? And on what settings do you think?

Thanks again.

 

Get 4 GB and upgrade yourself.
Do you need so many HDD space? Most of us run the os from a SSD and use a regular HDD for data.

You have a powerfull system but the HDD is old tech and holding back the system. Just my opinion.

As for your old notebook sell it on ebay/marketplace or part it out.

 

I like my games. And these games take up anywhere from 4-15GB a piece.

And what do you mean by "Get 4GB and upgrade yourself"?
And how does the HDD hold back the system?

Im also not too sure what the difference is between HDD and SSD? I just want whichever holds the most data on it I guess.

yeah Im a dumb*ss when it comes to this stuff. You gotta explain things to me otherwise I wont get it

 

I believe what Brabostaan is saying is stick with the stock ram which is 4gigs and stock hard drive.. you can upgrade both for much cheaper then configuring them with your system.

 

HDD is the probably the one bottleneck of any system with CPU/GPU running second.

An SSD is like a Porsche. Runs really fast but can't hold much. A HDD is a big rig. Slow but carries more. Now an SSD can carry 480GB+ but they're about the same price as a laptop. I have a good balance of a 256GB Crucial m4, which I got really cheap, to run Windows on and the original 500GB on my m18x for everything else.

 

+1 for Porsche reference.

I'd suggest parting out your current laptop or selling it via eBay or the NBR marketplace.

Stick with the stock ram and hdd and upgrade aftermarket like suggested above. It'll save you a pretty penny.

An SSD is the single best upgrade you can make to a computer. Expensive per $/gb though. Fast, durable (no moving parts) worthwhile if you want/need the performance.

No offense:
If you're going to spend $2000+ on a laptop I highly recommend that you at least learn the basics. Throwing money at things doesn't always mean you get the best bang for your buck. (Please no hooker jokes..)

Why don't you invest in a desktop?

 

I prefer to have some mobility and I dont really have space for a desktop. Sooo I shall stick with the default memory and the default HDD. Im guessing I just buy those memory sticks and external hard drives if I want to upgrade things in the future?

EDIT: Okay, what I want is something that can hold a lot of data, but wont slow me down. by lots I mean like 500+GB of space. From what you guys are telling me, SSD are the way to go for speed.

1TB Raid 0 (2x 500GB Hybrid Solid State Drives) (no price increase)

Would this be ANY better than the one I previously posted?

 

You can always replace the hard drive with a Hybrid have SSD and Platter old style for max storage.
Search Results for momentus xt at TigerDirect.com
The Momentus XT is a good choice, I use it in my 1 bay notebooks for speed. As the smaller SSD's just do not have the room for many games. And the price of the 250+ SSD's are to high still. And yes buy ram after market like thry Newegg or Tiger Direct.

 

EDIT: nvm (10 chars)

 

Of course. And you can even buy the RAM sticks now since a lot are on sale right now.

Slightly better. I had the Hybrid drive on original config but the SSD just blows it away. Boots up and loads games ridiculously fast. How fast? A bunch of my friends and I all logged into a server at the same time. I loaded up first and was already waiting at their spawn site before they even got in (pissed em off too). Boots in around 12-15 seconds as opposed to the 25-30 for the Hybrid. Raid maybe shaves 5-6 seconds.

I don't really have a problem with storage. I've got 256GB in the SSD, 500GB in the hybrid, 1.5TB in a portable HD (Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0), and 3TB in a GoFlex Desk USB 3.0. Just wish it had more USB 3 ports. More than enough for 12 games installed and a lot of productivity software (Adobe CS5, Office, etc).

 

I would fill out this form and post in the What Notebook Should I Buy subforum.