My Upgrade Plan.. Maybe I am nuts

Ideally I could love a 1 TB PCIE and a 2 TB SSD with 32 GB RAM, on an i7 with the UHD screen.
So my questions:

1. What would be the optimum configuration for me to buy?
2. Am I nuts, should I just go with a Precision 7000 series with a FHD touch screen a Xeon and 64 GB of RAM?
3. Be realistic.. and just get the i7/16 GB/UHD, 1 TB and use external SSD's or Disks for the crap I want to run? And just upgrade the ram to 32 GB?

And no I do not have money to burn. Much appreciated.

 

Then don't buy a ultra high end machine cause in six months it's worth half what you paid for it.

 

Aftermarket CPU and display upgrades would be a hassle, so you'd probably want to order the Core i7 and 4K touchscreen right off the bat. That'll cost at least $1,999.99 standard listing price (Dell US).

All configurations that include both a Core i7 and 4K touchscreen come with an 84 WHr 6-cell battery, so you'd need to buy or trade for a 56 WHr 3-cell battery plus hard drive cage and hard drive cable+interposer.

Dell currently charges $700 to upgrade to a 1TB PCIe SSD. Dell doesn't even offer the option to upgrade to 32GB of DDR4 RAM, though their manual says the XPS 15 does support it. Apparently, it's hard to find 2x16GB DDR4 laptop RAM at the moment, according to this thread.

Not too familiar with the Precision series. At a glance, it looks like it definitely supports even higher-end options. Of course, it's also even more expensive. Different GPUs, too (Nvidia Quadro or AMD FirePro workstation GPUs, rather than Nvidia GeForce.)

If you don't want to waste too much money but still want to be able to eventually max out the specs, I'd suggest getting the $1999.99 configuration and waiting until next year to upgrade the PCIe SSD and RAM. Hopefully prices will have fallen by then. SATA SSD prices are also falling, but you could probably get one now if you're so inclined. Just need to buy/trade for a smaller battery and find the part number for that hard drive cable+interposer.

 

You don't buy a computer as an investment, it's a work tool. Therefore who cares what it's worth in 6/12/18/24+ months?

 

You haven't tell us what you are going to use the laptop for, and which laptop. I will assume the new XPS 15 (9550). Optimum configuration for long battery life or performance only?

• Battery life - i7 + 1080p + 84Whr battery + as much ram and single PCIe SSD space you can get (recommended)
• Performance (specs) - i7 + 4K + 84Whr battery + as much ram and single PCIe SSD space you can get

It kind of boils down to the screen and battery life in my opinion. Have your extra storage in an external HDD.