Best Single GPU setup?

hey guys,

i was wondering what was the best single GPU setup available right now? i don't care about price or any of that, and i don't really want to deal with a dual GPU setup. i will be buying at the beginning of october/september. will there be a new card(s) comin out within that time period? thanks in advance. i've been out of the whole GPU loop since i quit PC gaming about 1 1/2 year ago, so any help is very much appreciated!

i only really have 3 main criterias: 17" inch, best/fastest single GPU, 1080p or greater resolution screen.

 

Best laptop gpu out right now is the Nvidia 480GTX, but you might have heat and power problems with that, from what I've heard. So I would go with the ATI 5870.

 

5870 would be my choice too, GTX 480 is a crazy heat out-putting, energy sucking deamon card.

 

could u elaborate on the heat and power problems?

i kinda told myself that if i went the 5870 route, i'd go dual 5870's. i've never had a dual GPU setup before, so i'm really hesitant cuz of all the headache stories i've heard that come with dual cards. i've even heard that most games can't even fully utilize a multiple GPU setup.

the laptop will spend the majority of it's life sittin on my cryo LX cooler if that matters any. i'm lookin for pure performance here. how bad are these "crazy heat and power" figures really? i gotta get ready for starcraft 2, diablo 3, and maybe some of the new final fantasy MMO.

 

Perhaps the $1000 price of just the GPU on the 480M will change your mind.

 

i'm aware of the hefty price tag, but money isn't really a big factor as of right now. just lookin for performance.

 

If looking for performance, then yes, the 480m GTX is currently the best single card solution, however, I believe that the ATI 6000 series will be released around september/october, but don't quote me on that.

As for the heat issues, its not a problem in the clevos.

 

If you want the most powerful single GPU setup, and only care about performance, and nothing else, then it will be the Clevo D900F, with 480M GTX, and a desktop CPU, you can get a i7 980X if you REALLY REALLY don't care about the price.

Don't listen to all those "480M runs like an oven" talk, they don't know what they are talking about and have no proof whatsoever, when in fact, it's proven by people who actually have a 480M in their notebook that it in fact runs surprisingly cool due to the low voltage nvidia ships it with. It's only a minor performance gain over 5870MR though, because of the voltage limit on OCing could still not be changed yet, though even at max OC on the stock voltage, it runs very cool.

 

that's great to hear since sager/clevo was going to be one of my top choices. hopefully there will be more infomation on the ATI 6000-series soon so i can make my decision.

this is the exact kind of post i was waiting to hear. i don't really like to OC or any of that stuff, so that was one of my main reasons for wanting the most powerful single GPU setup. i just want to buy a laptop, turn it on, and have the best "out of the box" performance.

could u give me a list of current and upcoming 17-inchers that will be able to house the 480M? and do u think i would really have to go all out and stuff a desktop GPU in there? this laptop will be used mainly for gaming and watching movies. wouldn't something along the lines of an i7 720/820/840 be more than enough, or would it bottleneck the 480M?

 

480M is not mainstream and the only builder capable and willing to build a machine that will accommodate the 480M is a Clevo. Thankfully, the D900F is a solid platform to build on so don't hesitate going for that. I know you said price you will approach $5k, unless that isn't an issue.

 

5870 is just on the border of SC2 on ultra.

GTX480 wont fair much better and will definitely cost a LOT more.

You can do ultra fine for single player and most multiplayer but it will cry out in pain during those massive unit custom games, as I expect the GTX480 to do as well.

 

I would think a single 5870 would do the trick for you. Geez and to think im happy with my 9800M GTS...

 

If money is no concern then you really should be considering SLI or XFire. Both have become more streamlined and are not as much of a nuisance as they used to be.

The 480m is indeed the single card king for the moment, but there is a minimal performance upgrade on the 5870 for such a hefty price tag. Your call, both will be perfectly adequate.

 

^^ SC2 is a very demanding game. Vicious is right.

To the OP:
At this point I wonder why you don't just build a desktop if all it's going to be doing is just sitting on your desk? But it's your dough...

 

Def take a look at the G73JH-A1 by asus, really low price I& in it, 8 gb of ram and a 5870, I get great performance out of mine.

 

I played SC2 on my MSI laptop without any problems. core i5-430, 4gb of ram, intel HD graphics. 1366x768. no settings werent maxed but they looked good to me. I also had a desktop for comparison -- AMD 965 quad core, 4gb of ddr3, ATI 4870 all settings maxed.

I really dont think SC2 is that big of deal, but i havent done anything except 1v1 multiplayer during beta. so in larger 8 player games i could be way off.

 

Clevo D900F, Sager NP8850.

480 is "King" by about a 10-20% average on tesselated games. The 5870 is equal or performs even better then the 480 (some games) in non-tesselated games.

Even if you were rich it would make no sense to buy the 480, the gains would not be perceptible because of the tesselated performance is still at an unplayable FPS. I would say the G73h for like $1400, cheapest 480 config is at $2200-2300.

TLDR version; the areas the 480 are good are unplayable circumstances in the first place, which makes there no point to get a single 480 unless you get SLI. If you want to pony up for 480 SLI, I could see there being a valid reasoning there if you're rich.

 

D900F and W880CU are the only 2 notebooks with 480M right now, the up coming X7200 will feature 480M as well, but it's meant to be a SLI machine which you probably won't be interested. D900F uses X58 architecture, meaning - desktop CPU and triple channel ram. While W880CU is a normal H55M architecture notebook using mobile CPU.

For bottleneck or not, it depends on the game, A lot of RTS games, especially blizzard ones are very heavy on the CPU, there's i7 9X0s for desktop and D900F can only use desktop i7 CPUs, even the lowest desktop i7 920/930 will beat the fastest notebook mobile 940XM on stock clocks though.

 

I really doubt we will anything from ATI, at least till next year, AMD/ATI already said they gonna present their next gen around Q4 (im guessing really close to years end) but to expect retail early next year, and thats in desktops, my guess is mobile versions will come after.. so probably ends Q1 or around there, again just speculation on my part, but ATI 5870 seems to be doing great atm, and GTX480 is slightly faster, but very limited options out that can handle it.

 

What about the 280M? Its awesome!

 

A deviation from the HD5870/GTX480M discussion. Could do a US$370 GTX-768MB x2 1.0 DIY ViDock. I know the Studio 1558 had two mPCIe slots that could do x2 1.0 so likely the Studio 17 does as well. The setup should be faster than any mobile GTX/HD58xx card. Just get the cheaper Intel HD graphics unit as a base since it allows the faster Optimus setup.

You'd be gaming to an external LCD for peak performance with the DIY ViDock.

 

If thats the case why not just get a desktop. Your're already added too much required space to maintain with the ViDock and external monitor.

 

I has its uses, like someone that needs to take his laptop to work/school and only games home or somewhere steady, or someone that wants an ultraportable or small laptop that dont come with very good gpus. In my case it would be more trouble as i travel too much but i can see people liking it.

 

75W TDP desktop GTS4xx will be released in the coming weeks, making a 12V/75W portable setup like this possible. An IGP base system allowing for a NVidia Optimus setup that (i) provides transparent internal LCD functionality AND (ii) does some tweaks to accelerate performance.

 

Just popping in to throw in my hat with the 5870. For a 480m, you're nearly doubling the price of your laptop for imperceptible gains.

And I know you're not into overclocking, but the 5870 overclocks like crazy. I believe it can overclock to the point that it does better than the 480m in most cases.

Also, there's the issue of "best average fps" vs. "best minimum fps", and in that contest ATI is likely to win every time (that's generally the case in 285m vs. 5870). That could mean that the 5870 will still offer the best "smooth" gameplay. So in at least one way, it's still probably "the best".

 

I'd go for the GTX 480M personally...but then again, I am a known biased NVIDIA fanboy. If budget is unlimited at this point, as I perceive from your first post Houstoned, and the laptop is to be used as a DTR, then why the heck not? The GTX 480M could probably get to the point where it will last you an extra 6 months where the 5870 just wont cut it.

If you don't want to shell out $1000 for the card itself, take a look at some upcoming laptops with the GTX 460M. Supposedly has similar performance to the 5870M, and you get the necessary features such as CUDA and PhysX.

EDIT: By all means, don't take this post as evidence that I don't like my 5870M. It's a fine card, it's just that NVIDIA cards have more features, better driver support (FACT), and better performance. cough*For a very large price difference.*cough

 

The driver support for 5870MR IMO is fine, if you are using windows, the problem with most 5870MR driver problem is because ATI sells their chip as chips, many many manufacturers like Asus makes their own cards, and use their own bios as well, making a single driver supporting all the various different cards difficult, whereas for nvidia, nvidia make their own card and sells the whole card for notebook, less driver problems but more expensive cards. For ATI, as long as your card is of MXM standard, with default ATI bios and not manufacturer specific bios, the drivers are very fine.

 

lol at least u don't have a 9600M GT.. it can't do anything at full HD..

ya , but really which would i logically have.. some 2-3 year old tech with old stuff (DX10 etc) or some new card with new tech and stuff (DX11)

that's always been my answer for DIY Vidock..u really might as well have a desktop.

 

first and foremost, i appreciate all the comments and see where all of u guys are comin from. the reason why i don't mind dishing out the extra money for a 480M-equipped laptop is because i'd like my laptop to be "future proof" for at least another year or 2. i want something that will be able to run all of my games and movies at high resolutions, without a hiccup.

to the guys tellin me that i might as well get a desktop: i have been using, and gaming, on only laptops for the last 10-12+ years. i just prefer the look, feel, and ergonomics of a laptop + external mouse.

i've been customizing a Sager NP8850 and would like to know what u guys think about the setup. suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

NP8850 - i'm not really a fan of the D900F aesthetically.
Display 17.3" Full HD LED Display with Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1080)
Video & Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce GTX 480M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 Video Memory
CPU Processor Intel® Core™ i7-840QM Processor ( 45nm, 8MB L3 Cache, 1.86GHz ) [$380.00]
Thermal Compound IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU [$40.00]
Operating System Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition ( 64-Bit Preloaded ) ( i was wondering if there was any real reason to upgrade windows)
Memory 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 X 2GB ( again, any real reason to get 6GB of RAM?)
RAID Storage Options Non-RAID Storage
Primary Hard Disk Drive 320GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
Optical Drive 4X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD±R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software [$120.00]
Wireless Network Card Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module [$35.00]
Primary Battery Smart Li-Polymer Battery Pack
Integrated Security Device Fingerprint Reader
Microsoft Office New! Microsoft Office Starter 2010 - Included in Price
Warranty Sager 1 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty
Carrying Bag Standard Carrying Bag

is there any real advantages of gettin a RAID-type of setup? i won't be putting alot of stuff on my laptop cuz i have a 500GB external HDD that i put music and movies on. do u guys think it'll be worth it for me to upgrade to a 128GB or so solid state hard drive? i don't have any experiences with solid state hard drives, but i have heard that they are alot more efficient now so i would love to check them out.

 

Your setup looks like a killer... i would probably go for ssd though, i mean all your choices are top or right up there, not that ssd will boost your gaming, but it will make your laptop feel a lot more responsive, opening and shutting programs will be much faster and so will power on and off. But its an upgrade you can do down the road if you don't feel its right for you atm, but if you go this route, then i would go with 500gb instead of the 320 to move it as storage later, but since you have an external its a hard call, still this laptop allows dual hard drives something that i do value a lot.

 

It seems to be a crapshoot as to whether a GPU will be able to handle future games. There's no guarantee that the top end GPUs today will be able to handle the games of 2 years from now. I suspect that the answer is "it depends on the 2 year window"...

Yes and no. Unfortunately, the answers are tied together. Ultimately it will depend a great deal on what you plan on doing with your computer. If you're into professional editing of very large images in Photoshop (not just simple stuff like minor color balance changes etc) or doing serious professional video editing (you routinely edit videos in a semi-professional manner), or run several Virtual Machines, or develop software in an IDE integrated with a web server and database, then yes, 6 gigs of RAM will be helpful. If all you do is play games, surf intertubes check email, rip songs from CD's/videos from DVDs, listen/watch said rips, then no, 6 gigs isn't going to help you all that much (unless you like to do all of those things simultaneously while playing several serious games). Which means that a 64 bit operating system isn't going to help you all that much either. That being said, applications of the future may start gobbling up more and more RAM. 64 bit doesn't really buy you anything right now unless you have more than 4 GB of RAM (in which case it lets you use more than 4 GB RAM).

However, 64 bit doesn't really cost you anything either. There's no real detriment to installing that on your computer - 32 bit "compatibility" modes in Windows 7 64bit work flawlessly (at least, they have for me).

RAID on a laptop that you're not using for serious workstation performance is more or less pointless. Some will argue that there's higher performance to be had, but outside of a few benchmarks, you generally don't actually see that performance boost.

Now for SSD. I can say with some authority that if price is no object - YES (Looks like Sager uses the Intel SSD's which are one of the best ones available). EVERYTHING that I do with this machine (laptop with SSD) happens vastly faster than my desktop (7200 RPM WD Black - one of the "fastest" ones available). I can unequivocally say that the SSD was by far the best upgrade I did for my laptop (Envy 15 - has ATI 5830m gpu in it). The laptop boots to windows in 20 seconds. Games load quite a bit faster than they do on my desktop. Level loading times? Nearly a thing of the past. It's good enough that I'm seriously considering plunking down the 400+ dollars and buying one for my desktop (and money for me doesn't fall into the "no object" category). however, the cost of the upgrade of the SSD is 455 dollars. Buying a brand new one from a reputable online retailer (exact same model) is about 400 dollars. So if you want to save yourself a bit of money, plus get a "free" 320 gig, you can just buy that separate.

I'm an ATI/AMD fan, but it's true that the 480M is the fastest GPU available right now. In Sept/Oct, nvidia or ATI may have something better, but for right now, those Clevo's (and Sager's) are the fastest. The 480M does consume a lot of power. But if you're connected to AC most of the time, that doesn't really matter. It does get warm, but the cooling systems on the Clevo (and Sager) is well equipped to handle the heat.

One poster did point out that in cases where the game is "unplayable" (less than 30 fps), the 480M shows a higher increase in performance over the 5870 (going from 15 FPS on an ATI card to 20 FPS on the NVidia card is technically a boost in 33%, but 20 FPS is still "unplayable" IMO). NVidia has done some nice things (and marketing that to software developers) with their cards to help boost their card's performance in things that are not related to games. Those performance boosts also happen to help out games, though, so that's kind of a win. The reality is that things like PhysX are currently kind of "pointless" - what I mean is that there aren't that many games that take advantage of PhysX, and those that do don't really show off it's usefulness in gameplay. Also, if you enable PhysX in games, the Frame Rate of the action drops fairly significantly, frequently dipping dangerously close to unplayable levels. So it doesn't sound to me that PhysX is really anything useful ... yet. As for CUDA, there are some applications outside of gaming that can take advantage of that to significantly increase performance of the application. Many of those are things like the @home apps (Folding@home, SETI@home), and there are some video transcoding applications (badaboom maybe? basically resizing video to another format/size like for an iPod etc) that can take advantage of CUDA to decrease ripping and/or transcoding times. Apparently even Photoshop has some built in stuff to take advantage of NVidia cards to make image processing a bit faster.

I think that the NVidia is the "more future proof" card for now. However, just like the Intel i7 980X it's an exorbitant cost for that "more future proof"-iness.

 

My $0.02. Since you said price is really no object:

1) Go SSD. RAID not necessary really. And only 128GB? Why not one of those Corsair C300 256GB drives? Lots of room for storage. I'm assuming it comes with two drive bays, just put a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT in the other one for best of both worlds.

2) Get 8GB RAM since you wanted to be future-proof.

3) Windows 7 Pro will give you the backup software, BitLocker, and virtual XP, more or less.

 

If price is no object, build a desktop and buy a decent $1k laptop.

Also, 480M is no more future proof than a 5870M. I consider the exact opposite to be true.

480M, by all industry measures, is a failure and will only be sold in very limited quantities. It's a different architecture than Nvidia has ever used and it bombed badly which is why Nvidia jumped quickly away from GF100 to GF104, GF106. I expect very little focus by Nvidia on supporting this product properly.

Regardless, I think you've made up your mind that you want the Nvidia card. Good news with the D900F is that changing out the video card for a newer $1k Nvidia card in 2 years will be pretty easy.

 

The 5870 is just as future proof as the 480m.

You want high-performance gaming without a hiccup, but if the 480m has lower minimum fps (I'm not necessarily saying it does, but I strongly suspect), then you'll have fewer "hiccups" with a 5870.

And for goodness sake, instead of wasting money on the 840qm and GTX480m, invest in a good SSD! You'll notice that performance difference WAAAY before you'll notice either of the other upgrades!

 

Advice of the day IMO....bump down to a 740, unless you're benching there's no point to a 840. It's 740, or a cheap ES 920/940XM with overclocking features for me, no inbetween.

Also the 480 is not more "future" proof, neither the 480 nor the 5870 can run future based tesselated games at playable FPS right now.

 

I just finished my review of the NP8850 - it should be up within the next week.

And I don't know about any heat/power problems with the GTX 480M; both the Sager NP9285 and the NP8850 I tested with it ran extraordinarily cool - the GPU did not breach 70*C under full load for extended periods.
The GTX 480M certainly costs a pretty penny but is the fastest chip out there. In most games there won't be much of a difference between it and the HD 5870 though (at least not a difference you would notice).

Sager notebooks and newer Alienware notebooks have the best cooling systems.

 

well my budget is about $3000, so it's more than enough to be able to configure a nicely equipped NP8850. that budget is totally flexible as well, as long as the upgrade makes sense. i wouldn't mind dishin out a few extra bucks for an upgrade that i would actually use. the thing is that i don't see myself ever needing 6 or more GB of RAM. my current m1530 has 4GB of RAM and it's more than enough for what little multitasking i do. i wouldn't mind payin for 6GB of 1333Hz RAM, but 8GB is just bragging rights to me. as for the hard drive option, i just left it on the cheapest option because i will be upgrading to a 128GB solid state after i receive the laptop. i don't really need a big capacity in the laptop itself cuz i will have a 500GB external connected.

is this pure speculation? no offense but could u please provide some proof cuz the post sounds a bit biased. another thing to remember is that nvidia cards really get "better" over time cuz of all the driver updates.

 

Pure speculation, me and johnksss had an argument over this and we both came to the conclusion there are no min FPS empirical data to support this or reject this for either the 480 or 5870. The only conclusion we can come up with now is the 4870's which are essentially the same card as the 5870 offered a better FPS stability then the 280's. 480 is different architecture, could offer different stability results.

The whole driver thing is whitewash for mobile support, desktop world different story (noticeably better for NVIDIA there). Both companies are lacking for mobile support and if you go through each of the last NVIDIA WHQL threads there are problems with each and every one of them.

 

Not quite "pure" speculation, but based off the fact that the GTX285m is known to have worse minimum fps than the 5870. I'm not exactly a fanboy of either ATI or Nvidia (I just want both of them to produce the best damn GPUs they can!), but I am saying that there may be justification to save yourself $800 and use the cheaper GPU without sacrificing the notion that you have "the best" you can have (which is a bit of a vanity thing).

However, ATI is now consistently releasing new and better drivers (as of fairly recently), so ATI's GPUs also get "better" over time. Possibly at a higher rate, since Nvidia hasn't come out with anything better than 186.82, which is almost a year old.

 

I'm using 186.81 myself, I didnt think 186.82 was any better BTW

Also we were referring to empirical data of 480 vs. 5870 stability and min FPS. There is no direct comparison yet but yes the 5870 offers better stability/min FPS then the 285 as it stands now.

 

thanks for both posts. honestly, if i were to go the 5870 route, i'd probably go dual 5870's. i'm just a bit skeptic about going the dual card route cuz of all the headache stories i've read. i've never actually had any real experience with a dual card setup. could anyone (preferably someone that owns a dual card setup) speak up on how well current dual card setups work in everyday computing and gaming, and if games can even utilize both cards properly. there's no point in having 2 cards when they're not even bein used like how they were supposed to. that's another main reason why i'd rather just go with a powerful 1 GPU setup. i'd rather just use my laptop headache free and not have to deal with unnecessary headaches.

 

Because you're almost always going to have your laptop plugged in for gaming, any power consumption increase in the 480M is a wash, although if you want to take in probabilities, I'd wager $50 that, in a long-run test, the 480M would break down or see a critical error of some kind before the 5870. That's not based in any sources or fact. I'm not quite sure why you're so absolute on Crossfire if you went the ATI route; just to guarantee you won't be even slightly shorted by your ATI choice 2-3 years from now?

If I were in your position, I'd get the 5870 for near-identical performance (better in some games), and pick up some other upgrades. I doubt even down the line that you'll see much difference between the two GPUs; in my shopping hands, I'd pick up a good SSD, bump it up to 8gigs of RAM, and buy $200-300 worth of great PC games.

 

For performance-480m
For power/performance-mob 5870
Hope u get it now!

 

HD 5870 is the single best GPU out there IMHO. GTX 480m is a bit better, but that will probably give you more headache than Crossfire HD 5870's. You'll always have issues with Crossfire or SLI. If I were you, I'd go the HD 5870 route. Xfire is up to you obviously, but I wouldn't even bother.

 

I would probably agree with u that the 5870 is the better card overall cuz of the huge price difference. Now if the 480m were a few hundred bucks cheaper, we'd be havin a different discussion. I was honestly set on ordering a g73 a1 about a month ago, but decided to wait cuz of the popularity/back order. Plus, one of my buddies picked one up as well and I Dont wanna be carrying around the same laptop with him.

My main reasons that I want the np8850 are: 1) I'm honestly more comfortable with nvidia cards. 2) I like that I can customize the laptop. 3) I hear alot about sagers quality and performance, and would love to experience it first hand. 4) starcraft2, diablo3, and final fantasy mmo

 

I downgraded from dual 4870's to a single 5870 (Asus W90 to Asus G73) the weight/size of the laptop is dramatically different as is the power consumption.

I never had any real issues with crossfire but it scales differently with each game. So while one game may see nearly a 100% linear increase the next game may see 25% only.

Currently SC2 right now is not working with CF or SLI but that will soon change with new drivers.

For the money the G73 is so much better than everything else. My W90 was way more expensive than the G73 and I only lost maybe 30% performance in the GPU area but got more cpu power, more ram, more hdd space, lighter and nicer looking laptop.

For me the trade was worth it.

Most people that are looking at the uber expensive dual card powerhouse laptops should be trying to find a way to get a desktop instead if possible becuase what they are asking/wanting is simply so much easier to get and so much cheaper out of a desktop.

When it comes to laptop gaming there are limits thermally and size/weight that some people are just not willing to deal with and not to mention the price. There is a very large premium for those top end systems with dual cards, and the resell value is not very good if its more than say a year old while it will quickly become outdated.

For that reason spending a reasonable sum now on a good laptop and upgrading again in a year or two to another good laptop beats overspending now for the "best" laptop and having to hold onto it for 3 years due to the expense.

Of course if money is no issue then it does not matter for you, but thats a rare situation and even if I was a "money does not matter" kind of guy I still would not throw my money away.

I do miss that huge 18.4" screen a bit though

 

there's already been a few posts similar to this one and i can't even take them seriously. i don't see any reason for the 480M bashing except that it is alot higher priced. if the 480M and 5870 were similarly priced, i wonder if there would still be such biased, unproven comments. no offense (i am not bias towards nvidia or ATI), but alot of it just sounds like ATI-fanboy jibber jabber.

i could see where u'r comin from. going from a 18.4" dual GPU laptop to a single GPU 17" is a pretty big difference in weight and form factor. i am just lookin for the best performing GPU currently available, so my next laptop will have a 480M. simple as that.

 

Sounds like you've made up your mind, congrats. How about the SSD? Sticking with a 128GB? Be sure to share some benchmarks with all of us. Thanks.

 

yea, i'm pretty set on my next laptop having an SSD. honestly, i barely put anything on my laptop, so 128GB should be just fine. remember that i'll have most of my movies and music stored on my 500GB external. i haven't even really looked into SSD pricings yet. if i can find a reasonably priced 256GB SSD then i would definitely go with that. do u guys have suggestions or a preferred brand/model of SSD? i really have very little knowledge about SSD's.

do u guys know where's the cheapest, most reliable, source to purchase sager laptops from? are there any types of deals or coupons that will help reduce costs a bit?

 

You're better off buying an expensive SSD than going for a cheap one. You do actually see significant improvement in higher quality SSDs, while the cheapest stuff is barely faster than a 7200rpm spinning disk. Intel's G2 were among the very best a few months ago when I bought mine, and I can strongly recommend them. I find 160GB to be a sweet spot. Enough to install anything I want to run, but I've got enough externals and a 500GB Hitachi internal if I need storage space.

Cheapest Clevo laptops are going to be Sager from XoticPC, PowerNotebooks, or PCTorque, or unbranded Clevo from RJTech. There might be some student savings in the next couple weeks if that applies to you, but otherwise it's hard to find deals on these laptops (which are already reasonably priced by the resellers).