CPU, RAM and HD choices

Hi

I'm researching a laptop to buy sometime within the next month and I've got three doubts I could use some help in settling. Any advice will be welcome

1) i7-3610QM vs i7-3720QM: is the upgrade worth ~180 USD?
2) 8 vs 16 GB DDR3-1600: is that worth ~70 USD?
3) is a 4GB mSATA cache worth ~55 USD?

Currently, I'm looking at a Clevo W110ER from a Portuguese reseller (for keyboard, electrical and customer support reasons), and my goal here is to get a laptop that's small, light and gaming-capable. I'm not looking for a desktop replacement; I travel a lot, so size and weight are primordial concerns, and I'm not *too* demanding on graphics either (and I tend to play RPGs and strategy games anyway), so I expect a 2gb GT650m should last me a good few years. This leads me to my final question:

4) do you think this laptop will last me 3-5 years or perhaps more? How important are those three upgrades in future-proofing the laptop? What would be your guess of which component is most likely to be horribly outdated in 3 years' time? (e.g., would it be something I could replace easily like RAM / HDD, something replaceable but not easily so like a GPU or something I have no hope of replacing like a CPU)?

Thanks for any help you may be able to give me

 

The 3720QM won't help much for gaming or most other factors to be honest, unless you do a lot of CPU hungry tasks like video encoding, file compression, etc. You're better off putting that money towards an SSD.

16GB really won't help matters much either, again, unless you have applications or games that are RAM hungry. It's so cheap though it's up to you, it won't hurt anything.

I am thinking you mean 40GB mSATA cache? It will help accelerate your data, but you're better off going with an SSD IMHO.

Everything is easily accessible, just pop off the bottom panel and you have access to everything. Take a few minutes and read all the info on this laptop in the Sager/Clevo section, and possibly my review.

3-5 years for a gaming laptop is a stretch for any laptop. The 650m is a good GPU but in 2-3 years will likely struggle with newer game titles. Also, keep in mind the power brick is typically a 120W with the W110ER, so it's fairly big, and not as travel friendly as the typical 65W bricks you see.

Also take a peek at this thread, maybe give you some ideas: http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...-11-14-notebooks-gaming-worth-compendium.html

 

HTWingNut summarized it well. The 3720QM imho is completely useless. The 3820 is much more useful because it supports Vt-d which requires a faster processor and more RAM.
As said above, if you need to do Vt-d then get more RAM. Else even 8GB is overkill for most applications.
The mSATA cache is completely useless imo. For a few dollars more you can get an entire primary SSD.

Also, "last" depends on what you mean. Do you want to game on it on max for 3-5 years? No laptop will do that. Crossfire 7970m 3 years may be. 4, most probably no. If you want it to endure until then, that depends on how you use it.

 

Number 3 is the only one that I would go for if money is short

 

The 3720 also supports Vt-d. Maybe you were trying to say the 3820 is useless because it doesn't offer anything over the 3720 but an extra 100mhz?

I agree that 8gb is sufficient for average users, but I suppose for some people who can afford the upgrade and just want to not worry about having to add more later on, getting 16gb may make sense to them.

 

OK... so consensus seems to be:

1) ixnay on the 3720qm; misterhobbs, how important is Vt-d if I want to run a simple Linux VM? Nothing fancy, I just like to tinker with Linux every now and then.

2) likewise on the RAM; I believe 8gb is standard in gaming systems nowadays, how long do you guys think it'll take before we move on to 16gb? If it's anything over 2 years I'll hold off for now.

3) on mSATA, I've been snooping around a little more and it seems it's not really worth it. How much of an improvement is a full on SSD? Does it have a noticeable impact on general usage, gaming and light simulation (e.g., simple Matlab stuff)?

As for longevity, I don't expect to be gaming at the highest settings in 3 years' time, not by a long shot. I'll be perfectly happy with fluid middle-of-the-range settings at 1366x768. Besides, I don't even play shooters - RPGs, RTSs, a little Football Manager - and I tend to stick with games longer than most, so I'm not a very demanding gamer graphics-wise

Thanks for all the help!

 

"No" to the first 3, none of those would be "worth it" and even if you wanted the upgrades later down the track (except for the CPU, but that upgrade is negligible) for cheaper.

A laptop, especially one used for gaming, isn't going to realistically last you more than 3 years. For one the GPU will be the first to become outdated, and secondly the more heat simply means the components as a whole will degenerate slightly faster than a laptop running off an IGPU for remedial tasks. If we were talking a Sager/Alienware with almost every component being upgradable then sure the option is always there, but it won't be cost effective anyway. You're always better off planning for no more than 3 years before it either starts having issues, or you replace it with something better.

 

Well, I'll just have to live with the 3 year lifespan then it seems. It's not the end of the world

Thanks for all the help guys!

 

People typically get confused about what VT-d is. If you need it you would know, basically. You can run virtual machines perfeclty fine without it. VT-d just allows the VM to directly access the hard system resources, and that's typically used for hardware/software development scenarios.

 

Ah OK. That appeals to the computer geek in me, but realistically speaking, I'm not going to have time to tinker with that any time soon.

Thanks!