Some advice needed please

Hi everybody i am new here and i am new to mobile computing to , i have always prefered Desktop PC's because they performed much better than any mobile solution , but that is not the case anymore , some of the modern laptops are very powerfull and good value for money .

I am in a search for decent NB , my budget is 600 £ , preferable specs are
i7 processor 2630QM or better , 4 GB of DDR3 ram or more , 500 GB of HDD space or more , and some nice Graphics card will be nice but hard to find in this price range

After hours of searching i have found this machine which i believe is perfect for my needs and unbeatable value for the price ( i only wish it comes with GTX 560M )
it is ASUS X53SJ-SX148V from Buy ASUS X53SJ-SX148V | 15.6" LAPTOP - Laptops | Comet and for 599£ its a steal i think .

The problem is that i cannot find any more detailed specs about this mobile PC
I dont know how fast the HDD is ( i hope its 7200rpm one ) , i dont know how many HDD ports are in this PC - if it is possible to add one more drive , SSD for the OS to run faster ( i like to have fast boot up ) , i have been looking on the asus site but i cannot find anything there

Second question is about the Graphics , is it possible to upgrade G card on laptops ? I mean when i have more money i want to go for something faster that can run some games reasonably fast ( the GT 520 M is very slow ) i did some searching but it seems that no one is selling G cards for mobile PC's , i think that only OEM's are able to get them

Do you think that this is a good buy ?

Any input is welcomed , Thank you .

 

15.6" laptops generally don't have a spare HDD bay. 17" laptops may or may not. Many 15.6" optical bays can be converted to HDD bays with a drive caddy or other structure to hold it in place, although you may need a really short SATA extension to make that work. I don't know this particular model, so you might have more luck with the specific model in the ASUS subforum.

Graphics-wise, I think the GT520M is an entry level discrete graphics platform. Unless you have an MXM card, it's unlikely that you can upgrade it - off the top of my head, MXM oems include Sager/Clevo, MSI, and alienware. Asus does do MXM for some models, i think, but iirc, they're a bit odd.

 

Since you have hardware related questions i'll leave this thread open for answers to those. For what notebook to buy, you should ask in the Which Notebook Should I Buy section for the best possible answers. You'd be surprised at the number of options you can get over there.

Regarding your other questions:

Very few laptops have a second HDD bay, but they do exist, the Asus G53 is an example. Quite a few 17" laptops have two HDD bays, but not all of them and they do not always support RAID.

For the graphics card, only certain Alienware and Clevo models have the possibility of upgrading the video card. For the numbering scheme, usually laptop video cards are a notch under their desktop counterparts. For example, a HD6970m is roughly the same as a desktop 6870.

 

Thank you for your time and answears , and i am sorry for posting in the wrong section ( i was not sure where to post ) , this model has been a special order for Comet chain , that is why it is so hard to find any info about it , if it was possible to buy GCard separately i would just buy the cheaper version of this system Buy ASUS X53E-SX996V | 15.6" LAPTOP - Laptops | Comet and add the Gcard of my choice , but as it seems this is not possible , i am thinking about waiting a little longer and just buy better system with the ideal specs when i have more money .
Thank you .

Oh and 1 more question , is it possible to overclock the CPU and GPU on mobile systems ? someone has told me that they are blocked and you cannot change any setting not even switch the Multy threading off . ???

 

Generally, yes, you cannot overclock. However, you can assert some level of control with a program like Throttlestop. Check out http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

 

The video card is usually easily overclockable as long as it's not an Intel IGP. Overclocking Sandy Bridge CPUs is pretty much limited to the versions with unlocked multipliers though.

 

Thank you again for your help , greatly apreciated .

 

Update , bought a DELL XPS , ugly and not as good build quality but better components for better price , and performance is what i want .