HP Dv7TQE options questions

Looking at HP Dv7tqe and I have questions about various options and performance:

$1,025.00 (coupon code NBDQ7556)

Planned options: i7-2670QM (2.2 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) 1GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7690M GDDR5 8GB DDR3 750GB 7200 rpm 9 Cell Lithium Ion 17.3-inch Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080) Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner

1) What is your budget? 1k but thinking cheaper is better
2) What size notebook would you prefer? want 17" for dual HDD slots
3) Where will you buying this notebook? USA
5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed? NO
6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Gaming, Browsing, multitasking work at home, HD movies, HTPC to 1080p on second hdtv in bedroom
7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both? Portable desktop
8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games? Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, WOW
9) How many hours of battery life do you need? AMAP
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1) one of the purposes of going with a HP 17" screen is this is cheapest route I found to cost effective DIY SSD addon moving the standard drive to the second bay. Time is precious. Sometimes I have only a few minutes to jump on and need to get as much done in those minutes rather than waiting for bloatware to load.

so question 2) what is the point of going to a big beautiful 17" screen without 1080p right? Or should I save the $150 bucks?

But then aren't I facing slower 1080p gaming performance with slower than a real gaming gpu (7690M)? I think the sweet spot there is about 1366x768 native screen res right?

And doesnt taking a native 1080p and dropping it to (1366x768) create in game screen resolution issues on borders? Or do I have the same performance levels on 1080p screen at lower settings, then with the base 1600x900 screen?

2a) If I go with a lower resolution screen can I still drive a 1080p HDTV screen via hdmi at 1080p -- say playing a 1080p movie and still have it look right?

Thanks in advance!

 

Get the 1920x1080 display. The 1600x900 display is quite poor both in terms of how big onscreen it makes things and how poor the image quality is (contrast), and games aren't a good reason to downgrade your display.

To pseudo-quote a previous post of mine: One does not need to be too concerned with native-resolution game performance. Games should not be a reason to choose a 17.3" 1600x900 display instead of a 17.3" 1920x1080 display. It is a common but unfortunate misconception. Despite the blur that results from running in a non-native resolution, the inherently better contrast and overall image quality of 17.3" 1920x1080 displays tends to outweigh that and typically results in games looking better running on the 1920x1080 displays in 1600x900 (or 1366x768) non-native resolution than they'd look running on 17.3" 1600x900 displays in native resolution. The performance of running a game in 1600x900 non-native resolution on a 1920x1080 display is identical to that of running a game in native resolution on a 1600x900 screen.

Regardless of image quality, the 1920x1080 display is much more multitasking-friendly for this size of screen. 1600x900 is a rather poor resolution for a screen this large.

If you for some reason or another need to save money, what you should do is downgrade the processor by going with the dual-core model DV7t. The processor tends to be the least important out of the CPU/GPU/Screen combo because it tends to make the least overall difference. Most games, when running on laptop hardware, are GPU-bottlenecked instead of CPU-bottlenecked, so throwing CPU-upgrades into the mix won't really do much in many cases.

I don't recommend 17.3" 1600x900 displays to anyone who has a budget to get something better and doesn't need large text for eyesight reasons.

 

Thanks for the information... sorry for making you post it again, I couldn't for the life of me find it through a search.

So going with the 1080p screen, and the AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7690M am I correct in assuming that regardless of the marketing hype behind the 2 gig card, going with the same GPU but with 2 gig is generally a waste of money as the GPU will hit its own internal bottlenecks before the extra memory really has any impact, as my most demanding use of the GPU will be gaming or maybe multitasking and not photo editting or CAD.

Also now I see that a hybrid hd is available for like $50 -- worth the money for relatively new technology? Is it really worth the money if I was going to add a second SSD later? Or would it make more sense to spend extra $50 now on a hybrid and wait 6 mos to add a straight SSD drive later to and reap the savings of falling price per gig on SSD drives?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

 

At a 1k budget and if you don't mind more bulky.
You can consider "flavor of the month" MSI Force 1761 . You get i7/570m/1080p for 1k-1.1k.

 

the Nvidia 570m interests me for 1.1K? Did I miss a coupon? can seem to find it for that price with a similar config above....do you have a link?

 

FORCE 1761 / MSI 1761 - XOTIC PC

 

Checked the link and this is what I found:

base price is under 1K with 3% discount but it is for I5 2.4 not I7 2.2, also what I believe is an inferior 1080p screen, no blu-ray, a slower smaller HD, shorter warranty, and No OS.

The OS alone adds over $100. But it does have a Nvidia 570m which I believe is higher scoring than the HD 7690M and i dont know what the cost comparison is there.

Thanks for passing the information along, and your help is appreciated.

 

Pulled the trigger last night on the DV7T -- Played with a dv7 and a dv6 system over the weekend and decided that I didn't need the I7 for the price/ and my needs. Got the following for only $759 with coupon ($450.00 Coupon CAR3577)

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2450M Processor (2.5 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.1 GHz)
• 1GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7690M GDDR5 Discrete Graphics(TM) [HDMI, VGA]
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 750GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• Microsoft(R) Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word/Excel(R) only, No PowerPoint(R)/Outlook(R)
• FREE Upgrade to Norton Internet Security(TM) 2012 - 15 Months Subscription (activation required)
• 30% OFF 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 17.3-inch diagonal Full HD Anti-glare LED-backlit Display (1920 x 1080)
• SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth(R)
• Standard Keyboard with numeric keypad
• 2 year limited warranty included

Thanks for all your input!

I will report back any information I find out on it!