Upgraded hard drive, Recovery DVD & purchasing questions

If you replace the stock drive on a dv9000t (single-drive) with a new one, can the oem Recovery DVD be used to reinstall Vista on it?

I'm thinking about ordering the lappy with the cheapest drive (80GB), and then swapping it with a 7200rpm one as soon as I get the dv9000t from HP (without even running the initial setup/activation on the factory drive). Is this doable?

I also plan to put in 3GB of ram, a 1GB DDR2-667 stick and a 2GB DDR2-667 stick (both Patriot). This will be on 32bit Home Premium. Since the latest BIOS update adds support for 4GB of ram (on 64bit os), I assume the 3GB will work fine on my system?

After going back and forth many days deciding between dv9000t/dv9500t/dv9000z, I've figured that the dv9000t is probably more "bang for the buck". I'm looking at this configuration:

I was comparing it against this dv9500t configuration:

Any games I play are pretty dated and nothing an X200M can't handle, but I'd guess that the Go 7600 is much more powerful than the 8400M GS, cheaper in configuration, and therefore the "better" buy. I would also assume that the differences between the T7200 & T7300 are basically negligible other than FSB.

The dv9000t appears to have a minor build date advantage as well, as I guess everybody is now buying the dv9500t instead.

Does my overall plan sound OK? This should be a rather large performance step up from my budget V5000z in sig, and the cost looks reasonable. I'm thinking I should jump on it before the $200 coupon expires.........

Thanks,

Mike

 

It is not true that the GeForce Go 7600 is more powerful than the 8400M GS.

The new Santa Rosa line was designed to provide greater battery life as well as wireless connection. I would get the DV9500T because of its "future-proof" hardware such as the CPU and DX10 graphics card.

 

I can't say from experience (gaming or otherwise), but the Go 7600 appears to score 400 points more in 3DMark06 http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html I'm not sure if that is a big difference or not, but it is up higher on the chart than the 8400M GS. Granted, I realize synthetic benches are not the most accurate for determining gaming performance..........

I'm going to be using this unit primarily as a desktop, so having a few extra minutes of battery life is not much of a concern. In fact, I was debating dropping the high-capacity battery for the regular one to save $40.

As for the new WLAN, my Verizon modem won't work with Wireless N anyway (only G). I think this would negate any advantage of the new Intel wireless.

I can see Socket P being more "future-proof" in general, but I doubt HP will give us much of an upgrade path beyond the T7500 (which would require a BIOS update and better heatsink). IMO

If we were talking about a scratch-built desktop, I'd definitely see the reason to pick the newer platform for the upgradeability. In a HP notebook, Santa Rosa may be nearly as limited as Napa in that respect.

 

Update: Well, it looks like the decision was made for me, as the dv9000t has disappeared from HP Shopping.

Oddly, the dv9500t configuration from above is a little cheaper today:

The build date has moved up 3 days earlier as well.

 

You can probably skip on the recovery DVD since you can burn it yourself and isnt really worth paying $19. Other than that your config looks good.