9150 build advice

Hi all,

I am leaning towards getting a 9150, but I want to keep the cost as low as I can. The machine will be used for gaming, multimedia, web browsing, etc.

Below is the build I'm looking at (cut & pasted from Reflex, which is where I'll order from if I go this route - and I am considering the reflex hassle-free warranty - it is not included below).

I would be very grateful for advice re: the following: have I added anything that is unnecessary, and is there anything I'm missing that would be considered a must/should have?

Base config
1 x Sager NP9150 CA$1,403.23
Display
1 x 15.6" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080) CA$30.75
Video & Graphics Card
1 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 670MX GPU with 3GB GDDR5 Video Memory CA$0.00
CPU Processor
1 x 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.40GHz) CA$0.00
Thermal Compound
1 x IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU CA$35.88
Operating System
1 x Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition CA$82.00
Memory
1 x 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 2 X 4GB CA$0.00
Primary Hard Disk Drive
1 x 750GB 7200rpm SATA2 Hard Drive CA$20.50
Optical Drive
1 x 8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software CA$0.00
Wireless Network Card
1 x Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Combo Module CA$0.00
Primary Battery + AC Adapter
1 x Smart Li-ION Battery Pack + AC Adapter CA$0.00
Integrated Security Device
1 x Fingerprint Reader CA$0.00
Microsoft Office
1 x Microsoft Office Starter 2010 (Not included if you do not select Windows operating system) CA$0.00
Warranty
1 x Sager 1 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty CA$0.00
Remove Sager Branding
1 x Remove Branding CA$0.00

 

You can fill out the sticky and would help others help you. But shooting in the dark, I would definitely try and get a better GPU if I were you. For only 200 more you can get a top of the line GPU, AMD Radeon HD 7970M, It will be way better and last longer at higher rez if you can afford it. But if that’s your max then there is not much else to add on or change. Good luck on your purchase!!!

 

Agreed - the GPU is dependent also on what games you'll be playing. If you're going for extreme gaming, the 7970M will get you the better FPS, and you can count on being able to run just about anything on high - or at least medium-high - settings.

But if your gaming library won't be quite "extreme", then the 670MX will take good care of you. Even if it is, the 670MX is a pretty good card. It's just that the 7970M "top of the line" as Etrigin pointed out.

 

The price difference between the 7970M and the 680M is $195. How much difference is there between them performance wise, seems like a big price difference though.

 

Here's a breakdown and benchmark comparison, if you'd like the technical side of it:

Review GeForce GTX 680M vs. Radeon HD 7970M - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

When it comes to gaming, the benchmarks are in the 680M's favor.

 

Also that review is out of date, they didn't have the "improved" drivers in July, the cards are equal atm.

 

I would install 16GB RAM, 4 x 4GB. More memory is always good, and filling all 4 slots increases the speed at itself. If you can't afford an SSD, take a Seagate Momentus XT disk with 8GB flash cache.

 

Hi everyone,

I filled out the sticky a month ago but I have a clearer idea of what I'm looking for now. ATM I play WoW, but with this machine I will add current/new games to my library, and want to be able to run them smoothly on mid to high settings.

Re: the graphics card, I feel like the 670MX might do. I could sell a limb and add the Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX GPU with 4GB GDDR5 Video Memory +CA$102.50.. would that be worth it?

I think 8GB RAM will be plenty for me. I don't think I can swing an SSD.

Thanks to everyone for the helpful feedback. I have been overthinking this purchase for ages. It's driving me crazy.

 

You will want to get the best GPU you can. Even current games like Skyrim, BF 2, COD Black Ops 2, GW 2 wont run well on top settings on the 670MX. It will run good on high settings but not max.

 

For now maybe. I remember the time that 640kB was enough. Four years ago I bought a high-end Fujitsu laptop that supported 2GB max. according to Fujitsu. In fact it supported 4GB, and even if Intel never published this, it even supports 8GB. So in four years time I went from 2GB, to 4GB, and now to 8GB. I consider 8GB as the minimum for a modern PC, and I don't think the hunger for more memory will stop. If you fill all four DIMM slots with a 4GB Sodimm (incl. the two slots under the keyboard!) you will have the maximum 16GB your version of Windows supports. Keep in mind that memory is dead cheap at the moment. I installed 32GB in my notebook, it is the maximum supported by the hardware and I guess it will be sufficient for whatever bloatware we will see the coming years. You do need a more expensive version of Windows for 32GB.

I guessed that, and that is why I advised a hybrid Seagate Momentus XT HDD. In my view a good compromise between normal HDD and SSD in price and performance.

 

I've read a lot of mixed reviews on the Momentus. Some say it acts identical to having a small SSD set up for cache, which offers noticeably improved performance compared to a HDD; where as others say that the speed of the solid state technology that's integrated is moot, since data still has to be transferred over the bus between the slow platter and the solid state storage.

Some YouTube videos showcased better performance compared to even the velociraptor drives, although it could have been marketing. :confused2:

 

To be honest 4GB is what most people actually use, 8GB is more of a future proof for notebooks as it is.

The momentus is sensitive to usage cases, if the cache can learn your usage pattern and you read more than you write then it helps, otherwise you will see a smaller benefit.

 

Yes, it is comparable. However with the discrete SSD/HDD set up you pump the data into the SSD, then read the SSD and pump the data to the HDD. The latter has to be dome by the CPU, and it involves the SATA controllers on the main board. With a hybrid HDD the data is pumped into the cache (SSD part) of the HDD, and it is then written to the platters all by the processor in the HDD. No involvement of the mainboard and cpu.

Which bus? It is all happening inside the HDD logic, there is no bus involved.

That is very likely in many cases where burst of data are written to the disk, which is a very likely type of disk access. If you pump a continuous stream of data to a hybrid disk, then the flash cache will be saturated, and the performance will drop. In that case a velociraptor will be faster. However that is not a normal type of disk access.

 

The advantage of the intel technology is that a fully fledged SSD (even a lower performing 64GB part) is vastly superior to the cache of the momentus and has a much higher throughput. Also the momentus drive cannot be a write cache, it is read only so will never speed up write operations.

Generally speaking with a core i7 you are going to notice the throughput improvements over a tiny hit to CPU cycles.

 

I don't agree. When you have 8GB or more, you can see that you regularly use more then 4GB. A PC with 4GB memory will resolve to swapping in such a situation, and swapping is something you really don't want if you're after performance.

But a benefit never the less. It's not as good as an SSD, but a good compromise if you can't afford an SSD.

 

Windows 8 has really cut down on memory usage, with windows open along with various apps i'm using 1.8GB, that leaves 2.2gb for larger applications which is plenty for even most games.

With 8GB of ram that's leaving 6.2GB free for games which are mostly not even 64bit yet so can only use 4GB.

If you mostly write to the drive or take chunks of non related data off of it, the caching will never apply or be able to predict what you are doing, so for instance using it as a data drive could be useless, so understanding how it works lets you decide if it fits.

 

All depends on your gaming,but seems like a simple nice set up.. I been messing with different configurations between this the np9170 and couple msi bare bones.the gtx 670mx just seems like more than enough for my gaming, but I can either go upgrade video card or have an ssd drive. due to also using this laptop for my art work, I going for ssd+hdd than an upgraded gpu. because in all honestly it can easily handle wow and gw2,, which are only games I really play, do try other games from time to time, but the need for everything on ultra I never cared about..