About to buy a P150HM from Malibal in the next couple days...

So I've decided to buy from Malibal after a few weeks of searching, but just had a couple questions.. First of all, how's my build looking for gaming(Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, ArchAge, maybe Guild Wars 2)?

Promotions: $125 Off Configurations Over $1500
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Display: 15.6" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED AUO B156HW01 V.7 95% NTSC Glossy Display
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: AMD® Radeon HD 6990M 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA 300
Optical Drive Bay: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 7 Home Premium; 64-bit
Wireless: Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1102 802.11A/B/G/N LAN Card
Cooling: Stock OEM Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU

Price: $1,569

Also, I was wondering what's up with the pricing on the website.. it before I save the quote or add to cart, the price is $1,521.93, but changes to the above price afterwards... weird!

Finally, I was wondering if it's possible to have the 8gb of RAM removed and just not include any, since I already have some of my own from newegg a while ago(it's compatible with the laptop). How much money would that even save me?

Thanks for any help and I'm excited to replace my laptop!!!

 

That build will have no problem running any of those games.

Regarding the price discrepancy, the price is $1569. That $1521.93 comes from their 3% cash discount, if you pay by bank wire or some other form of immediate payment (as opposed to paying with a credit card). Talk to your reseller about the details.

I'm not sure if any retailers will sell you the laptop without any RAM; you'll need to ask around.

Other options you could look into if you have the budget are an SSD+HDD combo instead of an optical drive, or the IC Diamond thermal paste.

 

For gaming, that build looks solid. The 6990 is a beast and the 2630QM processor is more than enough for any games. The only recommendation I have is considering a thermal paste upgrade (or doing it yourself) as the 6990m does run warmer than most. An SSD is always a great performance bump as well.

The pricing discrepancy is as supralover noted. The bigger price listed in configuration is with the cash discount in effect. The smaller price listed with it is the non-cash discount price.

As for RAM, feel free to open a ticket on our site with your request

 

Ahh, gotcha. I guess that 3% discount isn't too much to really be worried about based on the laptops price... still hope I can get someone to take off the ram though . Also, is it worth getting rid of the optical drive? I mean I do use dvds to install things(games, windows if needed... well that's it lol) and to burn movies/other stuff on. Is there a benefit to the SSD+HDD? I currently have a 120gb SSD drive so I was planning on using the included one as an external one.

Edit: Completely missed your post, Malibal #2. I might have to upgrade the thermal paste then! Just wondering, does Malibal put the paste on before shipping? I assumed that the paste was just included with the laptop for the buyer to adhere(is this the right word? I can't think of anything else lmao).

Also, great! Definitely gonna have to make a ticket then!

 

K

Optical drives are useless... everything can be done with USB media these days.
there is a huge benefit to doing ssd primary + hdd storage with the odd caddy... ssd makes your os + other installed apps super fast
MALIBAL would apply the paste, but tbh it's a gigantic ripoff if you have basic DIY skill... $40 is enough to buy 5 tubes of ic diamond

 

Yeah I initially didn't add it because I saw it was cheaper on other sites.. I've just never opened a laptop other than the hard drive enclosure on my current one, so I just don't want to screw anything up, lol.

 

If you are getting the 6990M card, then you will definitely want to upgrade to the ICD7, because it will make an importance difference in your temps. Also, we apply the ICD7 on the CPU and GPU for you.

 

As most of the professional peeps have already mentioned, the thermal paste upgrade is completely worth it, especially with the 6990 (which is what I'm getting).

As for the optical drive, I opted to get an empty hard drive caddy. Like a couple have said the optical drive is basically useless. If you use windows it can be installed via usb now. All major Linux distributions can be installed via usb. Most games are downloadable, et cetera. So get the 500gb 7200rom hd and the caddy for the second drive. When you get it, purchase an SSD and swap the two drives, placing the SSD in the main slot and move the 500gb one to the optical drive bay. Just something to consider.

And MALIBAL does allow a laptop to ship ram-less. I read one of their responses the other day. I believe the post mentioned $45 off or something like that. At that rate, I would just stick with the 8gb config and upgrade when you need to to 12 or 16. Purchasing 8gb of ram online separately after shipping, taxes and all will be pretty close to the $45. Just a thought.

But otherwise I think this is a great choice. hint hint I got one too!

Btw. Thanks MALIBAL for shipping my stuff yesterday!

 

The ramless was my post, and it was indeed $45 off from MALIBAL, which makes no sense to get because the best ram(from a cost standpoint) on newegg is $45 shipped for 2x4gb.

I would urge anyone to self apply the thermal paste. You WILL be disassembling your computer in the future, so it's best to get cozy with it right now. And like I said... it costs 5 tubes of ICD7 for the builders to do it... with 5 tubes, you could paste 50 laptops. Basic assembly/Disassembly and Thermal paste application skills are fundamental in the world of computers, really.

 

Yeah I just recently checked out newegg for ram and it's that price, I was hoping I'd get a better discount if I took the ram out, oh well. I'm gonna have to check out a guide or something to applying the paste real quick before I decide to buy a laptop I think; if it's pretty straightforward I'll just apply it myself.

Still unsure of the optical drive.. It would kind of suck if a game I wanted to play wasn't downloadable, and I have a bunch of my own games that my family has bought me that I don't know if I could download and play since theyre hooked up to steam, etc accounts(Fear 2, Borderlands, Crysis 2)... extra storage would be nice but it's a hard choice since I sometimes watch/burn movies... but my 120gb SSD drive is quite small for storage.. ugh!

Also, should I be worried about overheating at all with the 6990? A lot of people seem to be saying that I just about need the ICD7 paste for it since it has higher temps.

 

Applying thermal paste is analogous to opening a bread bag, taking a slice out, and slapping some butter on

Optical drives are 100% useless unless you have a lot of DVDs or Audio CDs that you want to rip to your computer(which could be done on a desktop). I haven't bought a physical game in something like 5 years since the dawn of steam, fast internet, and E-copys.

The point is that you put your productivity/OS on the SSD and a couple of priority games(games where your loading time will make a big difference), and other less important things on a large HDD.
I can't comment on the 6990 from a personal standpoint(seeing as I don't have mine yet), but from what I've read... as long as you arn't buying this computer to run furmark, it should be fine with even stock paste... the IC diamond just gives you a bit headroom for overclocking/peace of mind.

 

I've been trying figure out my configuration for a P150HM the past few days... did a little cost analysis and this is what I came up for the optical drive.

In the end I know I want to run an SSD as a boot drive with a second larger drive for data... that requires that I have a HD Caddy. I would also like to have the ability to read/write disks... which means I need a optical drive. I'd be okay with having an external enclosure for the dvd... I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. Here's what I figured...

If you order a P150HM from Malibal with an optical drive... you could pick up a HD Caddy from Amazon and and external Laptop DVD enclosure. You'd have to pull the Optical drive from the laptop and install the HD caddy... total cost for this is around 25 bucks.
$15 caddy - Amazon.com: NEW SATA 2nd HDD caddy for 12.7mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM: Electronics
$10 external dvd case - Amazon.com: USB2.0 Slim DVD / CD RW Burner External Enclosure Caddy Case with SATA Connetor For all Laptop Notebook dvd cd burner[ Case only!! Drive is not included !!]: Electronics


On the other hand.. if you order an HD caddy from Malibal with no optical drive... You'll have to purchase an external DVD drive... I found a decently reviewed samsung on newegg for 33 bucks... plus the upgrade cost of the hd caddy at 15... for a total of 48 bucks.

The second option is a little more expensive... but you won't have to do as much work.

For me... I'm going to go with option 2. $20 is worth my time not to deal with the hassle of getting all the parts and doing the work.

 

That's what I did and suggest

But if you build on the p150hm-s1 config, you can get the hd caddy for -$65 coming from the "6X Blu-ray Reader 8X DVD+/-R DL Super-Multi Drive" (or -$15 from the 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive). So i saved $65 bucks. Kinda nice. The s1 is -$15, but when you configure the regular priced p150hm the caddy is +$15 (coming from the 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive). But I don't understand the logic behind that. MALIBAL, care to chime in?

 

Well if it's that easy to do it, I might as well just do it myself lmao. I guess I could just use Steam and other game download programs to download stuff, it's usually faster anyways. And yeah I'd put my music(like 25-30gb) on the 2nd hard drive, currently it takes up a huge portion of my SSD which really limits me when I install a couple larger games(trial of WoW cataclysm was HUGE, like 24gb!).

@Finges - Yeah I think I'd go with the 2nd option as well, easier/quicker to do. I didn't even think of an external DVD drive... do you just plug it in via USB and use it as an optical drive for just about anything?

 

Funny thing about the options is that there really is no difference between the two... except MAYBE the caddy that you buy won't fit.
Why? Because you have to open up the bay to mount to hard drive anyways... and it's only one screw to take a disk drive out(as I recall). I went with the caddy because I am under the belief that I don't need a disk drive at all.

 

Yeah I looked it up real quick online and figured there's a chance the hard drive wouldn't fit... I just saw a few pictures of the hard drive being inserted. I'd rather not have to send it back, wait for another to ship, and THEN install it

Edit: although I'm guessing it's somewhat rare that it wouldn't fit unless I bought the wrong one in the first place

 

Yep... Most of the External DVD drives require you plug it into 2 powered USB plugs or they come with a wall wort/PS. You could shell out a little more and get an external Blu-ray drive... which is actually what I'll do in the end.

 

Ahh well that's cool at least. I doubt I'd go for a blu-ray, don't really have any intentions of buying BD any time soon

 

I want a p150hm

 

me too lol.

anyone know when the current $125 off $1500 or more promotion is going to end? i wanna make sure i buy before then

 

When I asked MALIBAL, they said they had no planned end date yet.

 

Well that's great! I wanted to make sure I didn't spend just about all the money I had right now on a laptop, lol.

 

It's kinda a vacuum hole for money. I spent $55 more on my laptop as a result of the $125 savings... so in the end they get more money from me(got caddy, upgraded cpu, got bigfoot card) XD

 

Yeah I decided to upgrade to the 6990m mainly because of the current sale, I figured I might as well

 

I got the same sort of response,

rep- "Hi we have no expiration date on this deal as of now, it should be could for at least a couple week". I should have asked what a couple meant