Been awhile, upgrading from a Clevo900C

Hey guys, I've had my Clevo900c(bought from PC Microworks ) and I'm looking to research for an upgrade. I'm happy with Clevo's products and with little to no issues (although there is a strange issue where sometimes the bios wont come up and the wireless light is amber but wont turn green requiring a reboot to fix). Here the specs on my machine:

Core2Duo 2.6ghz cpu
Nvidia 7950gtx video
4GB Ram
Windows XP (upgraded to 7)

My intended use for my current and future machine will be to have a portable (relatively) platform for gaming (mostly fight simulators such s DCS Blackshark, Warthog(when released), and FSX). Since flight sims require a high amount of CPU horsepower, I am seeking an upgrade with a desktop processor.

I'm currently looking at the Sager NP9285 (Clevo 900F) with the following configuration:

Core i7-930 2.6ghz
Nvidia M285gtx
6bg ram

I got a couple questions about the configuration. First off, for the price difference, is it worth sticking with the M285GTX than going +$435 for the 480 fermi? I read a lot about how femi just eats power and efficiency compared to ATI's 5870. I see an average increase of 15fps in most games compared to the m285 so unless there are hidden benefits to getting the 480 please let me know.

Second, would it be possible for Clevo to eventually support AIT video cards or is the current upgrade standard proprietary to Nvida chipsets?

Third, are there any inherent hardware issues with the 900F? Since the 900C is striking similar, I'm confident that the frame can handle the heat the F is going to crank out.

Lastly, I'll be ordering from Xotic PC. I've heard of them for quite a while and I do plan on purchasing a two year warranty. Are you pleased with their customer service and resolving hardware failures that are covered in the warranty?


If there are better or more efficient priced notebooks available for my requirements, let me know. I know Asus has been cranking out some pretty powerful notebooks for under 2 grand but AFAIK Clevo only as desktop CPUs running in their rigs.

Thanks guys.

 

If you can wait a few more months, the Clevo X7200 will hopefully have some solid info released about it. It is rumored to be an X58 version of the D900C; insane desktop CPU + dual top-end GPUs. That can be summed up as: Core i7 980X @ 3.33GHz x12 (6 physical cores -- 12 processing threads) + 2x GTX 480M SLi. Ridiculous.

Back on topic: A GTX 285M isn't really future proofing considering DX11 is not a joke. I know you can upgrade down the road, but laptop GPUs are so expensive that it might not be worth it at the time. You should try to go for a GTX 480M immediately.

 

Don't buy a last gen video card. You don't want to spend over 2,000 dollars on a computer that's outdated from the moment you buy it. DX11 is very cool plus next gen cards like the 5870m and GTX 480m offer a lot more horsepower than the 285. If I were you I'd buy that machine with the GTX 480m.

 

Both great points. The last question I'd like understand more is wether to go with a mobile or full on desktop i7 processor and does the extra 5-600 dollars justify the performance boost?

 

A desktop i7 CPU is leaps and bounds ahead of a mobile i7 CPU. Main reason being that all 8 threads of an i7 (desktop) run at very high speeds (i7 930 is like ~3.0GHz x8 when turbo boosted), whereas an i7 (mobile) would run at a lower frequency across 8 threads (i7 940-XM is ~2.0GHz x8 at stock).

It all varies on what you desire the CPU power for.