Buying a new laptop

Hello all,

I'm a college student that will (hopefully) be entering graduate school next year. I've run my old macbook pro into the ground and am in the market for a new machine. I'm a computer engineering major with a focus in cyber security and as such I need a machine that can launch a number of virtual machines for malware analysis. I also am a bit of a gamer on the side so something with a lil graphics power is a bonus.

The machines that have caught my eye recently are both Malibal and Mythlogic's builds. I don't want to start a debate between the two, already read through a number of pages on that dedicated thread. It seems like the consensus is they're both pretty spot on, although many people have individual leanings.

Anyway, given what I'm planning on using it for I was wondering if you guys could offer some advice on what to get and what isn't worth it. I want to keep the price under 1500, preferable right around 1000. Here's generally what I'm thinking right now:


For either the Mythlogic Pollux1512 or the Malibal Lotus P150EM:
Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.4-3.4GHz
(8GB) 8192MB, PC3-12800/1600MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M (Kepler) 1GB GDDR5
500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA 300
Intel® 6300 Ultimate-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN Card
IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU

I'm curious on peoples thoughts on the onboard networking card - whether or not it is worth upgrading. I'm also planning on adding an SSD on my own since the prices of SSDs through both providers are a bit high for me.

Thanks in advance!

 

Hey,

Overall it looks good, the 6300 is a really really good card, nice and stable and drivers are top notch. So I would personally keep it, especially if you are going to be more work rather than play on it
For the SSD you can always just send us whatever SSD you get and we'll include it in your build =) Thats not a problem.

thanks!

 

Nice build for that price but consider the price of an SSD. As above you could always upgrade later and use the mechanical for storage but it makes a huge difference in terms of boot and load times bigger than any other upgrade for general usage.

Best to look for an external seller however as SSD are dropping in price now Amazon do some very cheap deals.

 

Thanks for the quick response! That is a very attractive option, is there any additional cost for that?

Thanks for the advice, I've heard they speed things up quite a bit -- I would definitely like to get one.

 

For all the parts you send to us we just charge $20 (So if you send us a drive its $20, if you send us 2 drives, some memory etc.. its $20) just to cover the installation and testing of the components etc. Especially with drives they sometimes have compatibility issues.