Can any other Vendor beat this mini-barebones setup? (RJTECH)

I plan on purchasing the M860TU without an operating system, RAM, and the 9800M GTS rather than the GT (or the least expensive 256-bit one available). I'm just curious as to why most resellers don't allow potential customers to get rid of the operating system and RAM in their config? What are they afraid of ? Overpriced components perhaps? (*cough -Eurocom!*.. errm ...erm.. )

Note, that same config is $1880 USD from Eurocom w/RAM & no operating system... and $1,754.02 USD from ProStar w/RAM and their cheapest version of Vista. So I'm thinking ProStar will be in that $1575 range as well without the RAM & operating system.

Questions:
(1) No Artic Silver thermal compound from RJTech,-I think... what would be the result of this?

(2) The institution I attend offers Vista for as low as $80 CAD, but I'm pretty sure this its 32bit (or else I wil seriously buy them up under different aliases, and ship them out through ebay!....), what does this mean for me? in terms of gaming? I only plan on buying 2GB of DDR3 from ncix anyways ($80 CAD), what else am I missing out on in terms of 32-bit rather than 64 to start? Any significant performance issues?

(3) 250GB 5400rpm vs 320GB 5400rpm, from RJTech, +$50? I didn't even use up 80GB's of memory on my semi-old gaming desktop (seriously, do you? )

(4) Intel Turbo Memory 2, waste of time?

(5) Anything from ATI before November/early December? I'd hate to pull the trigger prematurely... I'm really just looking for a 256-bit GPU in a 15.4" notebook.

The Canadian Dollar is trading at $0.940249. Lets hope it picks up just for a little while

 

Have you checked XoticPC?

and you can acutally contact Eurocom (phone is best) to negotiate the price to near another vendor's prices for the same system.

 

no 9800gts yet (i think)

 

sager will not let their resellers announce cheaper price.....you have to call and try to negotiate the price..........but darksmileysystems always give the best price...........
otherwise try another vendor like prostar.........lynnbay,leadcomp,mgepconline, they will give you best ever price you can get.........

 

You're not likely to get a bidding session going online like that. If you want to see who'll pricematch on that, call them up directly - not email, telephone - and ask; also, if you can, ask to speak to the owner - Justin@xoticpc, Donald Stratton at PNB, Mark at K|N, Sean at DarkSmiley Systems, etc.... (I think it's John Shore at Eurocom, but I don't know for sure).

 

Yuck, Prostar requires you to take 2 sticks of RAM and an OS? Meh.

 

Yeah, of course I will call them up to get quotes when I'm ready to put through an order, but no one has the answer to my 5 measily preliminary questions?

well, 6 questions now: does darksmiley systems deliver to Canada. If they don't I could always take a trip down to NY, withdraw the cash from my Visa, and have the laptop shipped to a buddies house, put it under my seat on the way back up, no 13% taxes , severe shipping costs . But gas prices may negate that advantage anyways ...

- of course I would call and get quotes people....

 

No, no, that might not be the case.

 

A little bit of research would have found most of those answers for you:

(1) You ought to verify whether or not RJTech does, or does not, use a thermal compound like arctic silver before assuming either way; however, without a well-applied thermal compound such as arctic silver, you'll get heat issues with your CPU/GPUs. The standard stuff that comes from the factory is probably ok for websurfing & doc editing, but not for serious gaming.

(2) If you buy from your institution, whether 64 or 32 bit, you'll get an academic license, that may, or may not, require you to uninstall the OS once you leave the institution, may not be transferrable, and for which you'll only get support from the institution itself, hence the low price. I'd read the fine print on that offer before accepting it. Also, since those are academic licenses, you most definitely will not legally be able to obtain multiple copies and resell them.

(3) As far as I know, no one builds a hard drive that operates at 5,200rpm - it's either 5,400rpm or 4,200rpm, or 7,200rpm. Assuming you were really looking at 5,400rpm drives, the 320GB would be the better bet, since it has performance almost equal to some of the 7,200rpm drives (because it uses three smaller disks instead of two larger disks). With hdds, generally the more space the better; you'll end up using it one way or the other.

(4) From the reports on other threads in this forum (search), Intel Turbo Memory seems to be more worthwhile than its predecessor was. Look for posts by emike09 as he's had something worthwhile to say on the topic.

(5) Got a crystal ball? No; neither do the rest of us. If it ain't out yet, assume whatever does come out won't work for you, until/unless ATi says differently (even then, Доверяй, но проверяй).

Howdja like them ..apples?

 

Justin is the owner of XoticPC? I thought it was someone else.

 

As far as I know, Justin Nolte is the owner, or at least an owner, of xoticpc - his name shows up as the incorporator on the articles of formation filed for xoticpc, LLC filed with the Nebraska Secretary of State (doesn't necessarily mean he's the owner, but given the circumstances, it's good circumstantial evidence that supports the proposition).

 

I am not sure, here's what I've read 5 months ago.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller4996-p2-s1-d1.html

 

That may be because there are two "Justin"s at XoticPC, Justin Nolte, aka Justin@Xoticpc, and Justin W., aka [email protected].

 

Yes, we do ship to Canada. For a quote and/or more information, please email me directly.

Shane at Dark Smiley Systems

 

Thanks very much, btw, I do enough research these days, I just wanted to know if anyone had the answers off the top of their heads. Great info on those operating systems, I'll check that out.

Nice, when do you guys expect to receive the 9800M GTS cards?

 

Ooops! My apologies! To borrow a turn from Ashveratu:

 

Sorry, but the GTS cards are no longer available - I must have misread your original post, thinking you meant GT *inserts chimp picture above*. I'd also recommend to call up RJ Tech to see if they still stock them, because the only way this could be is if they were buying the 9800M GTS extra or not buying the barebones from Sager and instead from another Clevo distributor.

Don't worry about it

 

Well I think Pro-Star & Eurocom got shipments of them... I'll give em' a call.

 

Probably the best idea.

 

R and J tech is a clevo barebone reseller. If Eurocom and Prostar have the parts R and J tech has them also.

 

R&J Tech doesn't buy the laptops directly from Clevo, they buy them through Sager - the same place through which I get my barebones. Therefore, just because Eurocom and Prostar have the GTS doesn't mean that R&J Tech does, unless they buy them separately and install them.

 

K I know you are wrong now darksmiley because Sager does not sell barebones, xoticpc and powernotebooks told me the same thing. Granted this was back when I bought my first M570RU. >.> I should have been more specific, R and j tech is a prostar barebone reseller which is a clevo reseller. Hence why R and J tech use the clevo name system. My first M570RU even needed a bios update and I was able to get support from Prostar and R and j tech.

 

Believe me, Sager sells barebones. I have the price list for dealers right here. They're not branded "Sager", I'm only allowed to refer to them as Clevos, and Sager doesn't directly sell them to consumers. I know for a fact they sell them since I bought one two weeks ago.

And I'm getting the assumption that they sell barebones bought from Sager from Gophn's barebone guide. It is possible they may have switched to buying from ProStar instead though.

Finally, you could get the BIOS update from ProStar because it's the same BIOS update for all Clevo computers; it doesn't differ by manufacturer.

 

Resellers do not provide bios for other resellers systems. To even get that kind of support it requires the serial number from the laptop. My serial number from my first M570ru worked for Prostar, but not sager. Sager wouldn't even help me and neither would Justin, because they do not just give out the bios. Hence why you can't just go to any reseller site and download them. You can order a sager unit without a HDD or at least you used to be able to, but that can hardly be considered a barebone unit.

 

Sorry, I was under the impression that you downloaded it from Pro-Star. My bad. But I know what a barebone is - and Sager does sell them to resellers. I bought one on the 4th, received it on Monday. A M571TU with 9800M GT, bluetooth, and multi-drive. That's it. So maybe R&J switched to buying their barebones from ProStar, but the point remains that Sager sells them as well.

And I think we've hijacked this poor man's thread.

 

Thread never had a point to it to start with lol...So do you have access to sager bios? For example one of your customers wants the most recent version do they go to sager or can you provide it?

 

Well I don't have them in my possession, so they could go through either - they could call me up and I'd get it for them (through Sager) or they could call up Sager directly and get it through them. I guess it all goes back to Sager, it just depends who the customer wants to talk to.

 

sager DOES SELL barebones. that is where mine came from as well as a few people i know. i ordered mine from justin at xotic and it was drop shipped as a bare bones directly from sager trust me they sell them

 

Everybody STOP !!!!

There are only 3 known Clevo importers in North America.
- Sager
- Pro-Star
- Eurocom

ALL... and I mean ALL other vendors selling Clevo notebooks have to get their barebones through one of the three listed.

RJtech barebones are from Sager. Period. (its even in the Clevo Guide)

I know, I have tracked serial numbers to confirm vendor's systems to one of the 3 importers listed.

 

actually gophn rjtech told me one the phone they do not only use sager. they also buy from prostar as well as another source. this came right from his own mouth...just fyi. yes they do sell sager systems but that is not their only source

 

that is true... but RJtech mainly gets their systems from Sager the last time I checked.

 

lol...