Considering buying an XMG p703 (p150sm)

Hello, I am currently deciding on a laptop to buy at the end of the year (November/January) and one of the choices I am leaning towards is the XMG p703 (p150sm). I mostly do digital art, as well as animations, but I’d like to get into PC gaming at some point in the near future. Importantly I want this computer to last a few years, so I've got a few questions I need answered to help me decide.

Currently I am looking at this for my set up:
Graphics - NVIDIA GTX 780M (Has a bump in performance compared to GTX 770)
Processor – i7 4700MQ (Budget)
Memory – 16 GB x 2 1600 MHz Corsair Vengeance (Budget/Performance)
Hard Drive 1 – 256 GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD (I've heard these are very fast and last longer than the non-pro version)
Hard Drive 2 – 1000 GB / 8 GB SATA-II SSH 5400rpm Seagate Laptop SSHD (Need the storage for files, some of which are about 1GB)
Optical Drive – Blu-Ray Drive (With the software, Plus I've wanted to try Blu-Ray for a while now)
Network Card – Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (Budget and apparently has better drivers)

And that comes to around £1,949.00 a few pounds short of my £2000 budget…

Questions
1. How does the system do for temperatures specifically with the Nvidia GTX 780M? I’ve heard the graphics card produces a serious amount of heat, but is a massive leap in effectiveness compared to the GTX 770M.
2. What sort of RAM does the computer use? I’ve read that the Haswell based processors need 1.35V Ram to work.
3. What is the failure rate of the P703? I’m currently using a HP (three years old this year!), and I have had a few hiccups with it. Also how does XMG do with customer service in the case something does go wrong?
4. Is there any point in adding any mSATA Drives to this build?
5. Is the Blu-Ray drive region free?
6. How good is the screen compared to other brands, i.e Apple?
7. Anything I should change with the build?

 

hi
cant answer most questions as its such a new laptop and i dont own a 780 but if its anything like my 680 the gpu temps dont go above 82c on the most demanding game i play like crysis 3 or battlefield 3 and with our summer at the moment i class that as very good.

the standard ram is good and does the job
4 x 204-pin SO-DIMM sockets supporting a maximum of 32GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory.
ive no idea of the difference between corsair or crucial but the guys at mysn will be able to advise.

failure rate is almost impossible to tell as its so new but my P150 is a year old now and no problems except for cpu downclocking which theve repasted straight away.
my clevo m860tu is now 6 years old and still going strong. had a new gpu and hard drive under warranty from previous supplier. if looked after clevo's will last for many years.
mysn customer service is top notch. if you buy from the uk any rma work is done at their uk branch. when my cpu needed new thermal paste i phoned up and took it down to them as im just up the M25 from them and they done it for me while i waited. they done a full diagnostic check as well as checking all the other components.

dont have msata so it depends how much space you need.
i would recommend upgrading the drive you picked to at least a 7200rpm

no idea about the bluray region code.

if its the same standard screen as my matte then wow, its the best ive ever owned and used on any laptop. very bright vibrant colours.

as i said it might be worth upgrading to a 7200rpm drive. why have top notch high end spec and then the slowest drive.
its only £10 difference but i have no idea what travelstar drives are like. other alternative just get the samsung ssd which is the best and fastest and then buy a 7200 1TB drive from somewhere else to get a well known brand name like seagate or western digital.

the guys at mysn will be able to advise on the best options. i bought on day 1 of mysn trading in the uk and they actully saved me some money as i was also going for a few options i didnt really need. my P150 was £2006 and the best 2 grand ive spent.

keep an eye on thier website as the uk branch has live chat on left hand side of page mySN.co.uk | XMG | Schenker Technologies

hope that helps a bit

 

Thanks! It's been a fair while since I've been in the laptop market, so I'm still getting to grips with the current hardware specs. I went with the Samsung Pro for the main hard drive due to the transfer rate speed, but I will have a look at the travelstar. As for the screen looks like its still the matt screen you mentioned, so it should good to work with.

Regardless with what I go with in the end I'm sure the this laptop will blow my current one out the water. (A HP Pavilion Dv6 with an i7 Q720 at 1.60ghz, a Nvidia GeForce GT 230M and 8GB of RAM to boot )

 

my boot time is 12 seconds with my crucial m4 and im on the net brousing. the samsung is even faster so a very good choice. i would of got a samsung but 512gb werent available when i ordered.
ive never heard of a travelstar drive but its what they have as their standard drive on the config page. the minimum drive i would ever go for now is a 7200rpm.

these laptops are ruddy fast and have blown every previous one ive owned out the water. even my previous clevo is so much slower than this one but of course i havnt got a ssd in that.

good luck with your decisions. i would have thought there would of been more replys from other members giving advice but i guess they are enjoying the weather. 33c here today so melting time.

 

I've had a look at the Travelstar and seems to have good reviews on the net so I will be definitely will be going with it.

Many thanks again, I have found it tricky to find something that would work for me but if things go well over the next few months all the digging around should pay off in the end! (The weather has been boiling in Scotland as well. It should be cooling down a little today so it should be easier to get to sleep tonight.)

 

Yeah I know, I'm in Edinburgh and I can't believe I got any sleep last night. At least we do get it cooler than the rest of the UK over the next couple of days.

You do want to stick to 1.35v memory only with haswell and for the memory just get the cheapest known brand unless you like to benchmark a lot.

 

weve had the heatwave now. 33c in london yesterday and 29 today so was sure a sticky night.