Hi im new and need advise on Clevo M860TU.

Hello, Im from Chile and Im very interested in this Notebook.
I need advise because If i get it i need for it to get shipped to MD so that a relative and bring it with him early December so, mainly my questions are:

a) Wheres the best place to buy one?
b) Is 2.54mhz proccesor gonna help much in games? (i mainly play wow)
c) should I get gts or gt given that I mainly play wow.
d) Does the 200gb 7.2k really run slower than the 340gb 5.4k? just wondering
and finally ..
e) is this a good notebook that i can trust? im not gonna be able to try it if it came with bad pixels or bad hd so would you guys recomend this blinded?

PS If you guys could post a build for this laptop that will fullfil my needs and exceed hopefully that would be great. I want to try to keep it as low as I can but still want it to be a monster.

 

a) XoticPC or Powernotebooks seems to be the place of choice for most buyers

b)A more powerful processor will help mostly in RTS games, in others it likely won't matter as the video card will be the bottleneck of the system.

c)gts vs gt isn't really a concern at this point as almost all resellers are only shipping with the gts, otherwise at the momment they seem to perform very similar, with the gts being slightly lower

d)Can't really answer that one, but the 5400 rpm will consume less power, and in my opinion unless your going to need to access the hard drive quite often it really won't matter

As a sidenote if you only intend to play WoW, then this notebook is a bit overkill, a notebook with a 9600M will prolly suit you fine, and will run you less money, but if you want to play more modern games it might not be a bad choice.

Also, it might be better to try to find a clevo/sager reseller in Chile, as if your computer is broken, as you will need to ship it back to the US to get fixed and then back to you, paying for both ways, not to mention any fees for the repairs itself. And if you do decide to buy from the US and have a friend bring it down, then I'd definatly try to get him to boot the machine up and run a few simple test before flying down.

 

thanks for the reply, Ill try looking for a reseller here but i doubt theres any.
the guys that bringing it isnt really a PC oriented person hes preatty much useless using a PC.

so let me get this right 5400 is fine no need for 7200?
thanks

 

The Hard Drive speed is more of a user preference, as it really doesn't affect the gaming experience. However if you plan to do anything like video editing, where the program will be accessing the hard drive very often and getting large files like videos. Then a faster rpm drive may be more useful.

Is there anything else besides WoW you will be using this computer for, either now or in the future?

 

I do some sound recording and stuff like that with probly an external sound card but thats more for the future and of course university work. also I plan on using this hopefully for 3+ years so i probably wont be playing wow a year from now I also like crysis but i play that kind of game here and now not everyday like wow. i want to keep this notebook around 2k so around 2000-2100
without shipping.
thanks

ps my gf would probably use it once in a while for illustrator, photoshop and freehand.

 

I recommend either the lowest hard drive option (due to heat, the 160GB is the only one platter HD, and the HDD's the only thing that's running slightly hot in this system, but not significantly so) or one of the larger 5400rpm drives, yes. You can also run games off of an external eSATA (sata speeds) drive running at a much higher speed, so that would solve any hard drive bottle necks. Alternatively, you can upgrade to a solid state drive when the prices <-> size ratio drops more.

I also wouldn't order this far out, and would probably order in the first or second week in November at the -earliest-, since you get a 30 day return policy on it, if that concerns you.

I think the P8600 cpu, one of the lower hard drives (like I said, recommend 160gb + run games off of a faster external), and 2gigs of ram, no turbo memory. That should keep you around $1800 or so (OS extra, so that would bring it to $2100 w/ OS) unless you find a place offering a 9800GTS card instead, which should be a bit cheaper ($100?ish cheaper or so). The notebook will easily last 3+ years imo, specs wise. The sturdy aluminum chassis + frame + copper heatsink + good fan design also means that the notebook will last 3+ years easily hardware wise (you know, other than the occasional hard drive and ram failure).

My M860TU has no dead pixels at all. You *might* want to go for a WUXGA screen however, as the WSXGA has a bit of glare and very dramatic color and lighting shifts if viewed from any angle other than straight on.

 

I was thinking about:
Display: 15.4_WUXGA_w/Matt
Video_Card: nVidia 9800M GT 512MB
CPU: P8600
Thermal: Standard
DDR3_Memory: 4GB_DDR3/1333_2
HDD: 160GB_SATA_5400rpm
CD: 8x_DVD+/-RW_DL
Network_Adapter: Integrated_GBLAN_+_Bluetooth
WLAN: Intel_5300N
TurboMemory: None
no OS as i can get one anywhere really. this runs for 2.069

will 160gb hd be cool enough to run games without need the external one?
thanks

 

drop this idea, you might want to get the g50v or the HPｄｖ５ｔ．　ｉｓ　ｐｌａｙｉｎｇ　ＷＯＷ　ｉｓ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｍａｉｎ　ｃｏｎｃｅｒｎ，　ａｎｙ　ｌａｐｔｏｐ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｍａｒｋｅｔ　ｗｏｕｌｄ　ｄｏ．　 （ＷＴＦｉｓ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｔｙｐｉｎｇ？）　

ｓａｖｅ　ｓｏｍｅ　ｍｏｎｅｙ　ａｎｄ　ｂｕｙ　ｔｈｅ　g50v a-1 from xoticpc

 

Why? They're not that much cheaper (or are even the same price), and likely run hotter (what with two HDs for the asus one), have poorer build quality and/or cooling systems (from the research I gathered a month or so back), have slower video cards AND don't run on Montevina/ddr3 motherboards, so are less futureproofed. I say "they" because your post was mostly incoherent other than "g50v."

Cool enough? Or large enough? I recommended the 160GB one because the HDD heat is the only issue I have on my two platter HD, and the major issue that people have complained about. Doing some research into it, the # of platters per notebook drive determined the amount of heat they generated *a lot* and the HD's my only regret on my M860TU (Side note: Really guys, dozens of HDD heat threads and no one's mentioned # platters?) As for large enough, it will probably be large enough if you are organized and back stuff up that you don't need or uninstall games you don't play anymore. It won't be enough if you want 50 games and tons of TV shows on the notebook (which you shouldn't do on a notebook drive anyway - burn to DVD or get an external, which shouldn't run you more than $50-60 + enclosure these days for a decent 250-300gb+ one). The rest of the notebook runs super cool (too cool? fans dont come on enough for me).

 

so with the build i posted before I would be preatty much future proof right?
Im usually only play 2 games max and all the other stuff heavy stuff would be on my desktop.
is it recomendable to run games with an external hard drive?
could you recomend me one plz? im a newbie to external drives, these go on the e sata port right??
thanks

 

You'd be getting a normal sized drive (fairly cheap atm, SATA, what like 1 TB drives are $120?!), and a SATA enclosure that supports eSATA. They actually run the same speed as an internal drive, and are a great solution for both the head, speed & storage issues (I'm thinking of one, but already have an external). So, yes, eSATA port OR you can do USB 2.0 (but this would be slower, obviously).

The other thing is, especially with gaming: games run better/faster/loading times are better if the game (or any application) runs off a hard drive that ISN'T the same drive as your operating system (has to do with the way page files + multiple attempts to access the same drive are handled, and I assume this is still true with Vista). Sadly, in my old laptop (with 4200rpm drive) I got better loading times running games off of an external usb drive even Only run a game off of the same hard drive as your operating system if you need the game/application to be portable at all times.

You can do the external thing at any time, however, and it shouldn't be a concern right now - only if you find the internal is slow, or you run out of room, and the like. Your concern should be: stable notebook running at a cool temperature and good speeds. Hard drives are by far the easiest things to add onto the notebook later.

Vista's also far less of a headache to set up for this notebook, mostly due to the SATA drivers not being included with XP, by the way. And yes, I think it would be future proofed for quite a while. Hardware's currently pretty far ahead of software anyways, so even lesser systems are futureproofed for quite a few years

 

I was thinking of this to help the price go down a bit.
normal display
4gbram
160gb hd
9800gts
p8600 processor

thanks close to 1.800 which is preatty good, now will this run most games good and mac settings excluding crysis?
thanks

 

That configuration should be fine for most games