Is my NP8150-S1 configuration good?

Is my NP8150-S1 configuration good?

Does the 2820QM support 1866 RAM? What about my wireless card? Should I get the 6300 or Bigfoot and ditch the internal BlueTooth module?

Which is better, 6300 or bigfoot?

Anything I should change? (I plan on upgrading to a SSD at a later date):

15.6" Full HD LED-Backlit Display features 95% NTSC Color Gamut in Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080)
AMD Radeon HD 6970 w/2GB GDDR5
2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2820QM Processor ( 8MB L3 Cache, 2.30GHz)
IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Genuine MS Windows® 7 Ultimate 32/64-Bit Edition
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 4 X 4GB
500GB 7200rpm SATA Hybrid Hard Drive with 4GB SSD
6X BD-R Blu-ray Burner/8X DVD±R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6230 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN + Bluetooth Combo Module
TVT-6012, USB ATSC/NTSC/Clear QAM HDTV TUNER
Sager 3 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty

 

all sandybridge i7 as far as i know support 1866 because in a way... 1866 supports itself with its PnP tech

go for the bigfoot, best wifi card for notebooks out.

if youre comfortable apply IC diamond yourself.

 

I think max ram speed the sandy bridge can support is 1600mhz. Id stick with 6230 since it comes with bluetooth

 

Also, is the TVT-6012, USB ATSC/NTSC/Clear QAM HDTV TUNER external or is built into the laptop?

 

It's external. Do you really need the 2820? It's way overkill unless you're doing a lot of HD video editing.

 

Yeah, go for the Bigfoot. Pretty sure it's only $5 more over the 6300 anyway.
And yes, the 2820 supports 1866mhz ram.

You may want to consider going through Xotic. They are having a couple sales that may interest you having to do with that model.

Sager NP8150-S1 (Built on Clevo P150HM) Custom Gaming Sager Notebook

The IC Diamond comes free on that model. Through Xotic anyway.

 

Well, the CPU is not user replaceable therefore I do not want to fall short on it. I could get the Nvidia GeForce GTX 485M GPU with 2GB GDDR5 Video Memory if I downgraded the CPU to the 2720 and downgraded my RAM from 16GB to 8GB. Would that be worth it?

The only thing that bothers me is that I can buy 1866RAM for the price of there 1666RAM but I don't feel like replacing it......

 

I would go with that if I were you. I don't think you'd notice a difference between the 2720 vs 2820 and 1600 vs 1866 tbh. Unless you are doing some hardcore multimedia editing or autocad or something anyways. The 485m is a great card too

 

Which would you go with?
8GB 1600 RAM
GTX 485M

or
AMD Radeon HD 6970 w/2GB GDDR5
16GB 1600RAM

 

if you photoshop a lot and possibly do some 3d rendering go 16gb otherwise go gtx 485m/8gb

 

Which is a better graphics card, the nVidia or AMD?

And are we sure that the TVT-6012, USB ATSC/NTSC/Clear QAM HDTV TUNER isn't built into the laptop as on the video reviews it shows a spot where the tuner would be?

 

nvidia has better driver support, while amd offer same level of performance for what, half of nvidia's price. radeon tend to offer more VRAM

 

The bigfoot has a lower potential speed than the 6300, though. The 6300 has 3 antennas and the Bigfoot or 6230 only have 2. If you don't need the third antenna (very few networks will be able to utilize it anyway), stick with the 6230 and keep BT in case you need it in the future.

 

Don't forget, nVidia has PhysX and CUDA support; CUDA being EXTREMELY USEFUL for video rendering, and some other things which I can't remember by name. It's better for animation as well though, I do remember a friend working in a 3D animation place and their ATI cards gave them artifacts on the screen after a while and they all swapped out to nVidia.

The 6970M is also being phased out right now and a few users are having issues with it, it's also a safer bet for the nVidia right now. Not to say that no 6970M cards will work; quite the contrary, but if anything does happen, RMA-ing a laptop as soon as you get it isn't fun.

 

If I ever decide to, will I be able to upgrade my graphics card to the new GTX 580M?

How hard is it to upgrade RAM by myself?

 

in my honest opinion the nvidia fermi based card is better (ive owned both).

no idea bout the tv tuner.

ram is easy to install too.

 

RAM upgrades are incredibly easy, especially on the 2 DIMMS on the bottom of the machine.

And, you can always upgrade your graphics card but the price isn't cheap (upgrading to the 6970m on my current machine would run me $5-600).

On Sager laptops pretty much everything is upgradeable.

 

Do you consider this laptop to be portable (lugging it around college)?

How's the battery life when you aren't gaming?

 

The TV-Tuner you mentioned in your post is a USB TV-Tuner. Here's a pic of it:



Also, as ElBlufer said - I would stick with the 6230 card. That's the one I personally use, and I think it's the best option (on this model) for most users, because it has great speed, range and Bluetooth.

Please note: the 6300 and Bigfoot cards don't include BT, so you would need to buy a BT USB adapter if you wanted BT with those cards.

Battery: Users of the P150HM / 8150 have reported up to 3+ hours of battery life under normal use. See here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...evo-p150hm-owners-lounge-123.html#post7142124

Size: The P150HM / 8150 is very portable. It's around 6.5lbs and 1.7" thick.

 

I would go with the 8GB 1600mhz + GTX 485M.

A) Because I personally prefer nVidia over AMD
B) I seriously doubt you'll ever need 16GB of ram.
C) See my response to Zero989 below

My computer is as you see in my signature. 8gb of 1333gb and the 560M which is a minor downgrade from the 485M and I Photoshop quite a bit. Temps float around average also.

Now, unless he's going to be doing hardcore 3D Rendering, he may want to go with the 2720/2820 + 16GB ram. Otherwise, he'd be just find going with the 8gb+485M, imo.

Edit:Also, I've had Maya running on my lappy just fine. Haven't worked in there at all. Just ran it enough to verify the installation succeeded so I can't really shed any light on temperatures, but it was responsive and efficient for the whole 5 minutes or so I configured settings and things.

 

I haven't had much of a chance to test battery life, but extrapolating from how long it took for my laptop to get down to 90% battery, I'd say I'm getting around 3 hours.

And, I certainly think that this will be easy to tote around in college. Pretty much everyone I know carries around 15" laptops, you just need to get a good backpack. I highly recommend getting a Wenger/Swissgear bag. I personally have the Ibex and love it.