Lotus P150HM - Questions

1- Installing the SSD is fairly simple task (should talk less than 20 minutes), put in your mind Clevo laptops are designed to support user upgrades. On Youtube you can find many illustrative videos:
install SSD laptop - YouTube

2- If the SSD is SATA III so you need to put it instead of the HDD and place the HDD in the caddy. The optical drive bay in P150HM supports only SATA II but the internal HDD slot supports SATA III


We all learning here, and the more you share what you know the more you learn new things!!!

 

Thanks for the link! I see that that laptop in the review has a different GPU, the: "NVIDIA GTX 485m 2GB GDDR5 w/ DX11 support (Drivers Forceware 270.28)." Is this GPU faster than the AMD 6990? Or is the 6990 faster? (So I can gauge where I fit in with this review.)

I am fairly certain I will purchase the 15.6" laptop.

Thanks for the responses everyone! I am, however, a bit confused about one thing. Stick with me here. I'm sure it will take you guys only moments to answer if I can express it clearly enough. I am intending to purchase SATA III SSD, and as you are aware, this only fits in the HD part. So, if I am to purchase a normal HD in the HD part, and then the HD caddy in the optical bay, what am I to do with the external SSD purchased from elsewhere?

Am I supposed to remove the HD and put it in the optical bay, and then put the SSD where the HD was? If this is the case, would an amateur (like myself) be able to do this?

Thanky thanky

 

Carbine, if you order the Sager/Clevo 17.3" model, the P170HM, you DON'T have to worry about any of this. That model has two hard drive bays in addition to the optical drive bay. In that case, you would just get the one hard drive with the laptop. Then buy your own SSD and stick it in the second spot, which comes empty and ready to use. You don't have to change anything with the optical drive.

What the previous poster was talking about was the 15.6" model. That is a smaller laptop, so it only has the one hard drive bay. They just didn't have the room to design it with a second one.

 

I edited my post a bit too late! You caught my post before I was able to add: "I am probably going to get the 15.6" laptop."

Sorry for the lack of clarity!

 

This exactly what you should do.

Yes you will be able to do it it does not require any super special skills, so do not worry. Again these laptops are designed to be user upgradable so the internal hardware is accessible and easy to handle.

 

Yay. Thanks everyone!

I don't need to worry about driver issues or other misc software problems with this setup, do I?

 

You will receive necessary drivers with your laptop and you can always get the latest drivers online.

You can also find here in the forum links to download Clevo BIOS (but do not worry your laptop should be shipped with the latest BIOS)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/573379-clevo-driver-thread.html

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/416916-clevo-bios-thread.html

 

Thanks so much! You guys are are awesome. I am slowly giving rep to everyone here. Just waiting for it to replenish.

So how long do you guys suspect the 6990M to be powerful enough for gaming? And what about the i7-2670QM?

I got a brief message earlier in this thread about it but I am looking for a few more opinions. Thanks!

 

6990m and 2670qm should last you 2-3 years. (it won't run the most demanding games on ultra/high 3 years from now, but it would still be playable on mid to low settings.)

but it would really depend on the game developers as well, blizzard for example builds their games to support the widest range of pc specs. so their games like world of warcraft and SC2 would still run fine on pc's made 3 years ago (with lower settings of course).

games like battlefield 3 really requires the top of the line high end graphics/processor so you could appreciate the beauty of the game

 

The processor shouldn't really be that big of a deal. In gaming, the GPU is the bottleneck, so I wouldn't think it'd be your processor that would inhibit performance 4/5 years down the road.

 

It's not completely correct that the gpu is always the bottleneck. CPU could be as well.
Having an higher clocked CPU usually delivers more fps and a more smooth experience specially in those CPU intensive games.
We could make some examples, like bf3, starcraft 2, so on.
Most multi platform games have their lead development on consoles, namely ps3 and Xbox 360.
Both consoles have a 3 core CPU clocked around or above 3ghz.
I had a 2630qm and I can testify that the increased margin in performance jumping to a 2760qm is fairly noticeable.
I got around a 3-4 fps increase due to higher base clock and turbo, not to mention the increased speed/ram ratio (from 22 to 24).
It's like jumping from desktop i5-760 to a low entry sandy bridge like i5-2300.
Anyway if he's strict on budget definitely the 2670qm is the way to go. It hardly would be a bottleneck but for faster cards I advice an higher clocked CPU.
What's common knowledge in desktop builds is now shared on laptops as well. A 2630qm feeds a gtx580m at stock clocks fine, but once you start to oc the gpu the CPU slowly begins to be a bottleneck.

However - as others said - you can upgrade the CPU by yourself easily next year if you feel so. With ivy bridge launching in march/April probably the prices will drop considerably.
That's obviously my personal opinion. I learned with my 15 years experience (as a builder/technician) that saving on the CPU is not always a smart move.
You don't need to aim at the top spec item, but a carefully choosen CPU (mid range) can quite give a nice boost/future proof feeling.

 

Another thing,

Any plans for emulation?
Like playing PS2, CG, Wii...etc on your laptop?

If thats the case, you need as much CPU power as possible...

I went with the 2760 mostly because I plan to emulate (Believe me, Mario Galaxy 2 @1080p is well worth it!)
Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Dolphin GC/Wii Emulator (1080p) - YouTube

Another thing is that I have been using a C2D for a long time now, and i really want a high end CPU in my next laptop!
Also, more future proof.