Malibal Satori - Clevo P170HM Suggested Rig setup

How's this look?

Customizations:
Promotions: $100 OFF Configurations Over $1500
Display: 17.3" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit 120Hz 3D 72% NTSC Matte Display
Display Upgrades: A+ Grade Display With 45 Day Perfect Pixel Warranty
Display Upgrades: Spyder 3 Elite Professional Color Calibration w/ Profile Disc
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.4-3.5GHz
Memory: (12GB) 12288MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 3 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 750GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA 300
Optical Drive Bay: 6X Blu-ray Reader 8X DVD+/-R DL Super-Multi Drive
Operating System: None
Wireless: Intel® 6230 Advanced-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU
Keyboard: English: US & Canada
Power Cord: US & Canada
Branding: MALIBAL
Build Time: 5-7 Business Days (Estimated Time)
Warranty: LIFETIME Ltd. Labor and 3 Year Parts Warranty with 24/7 Support (USA)
Extras: Standard Black Carrying Case
Extras: Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Camera
Extras: Integrated 9 in 1 Card Reader
Extras: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Extras: MALIBAL Software & Drivers Disc
Extras: PowerDVD & Bison Cam Software Package
Total Cost after Promotion: $2,413



~As a side note, I plan on switching the main drive selected to a SSD. However, I wanted a good sized standard mechanical drive because the 500GB drive I have at the moment is actually too small to hold all my data now. Go figure I guess? Never thought I'd use that much data... ever.

As for a SSD choice, can I get someone to recommend one to me?

Size: ~240GB or ~256GB are preferred this time. The Crucial M4 seems to appear nice in this case...

 

Somewhat similar to how I did my spec on my P150HM. I would go lower on the ram and buy aftermarket to save some money.

As far as SSDs go, I love my Crucial M4, the step up from HDD speed blew my mind. I hear the Samsung 830 is also a fairly good choice. For size I think you're right with 256; my 128 is starting to fill up even though I try to keep a lot of my programs on my HDD.

Idk how you feel about wireless but I would pay $10 more for the 6300 intel. The 6230 was two antennas, transfer 300 Mbps (using N), and has bluetooth but the 6300 has three antennas (better signal reception), transfer 450 Mbps (using N) and no bluetooth. Bluetooth, ofc, could be done via usb if needed. or even step up to the bigfoot 1103 which is apparently a lot better even though they spec similarly.

 

If you don't have a router that can utilize the 3 antenna your throwing your money away. Why 12gb ram? 8 is already overkill for gaming.

 

The above is true about 12Gb ram. Drop to 8 and get 1600mhz..

Also, the 256gb Samsung 830 SSD is on sale for $299 at newegg. There's a post about it in the Deals section. I do, however, love my M4 even though I'm only able to utilize it at SATAII speeds..

 

Neither of those points are entirely accurate though. You can still make use of the higher end cards for slightly better reception. The tests I've done (informally) have the 6300 picking up and connecting to an access point about 75 feet away through walls, while the 6230 cannot detect the same access point. For most people this won't matter (as you'll not be that far away), but if you plan to use public WiFi/campus WiFi, the better range is a minor but useful benefit. For the couple of dollars difference, it's not a big deal to upgrade if that's an important feature.

If he is using the machine strictly for gaming, then you're right in that 12GB of RAM is probably unnecessary. However, there are plenty of other applications out there that will use up every last GB you give them (Adobe, video encoding, archiving, etc). So that really depends on the particular usage.

 

Good point Anthony, OP never mentioned (at least in this thread) what he intended to use his laptop for..

 

waste of money given the time frame