My high-end P150EM build...

So here's what I'm putting together:

95% Gamut Matte Screen
3720QM Ivy Bridge
32GB 1600Mhz DDR3
GTX 680M (4GB DDR5)
128GB MyDigitalSSD mSATA (OS Drive)
256GB Crucial M4 SATA III SSD
1.75TB External Storage (1TB 5400rpm, 750GB 7200rpm)
Blu-Ray+DVD Read/Write
Bigfoot Network Killer
SteelSeries Chiclet-style backlit keyboard
Windows 7 Professional Premium Edition
Sony HMZ-T1 (being added soon, for 3d)

Note: I'm an over-the-road truck driver, with no power outlet beyond a 180W (400W peak) power-inverter. As such, power-usage came into play on several decisions, including not getting the XM processor, buying the 680M instead of the 7970M I was originally going to get, and spending the extra money on SSD storage. I couldn't bring myself to pay the extra for .1 ghz on the 3820 instead of 3720, but if my power usage is low enough I may get the XM somewhere down the line (or when they refresh to high speeds). Lastly, I know the price is not truly justified for the 680M in many ways, but the truth is I just plain don't want to deal with the whole "cross-my-fingers and hope" game that AMD makes people play regarding drivers... I want a card that is just going to do what it's supposed to do, and the lower power/heat is just an added bonus, plus since I watch a lot of television and movies on my computer, having Optimus push that stuff to the Intel graphics (without enduro's headaches) is a major plus.


Now for the questions.

#1) I do intend to put up a review once i receive it, if anyone is interested. If so, what are the best benchmark programs to get?
#2) How much space does a Skyrim install take up? I'm probably going to use 16 to 24 GB of RAM as a RAM-Disk to install games to (then copy the entire install to my M4 so I can restore it after a reboot), in the hopes of eliminating all bottlenecks, especially from super-high-res textures.
#3) Is the Blu-Ray burner they sell with these things rewritable, or just writable?
#4) I'm getting the Carbon Fiber mod from XoticPC... it's already ordered, but I'm still curious to hear opinions from anyone else who may have gotten it, since I've seen nothing about it on these forums.
#5) Anyone have a chance to use the Sony HMZ-T1? I love the fact that the screens are simultaneous (as opposed to flickering back and forth, no matter how fast), and the fact that it'll use a lot less power than trying to get a 3d monitor setup in my truck.

Anyway, I'm super excited. No idea when I'll get it, probably about a month with all the customizations I asked for.

 

No issues with any games here with 7970M right now. They all play beautifully.

Nice setup. Drop the 128GB MyDigital though and get the Mushkin 120 mSATA instead, which you can get as aftermarket upgrade.

 

#2. skyrim takes 5.6GB without the DLC'S.
your order looks nice...

 

You should actually drop the mSATA all together if you're doing a SSD in the primary hard drive bay. The mSATA port is SATA II, while the Primary bay is SATA III, having the OS on the primary bay SSD will get you better speeds.

The Optical drive will rewrite as long as the media you're using is RW.

 

Or...keep the mSATA SSD, pickup either a 128GB or 256GB mSATA, take out the Optical Drive, get a hard drive optical drive caddy, pickup a SATA to USB 3.0 with rubber protection case and have your optical drive be external, install an additional 1TB 2.5" drive, have 3 drives total in this high-end beast, setup the SATAIII SSD as your primary OS drive, and then with the other two additional drives, setup a striped mirror with the whole 128/256GB mSATA SSD and 128/256GB of the 1TB drive. Enjoy 2-3x read/write speed with your additional 256-512GB supplementary volume that you now have for all of your stuff you want to keep use and access frequently. Have an additional 700-800GB or so of additional space for a backup or just plain additional storage space for installers that you may not use frequently, music, whatever really.

Have a similiar setup in my P150EM with a 256GB Samsung 830 as the primary, that same 1TB CaviarBlue notebook edition or whatever, and a 128GB mSATA MyDigitalSSD BulletProof card. Had I known the crucial m4 256MB mSATA card would come out as soon as it had, I probably would have picked that up instead.

 

May i know what stuffs are you gonna do to need 32gb of ram? Its hard for me to even use 14gb of ram when my I7 2700k cpu is under 80-90% load :/ (p.s. thats my desktop)

 

the common gpu benchmarks should be: 3dmark11, kombuster, furmark, cinebench, metro2033, skyrim, bf3, crysis 2.... cant think of others right now

 

I know games still play well, but the issues where endure lowers the top-end performance bugs me, plus the enduro doesn't really extend battery life all that much which I may end up needing. I already bought the MyDigitalSSD, and from my research it was pretty much the best on the market. FYI it's not the bulletproof, it's the higher end SMART line. I'm a little bummed I can't get it's SATA III speeds to work with this rig, but alas...

I know the primary drive is faster, but the whole point (for me) was that I wanted the OS on a small, mostly untouchable drive so that it wouldn't get all cluttered. I figured even a SATA II SSD was still waaaaay faster than a standard mechanical drive, no?

That's really an excellent idea! Unfortunately, among my top priorities was NOT having an internal mechanical drive. Like I said, in my situation every volt, watt, and amp counts, so having them on external to store videos, music, etc is fine, then I'll use my larger SSD to house games. If mSATA is THAT much slower than SATA III I may have to give in and install my OS to the primary, and use the mSATA as an additional game storage medium.

Like I said, the extra RAM is largely going to be used as a RAMDISK. I don't do any video editing or 3d modelling, though somewhere down the line I may bother picking up protools and doing some audio-recording, but mainly I wanted enough RAM to easily house even a fairly large game installation.

Thanks! That should leave plenty of room for high-definition textures!

Again, thanks! i really don't think I'm going to get Metro2033 or BF3... I haven't heard all that much great stuff about metro, other than the graphics, and I'm not a huge FPS fan (especially realistic, war-time environments). I will probably do Crysis 2, as a friend has a copy he'll let me use to do some benchmarks, and as stated before Skyrim will definitely be on my to-do list. I'm hoping this rig will be powerful enough to run the ENB mod (which pushes some desktops to their limits). As for the others, I will definitely get them. I don't know if I'll ever be overclocking, so I'm sure my numbers won't drop any jaws, but people may still want to know.

Thanks everyone for your answers and suggestions!

 

You are right the mSATA is going to be a lot faster then a HDD. The best configuration i like is a SSD primary then HDD secondary for all extra files. Beside just the OS being able to take advantage of the faster speeds you can also install program on there that will take advantage of the read/write speeds and start much quicker.

 

What program would that be? I'm trying to get together all the programs I want before it even comes.

 

No program. I'd say go for 120GB SSD minimum for OS, apps and other most frequently used programs/games. Then everything else on HDD.

 

Okay I see, I misread what he said. So after giving it some thought, I think I'm going to reorganize my plan. With all of your suggestions, I think I'll make my 256GB SATA III the primary OS drive as well as programs and game installs, then use the mSATA for... well, something else... I'm a little bummed to hear the speed difference is drastic enough that putting the OS on the mSATA is a bad idea; I spent as much on that as the larger SATA III drive. Maybe I'll just install my less demanding games on that drive (Mass Effect 1 & 2, for example). Ah well, probably should have put that toward the 3820qm or something...

 

mSATA was really designed for use as a cache drive. Or for users wanting an SSD for OS and apps plus an HDD for storage in the main bay plus an optical drive. mSATA is still worlds faster than any HDD. But if you have a SATA III SSD there's not much point in using the mSATA as your main storage drive. It's too bad that wasn't clarified for you before your purchase. But you can still make use of that mSATA drive, perhaps put your documents/pictures/music, etc that way if you go to reformat your SSD your documents will be safe.

 

Counter-point: While mSATA may not be able to match the maximum sustained throughput of SATA-III, it doesn't actually diminish the IOPS the drive is capable of. My "MyDigitalSSD SMART Series" mSATA drive can do 35,000 read IOPS and an impressive 86,000 write IOPS. My "Crucial M4" SATA-III drive can do 45,000 read and 50,000 write. As you see, while the SATA-III does have a 10,000 IOPS advantage on reads, the mSATA has a 36,000 IOPS advantage on write speeds. I can't help but feel like the OS and everyday-use applications (itunes, browser, virus protection, etc.) will take advantage of the significant write speed advantage more than anything else. Keep in mind this includes temp files, site-caching, and even save games.

 

It certainly will be no slouch that's for certain. And to be honest you likely couldn't tell the difference if your OS was installed on the mSATA or SATA SSD.