NP8130/NP8150 configuration

1.) What is the best bang-for-the-buck CPU that I should get for either laptop that will be used for gaming and daily multitasking activities like Internet surfing, playing movies, etc.

2.) What is the best brand and model of 8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz RAM that I can get in the market right now? You cannot OC the RAM with this laptop, right?

3.) What is the best brand and model (speedwise) of 500GB HDD that I get in the market right now? Are laptop HDD prices affected also by the Thailand incident?

 

1.) For light activities like internet surfing and playing movies the 2630QM or 2670QM will probably be more than enough to be honest. The only other processor upgrade I ever really suggest is the 2760QM. Anything after that isn't really worth it. When it comes to gaming, your GPU will be the bottleneck, not the CPU. (Starcraft 2 uses the CPU, but it does fine with the 2630QM.)

2.) Sager normally uses Samsung 1600MHz RAM, but we've also had luck with Kingston 1600MHz RAM. No OC'ing RAM, it only has an HM65 chipset so XTU won't work.

3.) Personally the hybrid drive has been great for me. Very fast since it has a large 32MB cache and the 4GB SSD helps put a good boost to my most frequently used programs. Boot time isn't bad either. But they should be coming out with a new hybrid drive, possibly a 750GB/8GB kind of drive. And yes, HDD prices are largely affected by the Thailand flooding.

 

1.) Ok but it wouldn't hurt to upgrade to the 2760QM for future proofing? Aside from higher clocks, what is the difference between the 2630QM, 2670QM, and 2760QM? They are all i7's, right?

2.) With my W860CU before, the Kingston HyperX memory was considered to be the best. Is this still true nowadays? Would 1600MHz be a real improvement against the 1333MHz?

3.) Oh, I forgot that the 500GB drive I was asking about would be mainly for storage and put in the optical bay HDD caddy. I would be using a 128GB Crucial M4 for my main OS drive

4.) What brand of HDD caddy do most resellers use with these laptops?

 

1.) All i7's, yes. You could go for the 2760QM for some future proofing

2.) There's around a 2-5% difference in performance between each MHz step, from 1333 to 1600 to 1866.

3.) For a storage drive, forget the hybrid drive and grab a standard 7200RPM version

4.) The HDD caddy is generic, I don't think it is advertised with a brand name. It is one of those brands that is a combination of bigger companies, like they do for a lot of optical drives.

 

1.) Where do you see/feel that small difference in RAM performance? Is it worth buying 1866? Is 1866 the highest clock speed the system can support?

2.) Well, eve n for a storage drive I want to have the best in terms of speed. So which one is the best? I guess I have to ask this in a different section.

 

1. You probably won't see it at all in day to day usage. However, you will potentially notice a few extra FPS in games and slightly higher scores in synthetic benchmarks. 1866 will work, and with the possibility of another 3-5% performance bump. However, note that there are occasionally stability issues with 1866 RAM. Also, if you want 1600 OR 1866, you will have to upgrade to the 2760- the 2630/2670 do not allow you to use higher RAM frequencies than 1333.

2. For a storage drive, I'd say go with a 7200RPM or 5400RPM drive. Hybrid drives are useless for storage because the flash memory isn't used if it's not the primary. SSD's are too expensive for the capacity. I'd honestly say to use the 5400RPM drives for storage because they're lower heat/power/noise and not significantly slower than 7200RPM. But it's really up to you

 

Ok. All the while I thought that as long as it is i7 (2630 and 2670 included), you can use 1600. With 1600, are there any stability issues reported?

 

Yeah, that was a feature that Intel chose not to support on the lower end processor. As for stability, I haven't heard of any issues with the RAM. As long as it's plug-and-play and not XTU, then there's no reason it shouldn't work. While the machine is only rated for two sticks of 1600mhz, it actually works fine in all four slots, even without being "approved". However, that is what causes problems with the faster 1866.

 

I have never seen 100% RAM usage on my laptop (not even close) which has 8Gb of RAM. Does this mean upgrading it from 1333 to 1600 will make no difference at all?

 

Faster frequency RAM really has very little to do with overall utilization. If you saw your machine sitting at 100% utilization, it typically means you just don't have enough RAM. For most people though, the bump to 4 and 8GB as stock has meant this is just not as common as it used to be (as you've noticed).

The jump from 1333 to 1600 will definitely make a difference though. Not in utilization- but in overall benchmarks and frame rates, which will jump 3-5% on average.

 

So you're saying that this laptop is only rated up to two sticks of 1600MHz, right? When you use 1866, will it run them at 1866 or will it automatically downlock them to 1600?

What difference is there between this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104230 and this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104257 ????

 

Correct, it's only rated for two sticks. However, people have been running all 4 sticks without any issues. 1866 will work IF it can run stable on your model. We've seen some where that stability just didn't happen on the higher RAM.

Your first link was to XMP memory which is NOT supported in the HM65 chipset in the P150HM/P151HM1. That RAM would only run at 1333Mhz. The second link is to plug-and-play JEDEC RAM, which WILL run at the rated speed in this model. If you had an HM67 based model like the P170HM, both variants would actually work.

Hope this clears it up

 

Great. And you guys are selling the black Kingston HyperX RAMs, right?