NP8130 or NP5160?

I ended up picking these two laptops to replace the Gateway NV59c I bought as a stopgap after my other laptop ended up on life support. Both have 1920x1080 screens, both have quad-core i7s and they're both 15.6". Either one will end up being used for graphic design with a bit of 3D modeling thrown in. Battery life isn't a big concern -- it'll stay plugged in most of the time, although the Optimus on the NP5160 sounds pretty nice.

The budget is around $1300. I'd love to keep the price below $1200 if possible. And therein lies the problem.

The NP5160 is tremendously cheaper than the NP8130, plus I'd be able to load it up with niceties like Blu-Ray without going off the deep end. But it comes with the GT540M, which is a mid-range graphics card.

The NP8130 comes with the GTX460M, but I would have to buy it essentially bone-stock. I assume I can always upgrade it with an SSD and more RAM later on.

The GTX460M looks to have a good advantage performance-wise over the GT540M, but most of the benchmarks are for games and such. Since I'm doing graphics manipulation and occasional 3D work, I'm wondering how well the GT540M will cope, as opposed to the GTX460M.

I probably should just go with the NP8130 and have myself set with a laptop that not only has the best graphics card in its range, but also able to be upgraded as needed for the next 2 to 3 years.

Or I can pick up the cheaper laptop, pocket the difference and put up with a mid-range card that gets the job done for the same amount of time.

What say you?

 

theres a special at sager for the NP8690-S1

I don't think it has sandy bridge but its like right in between the two because it has the GTX460M and 8gig ram but its only like 1150 dollars

edit heres the link: http://sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_info&model_name=NP8690-S1

 

Thanks for the heads-up. I was doing my best to patiently wait for the Sandy Bridge laptops to come back on the market.

 

The Sager NP8690 in your link has been discontinued for some time.....

 

I saw the link last night and it still had the full page, with the ordering information and everything. Either it was a matter of oversight on Sager's part or Sager had a bunch of 8690s left to push out the door.

 

I was going to settle with the 5160 but it seems like the 8130 is going to be a future-proof machine for a quite a bit longer. The main exhausts on the 5160 are on the sides, which I'm almost certain I'll find more annoying than if they're on the back where they ought to be. Battery life is going to be about half on the 8130 in comparison, but its a small price to pay.

 

I think I'm gonna go the future-proof route, too. I haven't given much thought as to where the vents were gonna be. I might keep my n59c as a traveling "stand-in" for times when I'm out and about and don't need to do any graphics work.

 

If you are going to do some 3D modeling, you might want to spring for the 8130 since the 540m is only an average graphics card. As a graphic designer, you might want to weigh your options on the screen you get. As a designer myself, I find that the quality of the screen starts to matter more and more than the actual specs of the machine.

 

I'm going to see if my father has the know-how to fit an extra battery (He's done battery packs in the past) into an optical drive caddy case. Hopefully his engineering background will have some input into how the logistics of it will work, as well as any heat dissipation issues. I don't really care if there's a wire coming out of the back to recharge the main battery cause in my opinion, having extra battery life on the 8130 would make deciding between the two Sagers a piece of cake.

Then I could take his design...???...and profit.

Or if someone gets around to it first, I wouldn't mind paying for it haha.