Need advise on NP9170 purchase

I have been a long time lurker of the forums. With the recent death of my Alienware m17x-R2 (one day before D3 is released...), I have decided to try out Sager after hearing much about their superior build quality and competitive pricing. I figured I would need some advise on speccing out my new purchase. I plan to buy from Xotic

Some background:
I was fortunate enough to get the RGBLED screen on my m17x and I must say I LOVED it. Before this I never thought screens could make so much difference. I also loved the build quality of the m17x and it's awesome cooling. My only complains would be the fact that cleaning it's fans were annoying since I had to take everything apart to reach the CPU fans, and the microstutters from the 4870 crossfire. I salvaged 2 500GB 7200 HDD, 2x4GB G-skill ram sticks and 2 4870s from it (no idea what to do with the GPUs, but it's such a waste to throw them away)

As for the new laptop, my budget is around $1700 but I intend to go as low as possible.

1) Because of m17x's RGBLED screen I really really want the 90% Glossy screen upgrade... Are the callibrations really neccessary? how much difference can it make?

Since the most taxing activity I would do is gaming, I figured the i7-3610QM will do just fine.

2) I've been hearing a lot of problems with enduro on the 7970. I intend to get this upgrade since it seems great price/performance wise, but should I be worried about this? Is it something that can be fixed with driver upgrades?

3) There's a special going on right now to downgrade from 8GB - DDR3 1600MHz to 8GB - DDR3 1333MHz for a $50 discount. How much difference does this make? Also will it play nice with my pair of G-skills?

For hard drives, I don't plan to get any more since I already have 2. Maybe an ssd upgrade down the road when they're even cheaper. Unfortunately there seems to be no option to opt out on primary hard drives...

4) How good are the steelseries keyboard compared to the stock? Is it worth $90?

5) Is this a good time to buy a new laptop? The stickied Clevo guide thread says that new models are coming soon, should I hold off on purchasing?

Thanks in advance!

 

1. IMO calibration isn't really necessary unless you plan on doing photo editing or something where color accuracy is critical, in which case you should be using an external monitor... The display on its own should be plenty good out of the box.

2. Don't have a good answer for this as I've been wondering this myself. I've heard the Alienware version has the ability to disable Enduro and apparently the Clevo doesn't... Hopefully all it is is a driver issue.

3. TBH you wouldn't notice the performance hit in real world applications. I'd take the downgrade and personally upgrade the ram myself if you're comfortable with tinkering. If your G.Skills are DDR3 it should play nice...

4. Depends on if you like the chiclet style or not. IIRC your AW M17x R2 is non-chiclet. Chiclet style is the new fad these days. Even the trusty thinkpad keyboards are moving to this style. In terms of which is better, it really depends on personal preference. My suggestion is to head to your nearest brick & mortar store and play with some of the chiclet keyboards to see which kind floats your boat.

5. You can always wait for the next best thing but nobody ever got anywhere waiting right? Haha sorry, but I haven't read much on the new models, so maybe someone else can help you answer this.

 

5. where does it say that? if so i'm very interested in them as well!

 

I saw it in http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=592609