Need help configuring a Clevo W150HR (NP 5165)

Hi,

It's time for me to buy a new laptop, my Acer 5920G is now 4 years old and although I really enjoyed working with it, it starts to look like a Fisher Price Kiddy Laptop (actually it always looked like a kiddy laptop because of the white inner finish, but the specs compensated for it ... but by now the specs don't hold up anymore).

So I already decided I want a CLEVO W150HR. I live in Belgium and found a reliable laptop shop to buy it from. But I'm still having some problems on deciding what the best config is for me.

First I'll explain what I will be using the laptop for, then I will give the shop options that I'm still thinking about. If you can give some advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

"special" things the laptop should be able to handle well:
- Gaming:
I only play DOTA (a Warcraft III custom game) at the moment. In the future I will be playing DOTA 2 (I found some unofficial? pc requirements here: Link) and maybe some other new RTS games.

- Heavy calculation programs:
For my work I have to use a computer model program based on C++. As for now the program only supports 1 processor core. So it's actually important to have a high turbo boost clock rate. I did some tests with desktop processors and the difference between 3.4GHz and 2.9GHz is about 20% faster calculation time, that is significant when calculations can take up to 48 hours.

- Photoshop/Video editing:
Occasionally I do some photoshop or video editing (full hd videos after a holiday for example)

My budget is +-€1300 MAX, but "Less is more (for me )".
The notebook should be able to last for another 4 years.

Here are the shop options:

Screen:
shop options:
- HD+ 1600*900 (MATTE) + €529
- FHD 1920*1080 (GLOSSY) + €555
- FHD 1920*1080 (MATTE) + €625

I don't need to play games or watch videos in FHD. I'm ok with medium settings (that's also why I go for the W150 and not the P150). The videos I edit will be played via a mediaplayer on the TV ... so FHD screen not really necessary for that neither. Is there a reason why I should upgrade to the FHD matte screen?

Processor:
- Intel Core i3 - 2310M 2.10 Ghz +€ 149,00
- Intel Core i5 - 2410M 2.30 - 2.90 Ghz +€ 195,00
- Intel Core i5 - 2520M 2.50 - 3.20 Ghz +€ 239,00
- Intel Core i5 - 2540M 2.60 - 3.30 Ghz +€ 275,00
- Intel Core i7 - 2620M 2.70 - 3.40 Ghz +€ 350,00
- Intel Core i7 - 2630QM 2.0 - 2.90 Ghz +€ 245,00
- Intel Core i7 - 2720QM 2.20 - 3.30 Ghz +€ 372,00
- Intel Core i7 - 2820QM 2.30 - 3.40 Ghz +€ 545,00

I need a high clock rate so it seems my two options here are: 2540M or the 2720QM. Would the last one be overkill? The price increase of the 2620M doesn't seem feasible, might as well go for the 2720QM then ...?

Hard Drive & Optical Bay:
I want a SSD as my main drive. I've already decided on the Intel 320, 120 GB.
But I'm not sure if it's a good idea to also add a normal HDD in a caddy in the optical bay. The pro is off course a lot of extra space, I do download some movies/shows now and then + it's nice to store video files + big files I need for my work. But considering the Clevo has USB 3.0, isn't an external HD just as good to store these things? Plus, I don't know how big the effect is of not having a DVD drive for installing stuff... anyone have some experience with this?


A configuration with the 1600*900 screen, i7 2720QM, 8GB ram, Intel 320 (120GB), regular optical drive would cost me: €1273.


That's about all, thank you in advance for comments.

 

Since you're all right without HD, then go for the 900p screen. You really seem to need the extra processing speed, so go for the i5 then, it's still a very good SB processor. And about the optical drive bay....it's a personal preference thing, honestly.

I don't use my OD all that much, so I'm much more keen on taking it out and replacing it with another HDD. Keep in mind that Optical Drives will become obsolete within the next 5-10 years, if it isn't already.

Mr. Mysterious

 

I'd say the 2720qm is probably overkill for you if your only processor intensive app is single threaded. You might be better off with the higher clocked dual core 2520 (the 2620 is also dual core, despite being an i7). While the turbo is higher on the 2720qm, you're less likely to see the high turbo as often as a lower clock due to thermal limitations (it'll hit that max turbo for a short amount of time before having to downclock). The 1920x1080 screen is a decent upgrade, but if you don't need it/won't miss it, then there's no point (though if you trade down the CPU you can get the upgrade and not impact the overall price much).

Doing an SSD + HDD is probably a good option if you have a ton of files. If you don't use an optical drive much anymore, you may find more practical uses for having the optical drive via USB instead. That's how I use my Lotus P150HM- SSD + HDD for storage, with an external ODD for the few times it's ever needed.

 

If you're going to play DotA, you only need the integrated graphics (HD 3000)

 

you might get away with an np3250 for your requirements. it's highly suggested you get the 2720qm. you said you want the laptop to last 4 years. why not get the quad now and be done with it. turboboost 2.0 is pretty damn efficient controlling voltages, cores and speeds. some might disagree. i don't think ivy bridge will put sandy under the bridge.

if you really think your single threaded app will stay single thread though, it might be worth it to go with 2.6 processor. your lowest processing will stay at 2.6 more often. i wish there were some manual tweaks to turbo boost 2.0 though. like turning off cores manually.

 

Thank you all for the info.

So Turbo Boost can't work for a long time? I won't actually be using my own laptop for long calculations, but it would be nice if I could get a high clock rate for 2 hours max. Is this possible with a i7 2720QM?

I think I might wait till the end of the month and get one with the FHD screen + i7 2720QM. I won't get the HD in a caddy for now, it seems that it's easy to install it yourself, so I can do this later.

 

Turbo boost can work for quite a while- just not at max speeds. You'll probably see speeds of between 2.3 and 2.5ghz most of the time on the 2720qm running four threads. It's the thermal limitations that keep it from being able to run at max turbo forever. For that length of time, most report the 2720qm capable of 2.4/2.5ghz as long as cooling is adequate.