P170HM3 Questions

Hey Guys, I dont post much but I do hang around like a bad smell every day and try to take in alot of what is said. I have bought a P170HM3 just now, and wanted to ask a few questions.

My first question is, I didnt read into the P170HM3 properly to see if it can do RAID...could it do RAID 0?

My second question is, what would be better to run along side a 580m, a 2760QM 6MB cache or 2860QM 8MB cache? or is either sufficient enough to power a 580m to its fullest?

Also, could 1x580m take some advantage of a 120hz (fps?) screen whilst gaming, or would it take 2x580m to do this.

I know its very game dependant, but Ive watched lots of videos on youtube showing games playing around 60-90fps @ 1920X1080 with just 1x580m, so i would see some benefit having the higher refresh rate?

My last question is, does the secondary hard drive bay NEED a hard drive cage to mount a second hard drive? or can i just fit my hard drive in without the need for it to be fitted into a cage (much like the primary hard drive bay)

Thank guys that's all i can think of right now, so I will really appriciate any comments made

 

1) Yes, it can do RAID 0 as well as RAID 1

2) Both the 2760 and the 2860 are going to make the 580m the bottleneck. Even the 2630/2670QM are more than sufficient for gaming coupled with the 580m. If you do work that requires more CPU power, the 2760QM is a pretty solid upgrade.

3) A 580m will drive a 120hz screen just fine. However, you have to note that running at 120hz versus 60hz will obviously cut your framerates in half. Check out the benchmarks below and see what 1/2 would do to your games:

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

This is the same effect that running 3D Vision will have. To get ultra settings/high AA, I run SLI desktop 470's at home for 120hz 3D.

4) The secondary bay does not need a cage. You can just fit a hard drive in like the primary bay (it's under the optical drive).

 

To clarify what Malibal #2 is saying, running 3D vision will cut your framerates in half. But running at 120hz without 3D enabled will have no affect on the fps you see in your games. 120hz displays simply refresh the images on the screen at a faster rate that 60hz monitors do resulting in a much smoother looking image. Especially if you play somewhat older games that you are able to average around 120fps in.

 

Thanks Malibal and LukeS you guys answered my questions to my satisfaction, thank you very much