Sager 7200 vs 8170

alright, I am in the process of deciding which to go, of course in general,

7200
-Build like tank.
-Fits desktop version of i7 (Hex core)
-Seems very heavy and big for me

8170
-Looks fair for mobility and few hours on battery (I had a 15.6" Acer notebook now)
-4 SODIMM slots.
-Smaller screen

I tried to google around for the following information but it seems there is no definite answer to it, hope someone here can help me out:
-What is the Max RAM I can fit in for both models. The user manual said 4GB SODIMM module is the max it can go. Anyone tried as much as 24GB and 32GB for both models?
-The desktop vs mobile i7 quad core. If I max out the mobile i7, would the performance comparable to the desktop i7 quad core?


I am not much into the graphic, I think either HD6990 or the GT580 would be more than what I need as I do more on video editing and multimedia production.

Also I am looking at fitting as much as RAM as possible due to the nature of my work, I need tons of RAM.

Any help??

 

Go to below page and click Specification menu

NP8170

NP7280

NP7282

 

there are also rumors of an update to the 7280 coming out within the next few months (the P270?) with sandy bridge CPUs, so if you can wait ...

 

I've found my Malibal / Clevo P170HM (the 170HM is what the 8170 is built on) to be heavy enough as is at over 8 pounds plus an absolutely massive power brick. I can't even imagine carrying a 7200 series, which is 12 pounds without the brick, but your portability tolerances might be very different from mine.

Malibal offers 32GB as an option on the P170HM, so the 8170 should have the same support. Of course, Malibal also charges $1800 (!) for this, so I'm not sure what's going on there.

As for processors, you can compare here. The 2760M and up actually beat the desktop 950 and 960, falling a bit behind the 975. Also keep in mind that the desktop processors require almost three times as much power, which not only means dismal battery life, but also much greater heat output.

 

I would like to point to you that even if you use a desktop processor you might not get so much extra speed. Programs are bound by other things than the cpu. I have an application written to solve a mathematical problem and I run it on my D901C quad core. I was unpleasantly surprised that running my code at 2GHz took the same time as running it at 2.6 GHz. In the benchmark like wprime you can see the time difference between the cpus. In real life the whole pc contributes to how fast the programs are executed. So to answer your question you will need to see if the programs you want to run will benefit.

 

This user has an x7200/NP 7280 configured with 24GB of RAM and is also running RAID 1+0 over 4 HDDs!

While the x7200 is large, think of it as more of a portable desktop replacement and not a laptop. Now you need to ask how you will be using it. Do you need something w/ more than 4 cores? What type of CPU? i7-Extreme Edition? Xeon? Sandy Bridge? Ivy Bridge? Do you need to massively overclock? How much drive space do you need? Over how many drives? The physical limitations of each system is what you should consider.

For instance, in my work, I need hex cores and at least 12GB of memory for designing / testing scenarios on parallel processing and multi-threaded software designs. That along with the multiple virtual machines required for testing, the x7200 was the only system that would fit my needs.