Sager NP9130 questions

I'm seriously thinking of getting this laptop, but I'd like to get answers to a few of my questions first.

1) I'm a little confused when it comes to graphic cards and their perfomance. Is the GTX 670m better than the 555m (found in alienwares) ? I was thinking of getting a np9150 at first but for my budget i think i'll go for the 9130 even if I can't get the 675m.

2) If I get the np9130 with the standard dvd drive, is it possible to switch it out for a ssd drive later myself or do I have to get it now?

3) If I get an ssd drive instead of an optical drive, can I use it to install windows so it boots faster or does it have to be on the primary drive? ALso, how much memory do I need to install windows? is 32gb enough?

4) I will be using my laptop mostly for movie viewing, gaming and school work (3d modeling, CAD work, etc.). Will the new Ivy bridge processors offer a good improvement over the Sandy Bridge for what i'll be doing with my laptop?



*Sorry for the noob questions. This will be my first high performance laptop and I don't want to get buyer's remorse.

 

1) Yes, the 670m is nearly 2.5x better overall than the 555m. The 670m is basically a rebadged 570m, which was a high end gaming card. The 555m is much closer to the middle of the pack in terms of performance.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

2) You can do the swap yourself. You'd just need to bay a SATA 12.7mm to 2.5" HDD caddy. They're fairly universal and available everywhere (including from your retailer). You'd remove the DVD drive, mount your new HDD/SSD into the caddy, and put that in place of the DVD drive. Of note though, if you were adding a newer SATA 6GB/s SSD, you'd want to put this into your primary bay rather than the optical bay as the latter only supports SATA 3GB/s speeds.

3) This is the primary usage of an SSD. You won't see much benefit if you use it as a data drive. You won't want a drive smaller than 64GB though as it's going to require a lot more work to manage the space. I'd highly recommend 120GB or larger if you can afford it. Windows 7 will typically take 30-40GB on a default install, though you can cut that down a lot if you remove unneeded features. A 32GB SSD is going to be more hassle than it's worth though, if that's why you're concerned.

4) Ivy bridge won't help much here. The main benefits are greatly enhanced integrated graphics and lower power usage. For 3D modeling, I'd assume you'd want the Nvidia GPU running most of the time- which would negate these two benefits anyway. The CPU performance will only be marginally better than Sandy Bridge. At this point in time though, it's really not that much longer of a wait if you want Ivy Bridge anyway.

 

Yeah, for the Ivy bridge I'll probably wait anyways so I'll see when they come out. For the ssd drive being in the primary bay, can the hard drive that will be in the primary bay at first be switched into the sencond bay? Does this also require a caddy?

 

Yeah, the hard drive can be moved over just the same. Any drive you put into the optical bay will need a caddy. It's just a universal caddy though, so you can always swap out what you have installed in it as you need to.

 

Ok, thanks for the quick responses. It's good to know I'll be able to swap it if needed. I don't think I'll be buying an ssd drive anytime soon, nut I might get one in a few years when the price drops.

 

Do these gaming GPUs offer much help in terms of 3D modeling and cad programs? Can they keep up with the other "professional" grade GPUs like the Quadro? I'm in the same boat as the OP, but I'm just wondering if its okay to get a laptop with a gaming GPU for engineering work.

Sent from my HTC Vivid

 

I'd also like to know the answer to that, but I think that with the CAD work I do right now it should be fine. I can run all my programs on my 3 year old Toshiba satellite. I do have to turn the rendering down a little but I don't mind. I'm pretty sure these GPUs are much better.

 

They'll do that sort of work just fine, but you won't get the best performance. The drivers and software are optimized on Quadro's for that sort of work, whereas the GeForce are better for gaming. AutoCad in particular only asks for:

AutoCAD 2013 - System Requirements - Autodesk

 

Gotcha, thank you for clearing that up. I've been wondering that for quite some time. I really didn't want to have to get one of those bleak "professional" laptops as opposed to some of these gaming ones as long as the gaming GPU didn't hinder 3D modeling too bad.

Sent from my HTC Vivid