Sager NP9150 Holiday Special - About to pull the trigger and have a few questions

I am about to pull the trigger on this guy, but I have a couple of questions.

Sager NP9150 / Clevo P150EM - Special Edition Sager NP9150 / Clevo P150EM - Special Edition
- 15.6” FHD 16:9 LED Backlit Wide screen (1920x1080) Super Clear Matte Type Sager Screen (SKU - S1R316)
- Sager - 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3630QM (2.4GHz - 3.4GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP) (SKU – S2R174)
- - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
- nVidia GeForce GTX 680M 4,096MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 with Optimus™ Technology [User Upgradeable] (SKU - S3R406)
- 16GB - DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS) (SKU - S4S822AP)
- 750GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Disk Drive - Special!
- 6x Blu-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (SKU - S7T557)
- Sager - Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1202 + Bluetooth 4.0 (Dual Band) (SKU – S8R008)
- LIFETIME Limited Labor and 2 Year Premium** Parts Warranty

My questions are these:

1) Hard Drive - I was planning on adding an SSD to accompany the 750GB drive. Would there be any benefit to upgrading the 750GB drive to a 750GB w/8GB SSD Seagate Momentus XT (ST750LX003 7200RPM 32MB SATA 6.0Gb/s 8GB SSD) for $80? Also, B&H photo online has the Crucial M4 256GB for $160 right now. I was thinking I'd jump on that one if I can decide on the specs for this machine. Is that a solid price?

2) Warranty - I am undecided on the length of the warranty I should buy. Can I lengthen my warranty after purchase? From what I read, Sager/Clevo don't have all that many problems, so I'm wondering if a 2 year should suffice.

3) CPU - Is the base i7 that I have selected good enough for basic computing tasks, gaming (WoW, GW2, Skyrim, etc...) or should I look to step up a level? It's a give and take here between the video card and a higher performing CPU. As of now, I think the video card benefit outweighs the CPU benefit.

Thoughts on any of these? Thanks!

 

In my opinion
Pass on the 750gb upgrade, and keep it a normal HDD. That 256gb ssd is a good price, normal prices I see are around 200$. Put your windows and or games on the ssd, and keep the rest on the HDD. If you follow that set up, the HDD doesn't need a cache, and any improvements aren't that significant/noticeable.

That cpu is good enough for most games, though I think you may hit problems with stuff like starcraft. But for the most part you're right, you get more bang for your buck by putting it towards a graphics card.

Not sure about warranty/lifespan so won't touch on it.

 

Yes, that's a pretty good deal on the M4. I second omnid88 on passing on the upgrade option. That Crucial will suffice plenty.

I believe you CAN extend your warranty after purchase, but only within the return policy period. Honesty, it's much easier (on both parties) to decide at the time of checkout. How long you opt in for is entirely up to you and how much peace of mind you would like to have (and how much you'd like to spend).

Honestly, that i7 will suffice. I don't think you'll ever notice or hit any bottleneck with that current config you have.

 

double post

 

Yes x10000000. The base i7 is overkill for basic tasks and most games. A better CPU would only benefit GW2 (only slightly, and only because it's a poorly optimized POS) and CPU intensive tasks like video encoding (it would take less time to encode a video).

I would drop the $35 IC Diamond since good thermal paste only costs $10 (IC Diamond or Tuniq TX-2) and manufacturers tend to use too much paste (I don't know if that's the case with Sager). You should read up on the Killer Wireless-N 1202, as some people have problems with the Killer drivers (which is the main selling point of this card) or with random disconnects.

 

nooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Ahhhhh....loud noises!

 

Dropped the HDD upgrade and purchased the Crucial SSD for $160. Went ahead and placed my order with lpc-digital! Looks like I'll be joining the NP9150 club soon! Thanks for all the help.

 

Congrats, you will not be disappointed. What warranty did you decide on? I'm about to add one to mine. Still not sure which one to go with.

 

Thanks! I'm excited. Any idea on build and shipment times for these machines from lpc-digital?

I went with the 1 year warranty. It brought the price down into my price range. I justified it by the fact that I do a bulk of the work on my machines. The only thing that I foresee being a big problem is if they GPU or mobo fail in the second year. I'm banking on the hope though that if it doesn't fail within the first year its probably a good part and should last into the third, fourth or fifth year. Not sure if this is good logic, but hope it all turns out ok! Ha.

 

It will rock like a m[...]erf[...]r!

Enjoy man!

 

I ordered through xotic with rush build and standard shipping on nov 20 and received it on the 28th. I don't know how lpc works but as long as it ships straight from sager, it should be the same

 

It will be the same build time regardless of where you buy it. There is a difference on the regular build time and rush build time of about a week and half right now.