Sager NP9150 on the horizon...

So tomorrow I will be ordering a Sager NP9150, and this is the configuration I'm looking at right now:

15.6” Full HD 16:9 LED-Backlit MATTE 95% NTSC Color Gamut Ultra Bright
NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 680M 4GB GDDR5 Memory
Intel® Core™ i7-3720QM Processor (6M Cache, up to 3.60 GHz)
IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Remove All Branding
Remove DVDRW Drive and Install Optical Bay Hard Drive Caddy Only
Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
8 cells smart Lithium-Ion battery pack 76.96Wh
Integrated Fingerprint Reader
LIFETIME Limited Labor and 1 Year Premium** Parts Warranty

Screen: Everything I've read on here says that the 95% screen is worth it, and I've decided for myself that I want Matte over Glossy. I'll be indoors most of the time, but there's really nothing I can do about the positioning of windows and such, so I'd like to avoid glare as much as possible. Plus, this is an upgrade for me from 1366x768 stock glossy screen from HP, so I'm sure it'll look great.
GPU: I went with the Nvidia card over AMD's 7970M for a couple of reasons. 1) I have had ATI cards in the past, and while they're not bad, I would like to try out what the other side has to offer. 2) Optimus is more mature than Enduro, and I would like to get at least decent battery life out of this computer (of course not while gaming). 3) On that same vein, I've read that the 680M's run a bit cooler, which is important to me. 4) I need CUDA for certain applications such as MATLAB. 5) The ability to slightly overclock the screen even to 70Hz or 75Hz would be pretty nice and as far as I know is impossible with AMD cards.
CPU: I went with the 3720QM for the slightly unlocked multiplier, which I know at the moment cannot be utilized on the P150EM, but may potentially become available in later modded BIOS. Also, the extra 300MHz will help with Fraps recording, as well as single-threaded applications and games. In 2-3 years when I can find the 3960xm (3980xm? It isn't out yet, whatever they call the XM processor of the 3rd generation i7's) on Ebay for $200-300, I will upgrade to that. Right now, the i7 940xm's can be found on Ebay for about $349. I would rather pay $300 in a few years to increase CPU performance ~25%+ than buy a whole new computer.
Thermal Paste: I went with the IC Diamond 7 upgrade because as stated earlier, heat is a concern for me. I have a tube of it myself if it comes with a bad paste job, which I've been hearing complaints of around here recently. I'd rather just pay the $30 to have it come pre-applied.
Removed Branding: As a bit of anti-theft, I opted for the brandless laptop shell. Also, I prefer the sleeker look.
Bigfoot Wireless-N 1103: Numerous sites, such as anandtech, have stated that the Killer card is in fact superior to Intel's 6300. As a student I'll be on the go quite a bit, and I want good range on my Wi-Fi card.

I have 16GB of Corsair Vengeance at 1866MHz to put in the laptop when it arrives, as well as a 256GB Crucial M4 SSD which I will be using in the primary hard drive bay. In the optical drive bay I'll be putting a 1TB Western Digital AV-25 HDD w/ 16MB cache @ 5400 RPM for storage. I have read lots of people saying that the Corsair RAM won't work because it's using XMP profiles. This is in fact not the case, unless Typhoon Burner and CPU-Z are both incorrectly identifying the RAM as having JEDEC profiles for 1866MHz.

Any thoughts? Am I forgetting something, or are there any must-have components I'm forgetting? Comments welcome.

 

expensive but beastly nice choices

enjoy

mine may come in saturday though unsure at this point
im hoping however ..

 

I'm surprised you didn't go with an mSATA SSD drive? It's a massive speed increase for programs.

 

mSATA do give you a nice increase in speed, but only if you have a regular platter hard drive, since he plans on putting in a SSD as the primary that will actually be faster then a mSATA.

 

Ahhh I didn't read that section where he said he was adding that. Sorry ;]

 

as a cache drive? what size would u need for it to be worthwile

 

Well I talked to a few tech specialists before I ordered my Sager and they convinced me that the mSATA SSD Drive Intel 80GB 310 Series mSATA SSD - Preconfigured for Intel SR, was the best. So far, I'm loving it.

 

You are right this is a bit on the pricey side. However, as I mentioned, instead of getting a new machine in 2-3 years as many users might, instead I plan to upgrade the CPU, and hopefully the GPU around the Nvidia 800/900 or AMD 9000/10000(?) series, if they're still compatible. I plan to keep this machine 4-5 years, assuming it doesn't break for some unforeseen reason.

Yep that's what I was thinking. Maybe down the road if mSATA becomes cheaper I'd pick one up, but right now 1.25TB of storage will be plenty, and I got the 256GB SSD on sale when the Crucial drives were super cheap (I think they still are). Also I'll be able to use SATA III, which should be faster than the current setup I've got with an SSD on SATA II.

I think even down to 8GB would be useful, the Hybrid drives from Seagate only use 8GB and show massive performance boosts over standard mechanical drives. Honestly I don't see the point of mSATA for caching though, RAM works for that just fine and will affect everything but boot times.

 

you think i should get like a 40gb msata for os or just wait till i have enough for a 256gb crucial m4
im thinking the latter....

 

I would check the daily deals and shell shocker sections on Newegg, I think Amazon also does Daily Deals, until either a sub $100 128GB or sub $200 256GB SSD pops up from Intel, Samsung, or Crucial. Those three are really the best in my opinion. If you can keep a small number of games, or just don't game at all, 128GB SSD is probably plenty of space if you have access to either another internal hard drive or an external drive for storage.

 

Samsung are great drives too.

 

Let me know how the Corsair RAM is works for you.
I'm assuming this is the ram you're talking about: Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1866 Laptop Memory Model CMSX8GX3M2A1866C10.

I plan on ordering in a couple weeks so I'm still trying to figure out what RAM to get (leaning on G.Skill 2x4GB 1600MHz 9-9-9-28 right now since it is $48) but I'd totally go for the Corair if it runs at its advertised clocks of 1866MHz 10-10-10-27. Also, I didn't know MATLAB uses CUDA. I'll be beginning to use MATLAB this fall for college and use it for easily the next 3 years of my education and more. Definitely confirms my want for Nvidia over AMD. Now if only I could decide between the 675M and the 680M. I'd totally go with the 675M (or even 670M) if I knew whether the Nvidia 700/800 series will support MXM III Type b or not.

 

Yes that is the RAM I'm talking about. I've read scepticism in this board about it, but when I checked it myself I saw the 1866 speeds reported as JEDEC. If they don't work PnP, I'll probably end up flashing them to their advertised speed + timings, and I could send you those dumps if you need them.

I believe MATLAB needs a plugin for CUDA use. Wikipedia has a nice list of applications supporting the technology if you Google it.

 

Are you ordering from the main US sagernotebooks.com site?

I'm trying to place an order for an almost identical model to yours but can't see an option to remove the branding - but would love it if available. However I'm ordering from the UK (still accessing the US site) but can't see it anywhere.

Thoughts on where it's lurking?

 

Nope I am ordering from LPC-Digital. I don't know if they ship internationally, but I know that Gaming Laptops - XOTIC PC - Gaming Notebooks - Custom Laptops - Custom Notebooks does, so you might want to check there. They also offer the "remove branding" option. If you don't see it though, I'm fairly certain the "branding" is just a high quality sticker than can easily be removed.

 

Great - thanks for the tip. Even with shipping/tax buying from xoticpc to the UK is cheaper than we can get the same setup for over here. Crazy.

Thanks again.

 

Incidentally, You're quite right re. the sticker/branding being removable - however I've removed them in the past (from factory new laptops) and they've left a clearly lighter area where the sticker used to be. Hence I'd rather get it taken off from the start.

Good luck with yours!

 

I'm looking to do the same as far as making it last goes, id rather pay 1500 now (im not looking for a system as impressive as yours) and be able to pay more later to upgrade and keep the machine for 5-6 years rather than needing a new laptop in 2-4

 

Yeah I know what you mean, 5+ years for a laptop is pretty good imo. Let's look at 6 years:
-Someone buying a new lappy every 2-3 years will spend ~$1000-1500 each time, maybe even more. So in 6 years, they could spend between $2000-4500.
-Someone buying a new laptop 5-6 years, but doing upgrades every 2-3 may spend a little more to start out with, and then have any number of $200-400 upgrades in that time (for CPU/GPU). So if we start at $1500-2500, then upgrade say 3 times, we end up spending $2100-3700.

These numbers were just arbitrary, but I think it shows a point. Either way we're probably going to be spending about the same in a 6 year period, but upgrading components rather than buying a new laptop feels like you spend less. Really it's just a bit tighter range.

I did not include the money saved from selling old parts/laptop, as I don't know much of anything about how those prices fluctuate.

 

One could later buy an mSATA drive right? I wonder if they will become cheaper.

 

Yes, that's one of the potential upgrades I see in the future a couple of years down the line when they become more competitively priced.

 

Yep, there is a slot for it right below the CPU fan.