Sager NP9280 Build

Here is my build for the NP9280 I will be getting. I am going to be spending about 90% of my time playing games.

I play games like Oblivion, Warcraft III, Diablo II, Diablo III, KOTOR I and II, and other RPGs and maybe some MMOs like Star Wars Galaxies, Star Wars the Old Republic and or World of Warcraft.

Sager NP9280 (Built on Clevo D900F) Ultimate Custom Laptop
- 17" WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Intel Core i7 Quad Extreme (Nehalem) 975 3.33GHz 8MB Cache 130W
- nVidia GeForce GTX 280M 1,024MB PCI-Express DDR3 DX10 (User Upgradeable)
- ~ 6,144MB DDR3 1333MHz Memory (3 SODIMMS) (w/ i7 975 CPU Only)
- Standard Finish
- ~ 2X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
- ~ 250GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300)
- ~ 250GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300)
- ~ 250GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300)
- Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/MS Pro Duo/SD/Mini-SD/MMC/RS)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi Link
- Integrated Digital Video Camera
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Channels 24-bit External USB Sound Card
- ~Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Installed (64&32-Bit CD Included) + Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Upgrade Coupon w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's


What does everyone think?

 

Great workstation!

- have you considered the np9850, that's a real gamers rig!
- do you have a reason to have those three hard disks in?
- you may consider to get yourself a SSD (like Intels'new X25's) to make your system and games start a lot faster and next to that you could get 320 or 500 GB drives?

 

What kind of SSD? Arent they extremely expensive? And If I got one should I combine it with lets say a 320gb? I honestly dont think I need 3 HDDs.

 

If you were to get an 80GB intel x-25M and a 500GB 7200rpm HDD (or even a 5400rpm, as you'll be booting off an ssd) you would have faster boot and game load times, and the x25M's aren't hugely expensive

 

And the new Intel's (gen 2) are a little better, and much cheaper than the gen 1.

 

What would you recommend the combination I use with a regular HDD and then an intel SSD? I just want the best performance.

 

It really doesn't matter. The extra HDD would be just for storage - your OS and apps goes onto the SSD. Get as many HDD Gb's as you think you will need.

 

The biggest they have is 160gb SSD though, will that even be enough? And I found one for $480, thats bout $200 cheaper that what Xotic PC was offering.

I will probably go 160gb SSD with a 320gb or a 500gb 7200 RPM.

 

even 80GB's is usually enough for operating system and programs. For this sort of set-up, you should put all general data on the second (non ssd) drive.

 

Alright how about this build:

Sager NP9280 (Built on Clevo D900F) Ultimate Custom Laptop
- 17" WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Intel Core i7 Quad Extreme (Nehalem) 975 3.33GHz 8MB Cache 130W
- nVidia GeForce GTX 280M 1,024MB PCI-Express DDR3 DX10 (User Upgradeable)
- ~ 6,144MB DDR3 1333MHz Memory (3 SODIMMS) (w/ i7 975 CPU Only)
- Standard Finish
- ~ 2X Blue-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
- ~ 160GB Intel X25-M Solid State Drive (SSD Serial-ATA II)~
- ~ 500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)~
- Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/MS Pro Duo/SD/Mini-SD/MMC/RS)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi Link
- Integrated Digital Video Camera
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1 Channels 24-bit External USB Sound Card
- ~Windows Vista Ultimate 64-Bit Installed (64&32-Bit CD Included) + Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Upgrade Coupon w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's

Gaming wise how good is this setup?

 

Jack_of_Blades,
I am writing this as an owner of the NP9280 (see sig).
Your first setup was in my oppinion the best; to elaborate:
the screen is the only option if im not mistaken (id much rather have a wsxga+ 1680x1050 myself, but they dont offer it), if you can afford it, the extreme i7 cpu is the best you can get (although i didnt get it since it seames too expensive to me for the little gain over my cpu), and with it, as you have, you definetely want the 1333mhz ram, and 6gb is the most reasonable, since the 4gb sticks (12gb option) are insanely expensive, the blu ray is always nice to have, and the 3x 250gb hdds are in my oppinion the best choice - ill elaborate a little more on this since thats what youre debating on changing.

SSD are still very young tech, very expensive, and you get very little space for that money.. the speed with a brand new ssd is good (UP to 250mb/s sounds nice right?), but take note, that with use, and fragmentation, both write and read speeds on ssds can drop significantly! I expirienced that myself so i can tell you first hand (with ocz vertex and intel x-25m). And also take note if you have one ssd paired with a normal hd, you have to be careful how you setup windows, since the normal hd will require defragmentation, and the ssd must NEVER be defragmented since it messes it up.. And since the NP9280 has hardware raid, the speed of three 250gb conventional HDs in raid0 on this machine is almost as high as the speed of the intel x-25m (see my hdtune screenie below), but you also have more space for much less money with that. So think if its worth giving so much money for it considering all this. The only difference youd see is a second or two in loading times of games but performance would not increase.

3x 250gb 7200rpm in Raid0 on Clevo D900F (Sager NP9280)

 

Ah, but take a look at the price drops with the Gen2 Intel SSD's, HellCry.
A 80 Gb X25-M now costs less than 200 Euros, in this country (and Norway is expensive!) - that makes SSD a much more viable option, in my opinion.

 

Wow there are so many options... I don't which to choose

 

Also, with 3 drives in raid-0, you're running the risk of losing everythig if 1 drive goes bad, which while not necessarily likely, does happen.

 

Yeah I think I will not do Raid 0....

 

I would have gotten i7 950 and 80 GB SSD.

 

I want a powerful CPU. If I didn't go with the i7 extreme there would be no reason to go with the D900F and I might as well have gone with the M850.

 

I agree with HellCry.It is to soon to invest on expensive ssds.They still have work to do and improve on that technology.I would rather consider buying them in 3 years time with a new configuration.
But rather than raid one ,i would implement raid 5 that offers speed and security.
Otherwise a nice configuration .Even if as many claim, it is not a hardcoregamer laptop ,U can play most of the games 1920x1200 with each option set to the max and no AA (is AA really usefull if U resort to 1920x1200 screen resolution ?I doubt it)Take a glance at the benches I have performed,and U will see that the results in terms of FPs are not ridiculous at all (u get + 10 to15 fps as an average with the M980NU thanx to the sli)

U should also keep in mind that U can play and encode xvid or h264 at the same time in the background without affecting the fpsrate(i have tested that with xilisoft dvdrip platinium 5)this soft uses all cores and requires 20% processor ressources. I will be also very easy to change the gpu in the future;The gpu is quickly and easily removable)
The D900F is not a bad choice at all. We only miss the sli.
but I do not regret my choice

 

I do regular backups of important files so raid0 isnt a problem for me, and ive owned several systems with raid0 and none of them ever had any problems..
But if thats what worries you just do raid5 and youre safe in case one hd fails.