Spec'ing out my next purchase

I need to replace my P750ZM and would like some suggestions. What I THINK I want to buy but would like people to look at the choices I am thinking and see what ou think of the config.

i7-6700K processor - no brainer there

64 GB RAM - should I buy it with the system or buy it from NewEgg? I can get 64GB of matched RAM with faster timings from NewEgg for less than the cost of the upgrade from 32 to 64 or close to it. Your thoughts?

512GB M.2 SSD - think I am going with the Samsung NVMe drive here. Is there anything out there that is faster for me to put my OS on? I have a spare XP941 from my previous system (it was a backup). LONG ago, there used to be issues where a system would slow the drives on the same bus to the speed of the slowest device. Is there anything like that going on with the technology today or is that a thing of the distant past? What other drives should I consider if?

Intel versus Killer 802.11AC - Had the Killer on the last one and paid a bit extra to get it. Now the Intel is more expensive. I had problems with the Killer at first but finally found a good drive and didn't have as many disconnects. Is there anything that makes the Intel better than this Killer card?

970m, 980m or ??? - This is the big question. I would love to put the new 1080 card into this system once they are available but have no idea to the cost or if they would fit into a P750DM or P770DM if I bought one of those. Should I roll the dice and get the 970m hoping the price point and compatibility of the 1080 would work as an upgrade once they come out? Or do you think I should just go 980m and not even worry about the 1080?

I know this is my choice to make; it is my laptop after all. I just would like to have input on the things I should consider. My purchase shall be made within 2 weeks so I need to think this over carefully.

My leanings at the moment: buy RAM from NewEgg, stick with the NVMe, try Intel, 970m and roll the dice on the 1080 working in it later.

 

Ram and drives buy on your own. I don't think the slower drives would slow down the faster ones, and the Samsung 950 Pro is the fastest drive available. Wifi Killer should be fine, but I'm not an expert. The 1080m should be coming out fairly soon, some rumors are coming out about an MSI GT72 barebones with one available in like a monthish. It would fit in the Clevo. I can't guess on performance though.

 

I have heard rumors that they are still a few months out; September or October time frame.

 

You could be right. Stuff like this is starting to leak though:
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/52685...force-gtx-1080m-finds-way-notebook/index.html

 

The whole Killer Networking is just a gimmick (fancy GUI & QoS, which doesn't really matter all that much unless you're absolutely pounding your network). Get whatever is cheaper, and that's usually Intel. On a side note, I'll note my experience with Killer isn't great. My ex-girlfriend's Dell XPS had a Killer 1202 in it, it constantly dropped the connection (<10 ft from router, line of sight), problem went away when I swapped it with an Intel 7260AC.

As for ram and SSD, get it from either Amazon or Newegg, whichever is cheaper. I usually pick up Crucial/ Micron RAM and Samsung SSDs, cause they're cheap.

Not sure why you're going for 64Gigs of RAM though, we have mobile workstations that run rendering demos at trade shows, and we rarely use all 64Gigs. Unless you're going crazy with VMs like some of our software guys that do compatibility and validation. If you're going to game, 16Gigs is plenty, save the money and go for a better GPU.

 

Do you need 64GB of ram? 16GB is enough for most people so you could get 2x 16GB modules and be more than covered for now.

 

I have Windows 10 boot and then launch 3 VMs automatically; Windows 8.1, Linux and Mac OSX. I use those for my day to day things and have noticed that my old system (4790k and 32GB RAM) was getting hammered by those needs. If you have Steam, look at Ark Survival Evolved and their Workshop section on Mods. I am working on Total Mods that will work across all 3 platforms.

 

Personally I'd wait for the Clevo refreshes. Especially since your P750ZM can't be holding you back that much.

The P775DM2-G which MAY have a Pascal GPU was sighted at Computex so they can't be too far off. I say "may" because many people are attributing the photo of the NVCPL spec list as being a Pascal GPU. However it could VERY easily be a highly overclocked GTX980. Specifically, you'd only run a +502mhz memory offset (definitely possible with Samsung GDDR5 chips) and 1442mhz core is relatively obtainable.

 

All storage shares the same cap of up to 3.5-3.7GB/sec in modern laptops but that should be plenty for the host and 3 VMs to still perform decently.

 

Yeah, I just asked my colleague that shares an office with me, she runs Win7 with 3 VMs (XP, 7, and 10) for validation and shes only got 32GB in her desktop, she seems happy as a clam.

 

It all depends what you are doing on those VMs of course, they are just a shell that's hopefully not too resource hungry.

 

Each is trying to run that game to verify mods I do can run "properly" under all. That is the hobby side of my system.

I am also using it to do some professional work I cannot discuss.

 

While you can discuss exact details people can normally talk about disk heavy or memory heavy tasks.

For the hobby side take each usage and multiply by 4.