x7200 - have a few questions before purchase

hello all,

i've been lurking around this forum a while now, and have also been researching/looking for a new laptop purchase.

I have settled for the clevo x7200/sager NP7280, however I'm still trying to decide on reseller, and I also have a couple of questions that I hope some of you will be willing to answer, esp. those that have experience w/ this model.

1) thermal compound choice.....I have heard a number of different thoughts on this, and would like to know from experience which one people here think is the best one...esp. if the laptop will be used for heavy gaming and graphics editing (3d/2d). I have heard ICd7 as one of the most popular/efficient?

2) CPUs....I've been really going back and forth on this one in my head. is it worth it to spend the extra cash for the extreme version of the intel CPU, like say the i7-990x extreme 6-core....or just go w/ the regular flavour, say the i7-970 6-core....??

3) HDD.....I have been going back and forth for my boot/prog harddrive, between a OCZ vertex 3 120gb SSD - sandforce SF-2281, and a samsung 128gb SSD pb-22j controller. I have heard/read that samsung and intel HDD are in general more reliable...

4) fan/general noise.....I have read a number of reviews pointing out at the noise the fans make especially at a full CPU/GPU load....some say between 50 to even 60db....I dont know anyone personally who has a x7200/NP7280, so I cant tell if that'd be something to bother me or not....I guess I'd like to know from owners if these levels of noise is something that bothers people or in general are not that bad/ignorable....to me this can be an issue....

any direction/thoughts would be appreciated.

 

P270WM, the successor is around the corner. So if you can wait a bit...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/582409-x7200-successor-mobo-computex-2011-a.html

 

Are you sure the cpu will be the 2600K and not the new i7-3820, i7-3930K(unlocked), i7-3960X(unlocked)?
For a week now i'm all over internet to find information to know what clevo i should get and clevo P270WM has been said to use LGA 2011.
2600k is LGA 1155.

I was a review from this week Preview : Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E) et X79 : Introduction sorry its in french but there should be english version somewhere.
The big improvement for me in the next clevo would be the 4 RAM Slot, the cpu performance between generation doesnt seem like killer to me.

Adding:
-This new barebone if you buy it right away wont be tested fully kind of a blind shot here: heat dissipation, noise, weakness in general.
-Price at first should be highter than current X7200 because of the cpu heat dissipator.


The X7200 is well know now, you got lot of bench you know its strength, its weak point.

I'm hesitating too right now and has i searched a lot i would like to share my though with you.

 

I would seriously wait for the P270WM and the Intel X79 chipset (due in November some time).

I know the X7200 is amazing, but X79 will be even more powerful. Believe that!

 

At this time there is no ETA for the P270WM with the Intel X79 chipset. NDA does not allow any info.
_

 

I have an x7200 and I can say go with doing the thermal paste yourself unless it's a free upgrade. As far as the i7 goes, save your money since the cpu is plenty powerful enough even at just a lowly i7 950. Me personally I'd go with the ocz ssd though they are all great choices in my opinion. Fan noise is something that doesn't bother me but considering I always get gaming laptops I've learned to tune it out a long time ago, though when the fans reach max speed on this laptop it does get pretty noisy