Customize My SONY VAIO F14 Please

Please customize my SONY VAIO F14 for me. A little background on myself:
- Programmer, computer science major
- Gamer, StarCraft 2, Counter-Strike..
- Loves movies, especially in crisp detail
- Wants to run graphics applications smoothly (Maya, Photoshop)

Please help customize my SONY VAIO to fit my needs, link found here:
https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wc...52921666241650&categoryId=8198552921644692000

I appreciate any help, thanks!

 

This is a great question to ask in this forum:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/son...io-f-series-i5-i7-owners-thread-part-5-a.html

Also, search for posts from user mangosango. He's got gaming benchmarks galore, as well as many many game benchmarks using his VAIO F11 on youtube.

 

I have been using Maya for the past 11 years, here is a good configuration for that which will also be good for games and photoshop of course.

Go with the fastest CPU, and 4GB of RAM unless you are doing a lot of particle or physical simulations, if you are then max the RAM as high as you can, you may even want to ask sony if the motherboard will handle 16GB with 8GB per channel. You would have to add it aftermarket since they only offer 2x4GB. Use some of this RAM to make a RAMdisk and put your caches and such on it.

Go with the smallest HDD and replace it yourself with a big and fast SSD, you may even want dual SSD by replacing the dvd drive with a caddy. I configured it here with a bluray burner, because if you don't want an extra SSD it will be useful to burn high capacity data disks.

The F has a short battery life so get the extended battery, also it is smart to get an ADH warranty. Windows professional with fresh start option will make your life easier. Backlit keyboard is useful too.

All these upgrades will be expensive but Maya is a demanding program and will benefit from them a lot. You might want to look at a HP elitebook instead if your main goal is to run maya on a laptop since it will have a professional GPU and support for more RAM.


Intel® Core™ Quad i7-840QM processor (1.86GHz) with Turbo Boost up to 3.20GHz (Reg. Price $325.00)
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Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64-bit
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320GB Hard Disk Drive (5400rpm)
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4GB (2GBx2) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
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Blu-ray Disc™ Read and Write Drive
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16.4" VAIO Full HD Premium Display (1920x1080)
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NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 425M GPU (1GB VRAM)
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Fresh Start
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Adobe Bundle (Free - $448 value)
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Microsoft® Office 2010 Starter (Click More Info for details.)
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No additional AntiVirus Software

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No Engraving
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Large capacity battery
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LED Backlit Keyboard

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2 Year Express Ship Service Plan with ADH for Notebooks