Need help on laptop custimization please

[Black Panther]

I think I have chosen to make my purchase from NotebookGuru.de. The notebook is based on the Clevo D901C.

Do you think the following laptop is reasonable for my needs (portable desktop, battery life and weight not important, to be used for gaming, internet and watching dvd's)?

1. CPU Prozessor
Core2Duo E6850 2x3,0 GHz 4 MB Cache 1333 MHz +0,00EUR
Core2Duo E8200 2x2,66 GHz 6 MB Cache 1333 MHz +0,00EUR
Core2Duo E8400 2x3,0 GHz 6 MB Cache 1333 MHz +50,00EUR
Core2 Quad Q9300 4x2,5 GHz 6 MB Cache 1333 MHz +100,00EUR
Core2 Extreme QX9650 4x3,0 GHz 12 MB Cache 1333 MHz +750,00EUR

2. RAM Arbeitsspeicher
1024 MB DDR2 667 MHz +0,00EUR
2048 MB DDR2 667 MHz Kingston +25,00EUR
3072 MB DDR2 667 MHz Kingston +50,00EUR
4096 MB DDR2 667 MHz Kingston +70,00EUR
1024 MB DDR2 800 MHz Kingston +15,00EUR
2048 MB DDR2 800 MHz Kingston +40,00EUR
3072 MB DDR2 800 MHz Kingston +70,00EUR
4096 MB DDR2 800 MHz Kingston +90,00EUR
2048 MB DDR2 HyperX Performance CL4 Kingston +55,00EUR
4096 MB DDR2 HyperX Performance CL4 Kingston +110,00EUR

3. Display
17 WUXGA TFT Display 1920x1200 spiegelnd (Glare) +0,00EUR

4. Graphics Card
NVidia GeForce 8800GTX mit 512 MB GDDR3 RAM 256 Bit +0,00EUR

4.1 SLI Graphics Card
No +0,00EUR
NVidia GeForce 8800GTX mit 512 MB GDDR3 RAM 256 Bit SLI Modus +669,00EUR

5. Optical Drive
DVD Brenner R/RW +- und DL +0,00EUR
DVD Brenner R/RW +- DL LabelFlash AD-7543A +20,00EUR
DVD Brenner R/RW +- DL Lightscribe DS-8A1H +20,00EUR
HD-DVD + DVD Brenner TS-L802A +60,00EUR
BlueRay Leser 2x + DVD Brenner 8x BC-5500A +200,00EUR

6. HDD Festplatte
120 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +0,00EUR
160 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +10,00EUR
250 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +40,00EUR
320 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +90,00EUR
80 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +20,00EUR
120 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +40,00EUR
160 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +70,00EUR
200 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +100,00EUR

6.1 Second HDD Festplatte
ohne +0,00EUR
120 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +50,00EUR
160 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +60,00EUR
250 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +80,00EUR
320 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +140,00EUR
80 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +70,00EUR
120 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +80,00EUR
160 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +110,00EUR
200 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +150,00EUR

6.2 Third HDD
No +0,00EUR
120 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +50,00EUR
160 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +60,00EUR
250 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +80,00EUR
320 GB SATA 5400 U/Min WD +140,00EUR
80 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +70,00EUR
120 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +80,00EUR
160 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +110,00EUR
200 GB SATA 7200 U/Min Seagate +150,00EUR

6.3 RAID Konfiguration
No +0,00EUR
RAID 0 Performance (mind. 2 gleiche HDDs) +0,00EUR
RAID 1 Sicherheit (mind. 2 gleiche HDDs) +0,00EUR
RAID 5 Performance + Sicherheit (mind. 3 gleiche HDDs) +0,00EUR

7. W-LAN Modul
No +0,00EUR
54 MBit Intel 3945 ABG +25,00EUR
300 MBit Intel 4965 AGN +35,00EUR

8. Bluetooth
No +0,00EUR
Bluetooth intern +30,00EUR

9. TV Module
No +0,00EUR
interner Hybrid TV Tuner +100,00EUR

Warranty
24 Monate Standartgarantie BringIn +0,00EUR
36 Monate Standartgarantie BringIn +150,00EUR
24 Monate Premiumgarantie PickUp & Return +30,00EUR
36 Monate Premiumgarantie PickUp & Return +180,00EUR

TOTAL PRICE: 3089 Euros + shipping.

I'm still thinking whether to opt for a normal DVD drive or Blu Ray.
Without the Blu Ray the price will be 2889 Euros.

Then I will buy Vista Home Premium 64 bit from the same shop for 90 Euros.

What do you think?

[Error 404]

Looks like a... powerful machine. Whats the battery life, 2 minutes or 1?
What do you plan to do with it that requires it to be portable? It seems like a lot of money to be spending on something that could easily be done with a desktop, when you said you didn't really care about portability.
Also, do you want to have 2 hard drives in RAID 0 or are you planning on using just one?

[Black Panther]

It's 2 hard drives in raid 0. Sorry if it's not clear, I tried to highlight my choices in bold.

I want a desktop replacement (I said I wanted a portable desktop, not that portability is important). As long as I can fold it and lug it around, I don't mind if it weighs 20lbs... It'd still be easier to carry than my tower, 22 inch monitor, keyboard & mouse...

The thing is that during the summer months (make that till late November here) we're rarely at home where my rig is stationed. Perhaps only for 2 hours a day which I can't afford to spend on my pc (there are kinda things to do around the house... ) We constantly go from one seaside apartment, to another seaside apartment etc etc...

In a way that's why battery life isn't important for me, I'd always be using the laptop near a power-source.

I have the budget now because we have sold a vehicle and part of the proceeds will go for the lappie I want something which I can carry by car from house to house, and which doesn't perform worse than my rig...

[Triprift]

An excellent setup Panther the only thing i would choose differently would be the cpu and go for an 8400 as there is hardly anything out at the moment that requires quad. Other than that rock solid plenty of HD space and the weight would be similar to mine wich is not that heavy to lug around.

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by Triprift

the only thing i would choose differently would be the cpu and go for an 8400 as there is hardly anything out at the moment that requires quad.

Would the E8400 3,0 GHz 6 MB Cache 1333 MHz give a faster performance than the Q9300 2,5 GHz 6 MB Cache 1333 MHz processor?

There's a 500Mhz difference in clock speeds, and I don't intend to OC the Q9300 (since it's in a laptop!)

My choice for the quad went because I want to future-proof the machine as much as possible, since there'd be no way I'd be able to buy another high end machine before the lapse of like 5 years, and laptops are not upgradeable easily...

I was hoping that I'd still be able to play games satisfactorily for 3 years, maybe later I'd use it as a mainstream office machine... and for playing games which would then be old - if it plays Crysis now it can play Crysis in 2013...

(Oh and a quad will give me a higher CPU score in 3DMark wouldn't it?)

I was more worrying about the fact that all the CPU's offered by that store are desktop CPU's not laptop CPU's.

Is there any disadvantage/advantage for having a desktop CPU inside a laptop?

I'm also confused because someone (not on TPU) told me that 2x Western Digital @ 5400rpm will give me better performance than 2x Seagate @ 7200rpm. Is this possible?

[Triprift]

In terms of performance theyd be about the same Panther the quad making up ground because of the extra cores.

Im not sure about the quad improving 3d mark scores sorry not really using 3dmark much

As for desktop cpus that will give u an advantage cus youll have better l2 cache and clock speeds with heating being the major prob.

My advice if ur gonna do a long gaming session with it is to have it elevated at the back to allow cool air to circulate underneath (a big book would suffice).

And finally the hd's would give you less performance overall one of the disadvantages of lappys :/ but i have to 160's in my rig are they both run fine no probs at all with them.

[lemonadesoda]

1./ Is there an option for a non-glare TFT? It will get on your nerves... all those reflections from lights and windows, esp. in a sunny country like Malta.

2./ Blu-ray is overkill for laptop. If you want blu-ray glory, show it on the bigscreen. Get a PS3 or Bluray player for not much more than the upgrade cost of DVD to bluray on the laptop.

3./ No need foe 7200 2.5" drives IMO. That's server class. Only more noise and heat. For a laptop with 4GB RAM you really dont need those speeds. If you really want to do it, then be aware of noise, heat, and possibly get 5400 on the second drive

[FatForester]

It's a common misconception that 7200RPM drives are louder, produce more heat, and consume more power. The 7200 RPM 2.5" drives are great, and the newer Seagates are supposed to be the best you can buy at the moment. The only noise I hear on mine is the heads and it's an Hitachi (which are supposedly the loudest 2.5" 7200RPM drives). I can't even hear the drive while it's spinning... but my DVD drive on the other hand

On a desktop replacement like this, I'm gonna say that you don't need any bottlenecks, and the HDD's are the next place to look. I'm not sure on the cooling, but chances are to cool a desktop CPU and two high-end GPU's the system is going to need plenty of fans and be quite loud. Any potential cons of a 7200 RPM drive (other than cost) won't make a difference.

I was thrown into the same dilemma when buying my laptop, and notebookreview was incredibly helpful. If the cost isn't much of a burden, then go for it!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=59053
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=127295

[FatForester]

Sorry to double post, but I'm also going to agree with Lemonade on points 1 & 2. The gloss might get on your nerves if it's sunny. If you're going to be inside or away from glare, then I don't see a real problem, it's just something to consider. Blu-ray is definitely overkill! Since you really can't use this thing on the road, you'll be much better off with a PS3 or player instead. Also, why no Wifi? Even if you don't see a need for it, it might be useful someday.

[Black Panther]

Is 'non-glare' the equivalent of a glossy TFT? I was thinking that there exist glossy, matte and I am not sure what 'non-glare' means, thought it was a better type of glossy?

I won't be using the laptop outside. It's way too hot (even for me let alone for the laptop!!). And I don't think that supplier makes a matte TFT.
From research I did, the notebook is actually a Clevo D901C. Now Clevo apparently don't sell laptops to the general public under their own name, but sell them to other companies for 'branding' like to Cizmo, Deviltech and NotebookGuru in Germany, to Sager in the U.S.A., to Rock and Kobalt in the U.K. etc... Now I think if Clevo don't supply the matte TFT for the D901C there's no way I can get a matte TFT...

Thank you for the Blu Ray advice! I was tempted to get it because in Malta the cost of Blu Ray upgrade on a laptop is ~ 465 Euros and the one I quoted in my link is 200 Euros. Is there a chance that within a year or two games would come on blu ray disk? If no, then I will decide against the Blu Ray.

About wifi...
lol don't laugh but since I never had wifi I barely know what it is for

After I get the laptop I was planning to change my internet service to wireless (otherwise getting the laptop would be pointless apart from gaming). I had checked and they told me that they have a sort of USB modem which looks like a small wireless router with an antenna, and they mentioned "3G" But I am not sure if I'm confusing things.

Anyway, I think for only 10 Euros difference for the wifi it'd be better to get the 300 MBit Intel 4965 AGN rather than the 54 MBit Intel 3945?

[lemonadesoda]

spiegelnd (Glare) = german for mirrored, ie "cool glassy glare", but IMO, aweful to work with.

I would try very hard to go matte if the option exists, even if a different model.

Get wifi. You will need it if you ever travel with your laptop, e.g. hotel, cafe, etc.

Wifi "n" is not the same as 3G. 3G is a mobile telephone data service. Wireless n is an ethernet protocol. Completely different.

[Error 404]

Yeah, non-glare = matte display: it is non-reflective, and much better to work with.
3G will get you wireless internet coverage over most of europe (if it is as widespread as it is in Australia), and go for the high speed wireless module: you'll get faster WiFi (internet) in spots that support it!

[NeotonicDragon3]

Als Festplatten stehen SATA Modelle mit bis zu 320 GB zur Verfügung. Somit kann man ein System mit maximal 960 GB Festplattenspeicher aufbauen!

WTF 920GB MAX??

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by NeotonicDragon3

WTF 920GB MAX??

That's because you can customize it to put 3 x 320GB hard disks. If you don't raid them you can get 960GB of storage space... lol

[Error 404]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

That's because you can customize it to put 3 x 320GB hard disks. If you don't raid them you can get 960GB of storage space... lol

No, if you RAID 0 them you get the full 960, but the risk of one of them failing and you losing all 960 GB of data increases exponentially!

[Black Panther]

I thought raid 0 will only give you half the space of the total HDD's?

In that if I have 2 x 160GB in raid 0 I wouldn't have 320GB total available space but only 160GB?

[Error 404]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

I thought raid 0 will only give you half the space of the total HDD's?

In that if I have 2 x 160GB in raid 0 I wouldn't have 320GB total available space but only 160GB?

RAID 0 stripes the data to your hard drives, like similar to what Dual Channel Mode does to RAM. Since it splits up each piece of info into alternate bytes, when one hard drive crashes you lose that set of bytes, which means the other set is unrecoverable!
However, if you got another drive that was twice the size of the two combined drives (a 320 GB drive in your case), then you can back up your info onto that drive in real time, so it isn't lost if one of them crashes!

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by lemonadesoda

spiegelnd (Glare) = german for mirrored, ie "cool glassy glare", but IMO, aweful to work with.

I would try very hard to go matte if the option exists, even if a different model.

I can choose matte, but the resolution would be WXGA+ TFT 1440x900 instead of WUXGA 1920x1200 Price would be the same.

I don't think that'd be worth it

I've heard that there are kind of filters one can buy to put over the TFT if it reflects too much.

[lemonadesoda]

Call or email the manufacturers (not just the retailer). They may tell you about "special options" or that the WUXGA will be available in x weeks or to order. You never know.

You'll be kicking yourself if you buy glossy and a week later they announce the matte version at 1920x1200.

[twicksisted]

One thing I would be worried about here is heat... You going to have a desktop CPU (much higher TDP than the mobile equivalents) as well as two 8800GTX graphics cards and two harddrives.

That thing is gonna get so hot its going to reboot itself every 20 mins...
Im not trynna piss on your parade here atall as on paper it looks killer, but in reality something like that just isnt going to be 100% stable.

My sister bought an alienware Area 51 laptop about 4 years ago for £3000.
Back then it was the latest and greatest .... it had desktop processor 3ghz P4 chip and radeon 9800 gfx... and it would run seriously hot enough to burn you... and then it would switch off randomly. We sent in it countless times to get repaired, but there was nothing wrong with it... just bad design.

In reality, my quad needs a massive heatsink... and you not going to get sufficient cooling inside an inch thick case... even though 45nm chips run cooler, if its sandwiched inside a small case, and that case gets hot... its going to cause a problem.

[Triprift]

It should be ok in terms of heating just either do what i said and elevate the lappy at the back or get a usb fan mat preferable a different one to mine as its so loud .

[twicksisted]

Originally Posted by Triprift

It should be ok in terms of heating just either do what i said and elevate the lappy at the back or get a usb fan mat preferable a different one to mine as its so loud .

Oh I diddnt realise that you already bought it... yeah theres quite a few laptop coolers availible and they will help.

Also looking at your post more, I think that you should go for two drives definately... but dont raid them... Use one as primary, and the other as backup / storage. Reason being as its a laptop and you cant fit more drives internally... when the day comes to re-install windows (I usually do it once a year or so) then you can wipe the primary drive having backed up on the secondary... reinstall and them move everything back as you like it.

Otherwise youll be sitting with 320gb that you have to backup to DVD, or transfer via the ethernet port... thatll take ages

[Black Panther]

No I haven't bought it yet.

I'm still tinkering with the idea whether to get the E8400 or the Q9300. The former is core2duo @ 3.0Ghz, the latter is quad @ 2.5Ghz....

About being an inch thick... lol I wish...
The Clevo D901C (US brand Sager 9262) is 6cm thick...

[Triprift]

Id still say go with the 8400 like i said at the moment there's hardly nething that really requires quad apart from video editing and possibly 3d mark.

[Black Panther]

Will the quad run cooler since it's 45nm?