Vortex III 17.3" Ordered!

** This is now delivered, please find my pictures and review on page 2 and 3 of this this thread.

Upgrading my 2 year old Dell gaming laptop to this beauty, so glad I did a bit of digging online before buying an Alienware, wish i'd known about PCS 2 years ago Counting the days till it arrives (waiting on the 7970m to come into stock before it can get built!!)

I have really push my budget for this so can't treat myself to an SSD yet, figure I can always upgrade to one at a later date. Toying with the idea of getting an SSD CACHE DRIVE installed though, anyone got any thoughts on it? is it worth it or won't it make a great deal of difference to my overall gaming experience.

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3820QM (2.70GHz) Turbo boost to 3.70GHz) 8MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM (PRE-ORDER, ETA END OF MAY)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BD-5750H 6x BLURAY WRITER & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE (£79)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1102 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N NETWORK CARD
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire & Video Editing
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC3000S Ultimate Cooler, 220mm fan, upto 17.3inch (£35)
Carry Case
TARGUS XL CITY GEAR 16" - 17.3" LAPTOP CASE TCG417 (£43)
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
Razer® Naga MMO Gaming Mouse - 12 Button Thumbgrid (£65)
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,800.00 including VAT and delivery.

I've never wanted a month to go by so fast, I feel like a kid again

That looks really nice mate Well done , your not the only one waiting if that eases the pain :taz:

Literally just gone for the same spec myself, but I did go for the SSD option, I've used them in my main machine for a while now so know how much of an impact they make.

Allthough I did just go for the default wifi card, it will rarely be without a wired connection so could not justify it. And also the mat screen.

Awesome. That's almost the exact same spec for me lol. Can't wait!

Yea bit gutted about the SSD tbh, the 480GB one I wanted pushed the price to over 2.2k I couldn't justify it to myself figure the SSD just effects loading times on games and not much else? It's a massive jump from what I've got right now ( Dell Studio, Intel i5 CPU Dual core M540 2.5ghz, 4gb of standard 1333htz RAM with an ATi Mobility Radeon HD5650 1GB). Take it I can just upgrade to an SSD like any other HDD when I'm feeling a little more flush? I've got a cooling stand for my current laptop and that still gets pretty damn warm hope the airflow is planned a bit better in the Vortex chasis

Would the added SSD CACHE DRIVE, even though not a full SSD would it still impact on gaming? just that it seems like its only designed for generic programs.

Was looking at some leaked benchmarks for the new Kepler 680m too, the 7970 I've gone for seems to be on par with if not a bit better in some areas so thats all good too if you guys have got one of them. Can't wait!!

Just get a 128GB SSD as your 1st HD and the 500GB hybrid as your second. OS and games on the SSD, media files on the other. Sorted.

I'm not sure if the SSD cache would help your current spec as the momentum has (a small) one built in, it's basically the best non SSD drive you can get, however I have seen reports that when a SSD cache is added to a decent drive it will beat the momentum in speed tests.

I did look into it myself but just ended up going the SSD route.

Cheers Clancy but the cost of doing that is pretty much the same as buying a 480GB SSD outright anyway so kinda defeats the point

Is that so Limpduck? Hmmm maybe Ill just leave it then and upgrade to a full SSD when the prices are a bit more sensible. Don't suppose anyone as a perfomance percentage from a similar HDD to one with SSD Drive cache added, I'm not fussed about booting times or anything like that it's souly for gaming.

Plus if I did get the SSD drive cache now, would I have to remove it if I upgraded to a full SSD? I don't know if it would hinder the SSD's perfomance.

In general, when using a good SLC cache drive, then you can expect it to outperform hybrid drive systems by more than 2X (PC Mark Vantage HDD test) and HDD-only systems by as much as 4X (PC Mark Vantage HDD test) and deliver a 60% performance improvement over HDD-only systems in PC Mark Vantage Suite.

14th working day passes by, eagerly awaiting the end of the month till the 7970M comes in. Just wondered how many others are in the same boat? PCS have been fantastic so far, also having told me that anyone waiting on items like the 7970M automatically get fastracked when it arrives!

I suspect they've got quite a few Vortex III orders waiting for 7970Ms.

This spec is pretty much what I've ordered, although I went for the Matte Screen and the SSD.

Although I didn't go for the 1600Mhz RAM.

Waiting is hard!

Benadiction said:

14th working day passes by, eagerly awaiting the end of the month till the 7970M comes in. Just wondered how many others are in the same boat? PCS have been fantastic so far, also having told me that anyone waiting on items like the 7970M automatically get fastracked when it arrives!

Click to expand...

Excellent news! Can't wait

nice one man, i couldnt wait, so change mine to a gtx 675, but just opened the box today, and man its something else! you wont be dissapointed!

Bless you for your patience. And enjoy it when it comes out!

aeroshizzle said:

nice one man, i couldnt wait, so change mine to a gtx 675, but just opened the box today, and man its something else! you wont be dissapointed!

Click to expand...

Congrats man! I can't wait for mine, went into building on Friday, they said they should have it sent out on Monday, so hopefully by Tuesday or Wednesday (barring any problems once it goes onto QC). Can't wait to start the process of.. Removing my current HDD and fit it to an enclosure to.. Move my old files.. Then download.. And install..

Oh dear.

I think the first day of owning just getting all my stuff on it will be harder that the wait of getting it in the first place! Enjoy!

Jamwllms said:

I suspect they've got quite a few Vortex III orders waiting for 7970Ms.

This spec is pretty much what I've ordered, although I went for the Matte Screen and the SSD.

Although I didn't go for the 1600Mhz RAM.

Waiting is hard!

Click to expand...

FYI: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?15881-7970M-Delay

PCS said:

FYI: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?15881-7970M-Delay

Click to expand...

No worries, sure you're doing your best to get them to us ASAP. Hope it gets dispatched before the 5th of June as I'm only on leave until then

PCS said:

FYI: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?15881-7970M-Delay

Click to expand...

So much for getting it before half term /sigh. There is still a possibility seeing as we don't know when 'end of May' actually is. Could be anytime between 23rd-ish to 31st'. fingers crossed.

Will be delivered tomorrow! Will be posting pics and a review in the evening for sure!

Very sexy!

What an epic saga it’s been! 32 working days of email checking, forum scrolling and finger tapping fun. I am and have been extremely impressed with PCS the whole way though, I’m especially blown away by their impeccable customer service skills, something I fear is lacking terribly in todays society. Well it finally arrived today at bang on 13:30 when DPD said it would, despite me having run in’s with them in the past, the delivery guy Luke even called me just before he got there to make sure I didn’t miss him. Can’t fault any of the delivery process in any way shape or form. It’s been a long 6 weeks and my only gripe with PCS is that I only received one email about the status of my build during the waiting period, though I’m sure they were just as in the dark as I was so not a big deal. As that’s my only bad point then I can happily give 5 stars for my overall customer experience.

Right, right, right I’ll get on with what you actually want to hear. I haven’t even got to the laptop yet and I can already tell from the way everything was packaged that I clearly have a quality product inches away from my fingertips. I don’t want to seem like a fan boy already but “BOOM” what a machine, booted straight away, ready to go immediately with nothing to set up other than the activation of Windows. Considering it only took the guys hours to build, test, QC and package, I must admit I was apprehensive about possible issues. NONE! Whatsoever, a very happy man indeed, runs smooth and fast and boots in less then 12 seconds. The whole system runs no louder than you would expect a high performance notebook to run, baring in mind that I pressed Fn+1 to max out all the fans, combined with my Zalman cooling stand also on max. Speaking of which the Zalman stand is outstanding, I have another notebook cooler on my other laptop as you will see in the pics, I thought that was good but the Zalman even puts that to shame. I received all the discs I would need to do a clean install myself, all neatly packaged and sealed to keep them fresh. I’m still installing games and various programs on it so haven’t had a chance to put it under any strain just yet, here is my 3DMark benchmark for the time being.

P5857
http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3652516

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3820QM (2.70GHz) Turbo boost to 3.70GHz) 8MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM (PRE-ORDER, ETA END OF MAY)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

I’m sure once AMD get their arse in gear and release some official drivers for the 7970M it will be higher! I will edit this and add stuff like temps under loads and all that as and when I get everything running how I want it, OCD is kicking in.... Please feel free to ask away or request things and I’ll do my very best to answer them sharpish for you. Happy waiting ladies and gents, it’s been worth the long wait, without a dou

Also if you're suffering performance issues with your GPU it could be Enduro enabling itself, this is simply rectified by right clicking anywhere on your desktop and clicking "Configure Switchable Graphics". Set the programs you want like your games to high performance and this will make sure your 7970M is working.