Laptop spec

[dangro474]

Hi Celphon,

Toms spec above looks very good for your budget.

I would however strongly advise that you consider upgrading to a Skyfire II. The price increase of £20 not only bumps the chassis size up to 17", but the upgrade from a 660M GTX to 670M GTX (click 660M/670M for links to performance benchmarks) will give you a SUBSTANTIAL performance improvement (20% in SC2, 35% in Diablo 3). The chassis size increase may seem like a burden, but from personal experience (see my laptops in my signature below), the difference between lugging a 15.6" and 17.3" around is negligable.

Regarding your CPU: The sandy and ivy bridge i5 dual cores are certainly potent, however games running on Blizzards proprietary engines (sc2 and D3 in particular) are extremely CPU intensive. I would recommend opting for a 3610QM as a minimum.

[Oxy]

Hi Celphon,

like you I started on here trying to go for the lowest priced gaming laptop, but ended up pushing it up bit by bit.
I ended up spending £1,350 roughly on a vortex 17inch, on the 12 months interest free package

I have to say I'm really impressed with it the vortex

If you want it for uni and you want it to play music. gaming and a little bit of studying you wont go wrong with this, it does weigh about 4k though.

I went for the matte screen but I was not wowed by it, I thought I would be able to use it outside, well in bright sunlight you can just about get away with it.
My old laptop with a glossy screen had too much reflection for outside use though, so the matte is slightly better in that respect.

The sound on it is very good for a laptop, the speakers are crystal clear, ok the sub woofer is not going to shake the room.
My wife was on the phone last night and kept trying to turn the tv down thinking all the sound effects were coming from the tv due to the 5.1 surround on the laptop

I found the vortex to be really quiet as well, I expected it to sound really noisy fan wise when I stared playing games on it.

This would be the spec I would go for as it will give you options to upgrade in future if needed. I had a spare ssd at home so put one in very easy to do.

Impress your uni buddy's with you laptop kicking out tunes with the backlit led keyboard lights dancing effect.

I know its a little more than you originally wanted to spend but I think its worth it.

You could probably knock it down £100 if you lowered the wi-fi card and took off the windows 7 64
I threw in the mouse as it was only £5

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 670M - 1.5GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
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
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 w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
LOGITECH® OPTICAL USB MOUSE (£5)
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,170.00 including VAT and delivery.

[Cephlon]

Ok thank you very much everyone. I think I've made my choice now.

[tom6561]

What are you going for, if I may ask?