Gaming Laptop Spec Check

[Midonsmyr]

This'll be my second laptop from PCSpecialist and I'm wondering about a few things. I won't post a spec just yet, as I have a few initial questions. But first, you need to know some stuff.

It's for gaming.
My budget is around £1500 (coming under is a good thing)
Would like it to be portable.
Would like it to not overheat at any time within the next two or three years.

Portabilty: Now I've been looking mainly at the 15" and 17" Vortex IIs. My first issue here is portability, I currently have an old Enigma 15" (wonderful machine, overheats when pushed these days). My current laptop fits in my laptop bag and I'm wondering if a 17" as I love my laptop bag. As I understand it there's only about 5 extra centimetres to make room for, but does anyone else have some firsthand experience of such a problem? Or, in fact, is the bigger model even worth it?

Storage: I'm looking at one of the new 510 series SSDs, the 120GB model. If I got the 17" Vortex I could supplement this with a 750GB HDD. SSD for boot and core applications, HDD for storage, you know the deal. Or should I scrap the idea of the larger model and simply buy an external hard drive, leaving just the SSD?

RAM: 16GB of 1333mhz, or 8GB of 1600mhz. My take on this is that less but faster trumps more but slower.

Processor: Was looking at the 2630 as I want Sandybridge, but the higher models rally look as if they bring diminishing returns for the cost. £100+ jumps for a slight increase in speed and a larger cache.

I'll post a tentative spec soon if people demand it, but since I'm looking at 2 models and have questions about some components I've left out the the three or four potential specs I could be listing.

Thanks!

 

[Rakk]

Ok, can't help with most of this since I know very little about laptops, but the RAM question I can help with

Go for the 1333mhz unless you're planning on overclocking, otherwise you wont notice the difference, and unless you're doing something really memory intensive, 8GB should be plenty.

 

[Teaz]

i would go for the 8gb 1600mhz ram than 16gb in my view as 16gb is too much especially for the laptop alone with gaming. unless its going to be used for intense portable work use like video editing or more then it can be worth the 16gb so gaming alone with the fast 8gb ram is plenty for the whole laptop and which ever you do.

in my personal view and opinion, ssds dont really justify or are not really worth it for laptops especially expensive power house laptops no matter how much money you put into it, i dont think they are 100% worthit unless you go for a small low end ssd like 60gb or smaller but anything bigger is a tad too much since the laptop is restricted in upgrades and they dont come cheap compared to a desktop upgrade so not being able to upgrade freely and as tech advances leaving the laptop behind while upgrading the ssd or other components over the years is quite a hefty price. i would go for a small ssd and a 500gb+ 2nd drive if yo take the 17inchvortex but if the 15inchvortex i would just grab the 500gb drive. this is all my view to file you in, so dont let it discourage your thoughts

 

[Midonsmyr]

Thank you both Rakk and Teaz. I'll have to think about both of your points.

On the SSD side, I think the 120GB 510 series is worth it. Okay it's damned expensive, but I can afford to splash out. I wouldn't want to go for one of the smaller drives, simply because they don't give as much bang as the 510 does for its buck. I'd be up for considering the mini card (?) the 310 series I think it's called. But really what I want it something super fast (like the new SATA 6GB/S SSDs) that can have my OS on and a small library of games. After that I just need storage for my photos.

I'm not sure I want to dismiss the idea of an SSD since I think I'll see returns on performance more than if I upped the processor or RAM. At this level of spec it's going to cost me a lot to get anything more out of it anyhow.