Questions on a Vortex III build

[zacmar]

Hello everyone,

Here's a Vortex III build that I'm considering buying. Its main purpose will be gaming. I have a few questions that I might be able to get some help with:

1) My aim is to have the laptop before early June as I will be gone for a few months then. I've seen that Ivy Bridge processors are due for release near the end of this month. Is it probable that I can get a laptop with an Ivy Bridge processor delivered to me before that? If so, can I expect a big price difference from the i7-2760QM? Otherwise, do you think I'd have a noticeable performance difference in gaming if I got a Sandy Bridge processor?

2) 1333MHz 16GB RAM vs 1600MHz 8 GB RAM for gaming? Any significant differences?

3) Scorpio Black 500GB + Intel SSD 6 GB / s 120 GB vs a single HDD 6 GB / s. I assume the former is a lot better for booting up etc, but what about gaming? Most of it is reading from disk, not writing.

4) Any advantages the 17.3" model has over the 15.6" other than screen size?

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte 95% Gamut LED Widescreen (1920x1080) (£79)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-2760QM (2.40GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
2nd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY
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 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
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 & 180W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Gold Warranty (2 Year Collect & Return, 2 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£69)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)
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: £1,563.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Finn]

2) 1333MHz 16GB RAM vs 1600MHz 8 GB RAM for gaming? Any significant differences?

If you are only gaming then almost no game uses more than 3-4gb (most games dont have a 64bit build so cant use more than that even on a 64bit os). So with 8gb you still have 4gb free for os and other apps in the background (eg browser, etc). However the speed difference is almost unnoticable unless running a memory benchmark.

4) Any advantages the 17.3" model has over the 15.6" other than screen size?

The 17" can run 2 hard drives in addition to the optical bay, the 15" requires you to give up the optical bay if you want to run 2 drives.

 

[zacmar]

Thanks for your replies. In your opinion what might become more necessary in the future then? More RAM, or faster? I can easily get 16 GB of RAM at about the same price...

 

[Finn]

Well personally I ordered my vortex with 16gig of ram, but that was mainly for running visual studio, photo editing and i'm lazy and tend to leave lots of things running in the background.

I think its doubtful that you will get games using more than 6 gigs for a while (eg so still leaving a comfortable 2 gigs for OS and background processes), however adding an additional 8 gigs to these chassis is not that trivial since it requires removing the keyboard, (2 memory slots are accessible from underneath that are filled first, the second 2 are underneath the keyboard and are not considered "user accessible") (Actually thats true of the 15" I dont know whether its true of the 17" too)