Viper 3

[Music Guy123]

Firstly, do you want a blu-ray drive?

For RAID:

It stands for redundant array of independant disks. There are two main types, Raid 0 and Raid 1. For RAID, for these two types of RAID, you have to have at least 2 of the same disk drive. RAID 1 is the simplest, basically it takes the two drives and when you normally write a piece of data to one drive, it repeats this data on the other drive. Therefore you end up with two of exactly the same drives. This means that when one drive dies, your information is not lost, you can put another new drive in and tell the computer to re-build the data which you have lost as it is still backed up on the other disk drive (hope this make sense so far!). The problem with RAID 1 is that if you have 2 1TB drives, you only end up with 1TB of space. But it is good as your data is secure.

RAID 0 is a little more complicated. Again, you need the same disk drives but what it does is put the drives together. So if you have 2x 1TB drives, you end up with what looks like a 2TB drive. This works by dividing the data written between the two drives. For example if your data was 110101 (binary) the first 1 would be written on one of the drives, the second 1 would on the next drive then the 0 would be written on the first drive and the 1 would be written on the next drive and so on. The advantage of this is performance as you get faster read/write times and your two drives get put together. The disadvantage is that your data is more vunerable, if one drive dies, because the data is divided between both drives, you have lost all your data. Hope this makes some sense, youtube it if you don't understand!

Overall, RAID puts two or more disks into one disk. RAID 1 is for security of data but no performance increase and you only can use half of the space on the drives as the data is duplicated. RAID 0 is for performance and putting two drives together so you don't have some pics on one drive and some on the other. The disadvantage is the slight lack of security I hope you can understand a little of this, I know it sounds complicated, it took me a little while to get my head around!

 

[truegrace]

I'm undecided between a viper and the vortex myself. From what I have read 560 sli is better than a 580, but or games that don't run with sli, well a single 560 will suck balls

 

[Music Guy123]

Well, I am not completely certain, most new games and especially the more demanding ones will support sli. I don't know what happens to a game that doesn't support it, does it just use one card?

 

[Devilkiss]

For blue ray i think don't need. Anyway usb keys and external hdd drives are used, cd/dvd are old times. So if we think to the future , I will be able to upgrade it? like putting better video cards, or cpu ? As far as I understood this is the main advantage comparing to the commercial laptops, that this one you can upgrade much easier ?

 

[Music Guy123]

Yeah, you can upgrade the video cards on these, probably not the cpu though. Otherwise, the laptop is pretty upgradeable.

 

[Devilkiss]

so then definitely i should go for the i7-2860.

 

[Music Guy123]

Can't see why not! By the way, do you understand RAID yet?

 

[Devilkiss]

More or less. I haven'd used raid before. I always have my hard drive divided into two parts and I always keep all important stuff on part with no windows. And when i have some problems with the laptop I just re install the windows by formatting and putting the fresh copy of windows on that half where windows was installed. and the second part with all information stays untouched. lol.

 

[AshleyUK]

More or less. I haven'd used raid before. I always have my hard drive divided into two parts and I always keep all important stuff on part with no windows. And when i have some problems with the laptop I just re install the windows by formatting and putting the fresh copy of windows on that half where windows was installed. and the second part with all information stays untouched. lol.

That is a good way of doing it, however as your still technically based on one physcial hard disk, if either the whole disk was to die, or the windows setup some how destroyed the partation table your files would be impossible or difficult to recover, where Raid, depending on the stripe/level you can have your Partation based across two drivers a copy on both physical drive, if one breaks or becomes corrupt then the second will continute untill the first is replaced and the Raid will be "rebuilt" copied back to the First drive.

 

[Devilkiss]

Ye I got the idea now. What about these cpu's, what a hell are these things? Somewhere i read that these cpus are the same as you put in Desktop comuters.
i7-975
i7-960
i7-950
i7-930
i7-920

 

[AshleyUK]

The cpu's you have just listed are all Intel Desktop CPU's, and they are the orginal line of I7 proccesses, not the newer Sandy Bridge line, feel free to view all the sepc's for them at the following link, however they are not Mobile CPU's so are not compitable with the Viper or any laptop provided by PCS.

Linky: http://ark.intel.com/products/family/59143

 

[Devilkiss]

Ok, thought to think in different way: to lower some expenses. Lets say i get 1 video card and instead of 3 HDD i get 2. In the future I am always able to put the second video card and make SLI ? As far as I understand the chassis is designed for max 3 hdd, and 2 video cards, so there should be no problem, no?

Besides , the upgrade can be performed by me or I should need to sent it to the company ? And what about warranty?

 

[Kai121]

From the personal view of being a Viper III owner I can tell you this:

The 2 560m in SLI are faster than the 580m but only slightly, the 2560m in SLI generate more heat than the 580m (although with laptop graphics, expecially newer ones this isn't as bad as it is in desktops as laptop graphics cards are designed to take more heat than tower cards and still run fine, I think the high temp cutoff is around 120c and its not going to get their unless you do everything you can to disrupt airflow, max ive pushed it is 90c for 6 hours while stress testing)

Get the 2 cards from the outset, installed an SSD for operating (startup is fast!) and a 500GB for storage, if you qwant a third drive later you can install it yourself (I believe it goes in around the battery compartment and is easily accessed)

The 1600mhz Ram will make little difference than th 1333mhz RAM, I went for 12GB instead of 8GB because of this and have never used more than half my RAM.

CPU wise in the long run a 0.1Ghz and 2MB increase is not worth the £150, you would be better waiting for the next generation of CPU's to come out. If it was the difference between 4 and 6 cores I would say go for it, but as I stated with the RAM, nothing I have done has pushed my CPU above 80%.

In regards to SLI, the only issue ever comes in when your FPS drops below 30 and that may cause micro stuttering (I only get it in Skyrim, even then thats a driver issue), older games may have issue with SLI but those ones you just switch it off and run on one card dedicating the other to Physx

You would need to talk to someone who has a vortex to get their 2 cents, but I have a ton of info here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?11352-New-laptop-Ordered

If you need any more PM me or ask in here and I'll reply, hope this has helped!