Vortex IV LE spec check

[TobyRoberts]

I probably wont be using this quite as intensively as the spec suggests, but I want it to be as futureproof as possible so I've tried to go for the best I can so it'll last me a good few years.

Chassis & Display: Vortex Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
CPU: Can't decide between the i7-4810MQ and the i7-4710MQ, any suggestions?
RAM: 16GB Kingston Hyper-X Impact 16000MHz
Graphics Card: GTX-870M
Hard Disk: Could do with some input on this, essentially I want around 240GB of SSD as a boot drive, and around 500GB of HDD or Hybrid drive for everything else, any help regarding possible combinations would be great!
Optical Drive: Depending on the hard disk options chosen - most likely just the DVD writer as I can buy an external blu-ray player another time
Thermal paste: I assume the £9 for an upgrade to Arctic MX-4 is worth it?
Sound Card: ASUS Xonar-U7 compact 7.1 USB Soundcard and Headphone Amplifier
Wireless: Gigabit LAN & Killer 1202 Wireless Gaming 802.11N

Any help or improvements/suggestions you can give?
Thankyou

 

[mantadog]

the 4710MQ is more than capable. Anything more is rarely needed and the price/performance is quite shockingly low value above this point.

HDD 240GB Samsung 840 eo is ideal, the scorpio black 750gb would be my pick for a HDD. Not a huge fan of hybrids yet, the SSD's on em just aint big enough. You will have a SSD for the OS + most used software anyway, negating much of the benefit of a hybrid. A Scorpip black will be overall faster for other stuff anyway as the hybrid just prioritises frequently accessed files which is much more useful for the OS than anything.

The thermal paste upgrade is well worth it.

Other than that, 16GB is a good chunk of RAM, to utilise that much you would need to be doing video work or 3d modelling of some sort. 8GB would be ample for gaming and general stuff.

 

[TobyRoberts]

Vortex IV LE (15.6")

I'm hoping for a little help with a couple of questions about the Vortex IV LE (15.6") laptop?

1. What kind of battery life can I expect? I appreciate this will vary greatly depending on chosen spec but if you would be prepared to give an idea of the spec of yours and a rough estimate of battery life would be great! Any comments on the battery life of PC specialist laptops in general would also be helpful - I'm not looking for miracles but I would like to use it without constantly worrying if I'm near a socket or not.

2. Screen, keyboard, build quality? Given the nature of PC Specialist laptops, I obviously wont be able to give it a feel or see it before I buy so could anyone give me their thoughts on the overall build quality, quality of the keyboard and quality of the screen? Also how hot do yours run? I don't mind noisy fans, but my current laptop roasts my legs every time I try to use it on the go which is thoroughly unpleasant!

3. What is the difference between the Vortex IV and the Vortex IV LE - this is more out of curiousity but I was just wondering what LE stands for? (Apologies if this seems like a stupid question)

Thankyou very much, any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[mantadog]

Battery life is a bit of a guessing game until you try it out with your own usage loads. Generally a couple of hours should be achievable if you are not doing anything too intensive, but really anywhere around 2 hours is what our skyfire gets for low intensity workloads.

Cant comment on vortex, but the skyfire is decent enough. The screen is fine (but I don't really have an eye for screens, so anything that makes pictures = win for me...) I like the keyboard, and the general feel of the machine is solid enough. As far as heat production, any high end laptop will output a fair amount of heat, but unless your gaming they should be fine as they have some fairly beefy cooling in em.

No idea what the 'le' stands for but I doubt you would see too much difference. It's just a slightly different chassis, the IV has a backlight and an optial audio port, probably some other 'extras' too. But overall they are the same.