1. #1
    High Overlord Silorn's Avatar
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    Would like some help with laptop/SSD decisions

    Hello, quick starting note is that I'm from Ireland, so some normal US sites may be slightly out of the question in terms of delivery etc.

    Right, basically I'm looking for suggestions between a few different things, my current computer is fine and plays anything I'd want, although a problem with my previous hard drive caused it to fail and leaves me with a little less free space than I'd like.

    So first of all, I'm looking for a reliable SSD, preferably external so that I'd be able to use it both on my desktop and the laptop which I'll get to later. I'm probably looking for something ~250gb in size, although since I've never had an SSD before I'd like any suggestions of things that may be needed with them (like extra cables, cases etc.). I've searched around a bit and found these 2:

    - Sandisk Extreme - 240gb, £155
    - Vertex OCZ 4 - 256gb, £153

    Again, any suggestions/thoughts appreciated.

    Now, onto the laptop, the budget isn't really an issue, I'm willing to go ~£1000/1100 Euro, but I've never personally tried to make a build as it seems a lot more technical than I'm capable of at the moment. The laptop will be mostly for college work (Computer Science), although I'd like to be able to play some games reasonably well. I'm not looking for something along the lines of WoW on ultra, but general steam games and things like Starcraft 2, I'd like to be able to play at reasonable FPS (40+).

    I'm not looking for somebody to come along and build it for me (although if you're bored feel free to), although suggestions of sites to look at for either pre-built laptops or things that'd be helpful in building would be much appreciated. The plan would probably be to have most of my college work/a few games installed on the SSD and just connect the SSD to whatever I'm using at the time be it the laptop or my desktop.

    Lastly any recommendations for keyboards (I'd like a mechanical keyboard but I think noise might be a problem) and a monitor would be appreciated, should anyone have any suggestions.

    Thanks!

  2. #2
    Deleted
    a hotswappable SSD don't think that actually excists out there, you might be better off with just keeping the ssd in the laptop and transfer school work via cloud system? (good external SSD's are quite price iirc)
    also is the mech keyboard for the laptop or the desktop? (im thinking desktop since they are quite rare in laptops i think only MSI got those)
    last but not least got any good sites to use for ireland shipping and good range of laptops they offer?
    Last edited by mmoce1d4ab16bc; 2012-11-23 at 05:41 PM.

  3. #3
    High Overlord Silorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shroudster View Post
    a hotswappable SSD don't think that actually excists out there, you might be better off with just keeping the ssd in the laptop and transfer school work via cloud system? (good external SSD's are quite price iirc)
    also is the mech keyboard for the laptop or the desktop? (im thinking desktop since they are quite rare in laptops i think only MSI got those)
    last but not least got any good sites to use for ireland shipping and good range of laptops they offer?
    Well the SSD is primarily for my desktop, as I currently only have about 1tb of space while using a 500gb drive from my brothers tablet (which I'll be swapping back to the tablet should I get the SSD). I was hoping there would be some way to have the games installed to the SSD, although I'm not sure of the technicalities involved in it, I sort of just assumed it would be possible as I currently use a normal hard drive with my games installed on it primarily and my OS on the other drive.

    The keyboard is for the desktop yes, I'm currently using a 10+ year old dell keyboard and have heard a lot of good things about mechanical keyboards, so was hoping for some input along those lines.

    Generally anywhere from europe will ship to Ireland, although a lot of American websites will charge substantially more which is why I mentioned it, the only primarily Irish site that was listed on MMOC was Komplett, although generally shipping is free from the majority of UK sites.

  4. #4
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    alright could you also state certain things you would require/prefer from the laptop? (cpu/decent gpu/resolution/weight/screen size etc?)
    also no real need to get games on a ssd except for small increase in load times. (OS is the thing you want on the ssd that makes the huge difference)

  5. #5
    High Overlord Silorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by shroudster View Post
    alright could you also state certain things you would require/prefer from the laptop? (cpu/decent gpu/resolution/weight/screen size etc?)
    also no real need to get games on a ssd except for small increase in load times. (OS is the thing you want on the ssd that makes the huge difference)
    Alright, so I've looked a bit more into it and have decided the Resolution will most definitely be 1920x1080, with a screen size of ~15", but I'm unsure of what will be needed as far as the GPU/CPU go to play games reasonably well. As an example I threw this together as a sort of baseline of what I might want, although I can't find much information in the way of information about the GPU.

    Chassis & Display
    Enigma IV: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED 16:9 Widescreen (1920x1080) (£35)

    Processor (CPU)
    Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3360M (2.80GHz) 3MB

    Memory (RAM)
    8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 8GB)

    Graphics Card
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

    Memory - Hard Disk
    1TB WD SCORPIO BLUE WD10JPVT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8MB CACHE (5400 rpm)

    DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
    8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)

    Memory Card Reader
    Integrated 3 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS)

    Sound Card
    SRS 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

    Bluetooth & Wireless
    ENIGMA SERIES GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 3.0

    USB Options
    2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD

    Battery
    Enigma Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAH)

    Power Lead & Adaptor
    1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor

    Operating System

    NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

    Warranty
    3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

    As far as the operating system goes I have a free Windows 7 professional available from college, so that's not an issue. This laptop comes out about 700 pounds (860 euro). Any opinions of whether it may be a good deal/what parts may be able to get better value in?

    Also I guess you're right about the SSD, it just seemed like it'd be an easy way to keep everything I need together (glorified USB stick if I can't install things on it to switch between computers) so I'll probably get one for my desktop to hold the OS.
    Last edited by Silorn; 2012-11-23 at 08:49 PM.

  6. #6
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    http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/prod...b/details.aspx (likely pushing limit of budget but does pack more punch on the cpu front)
    however you could also try and see if you can tweak your build above to include a small SSD aswell (60gb for OS+ wow) and a big hdd (the 1tb black for storage)
    maybe a quad core (QM cpu is a tweak option within budget) else just stick with small SSD and you should have a rock solid laptop.

    ps: what tweak site you used? (double check on what parts they have available etc ^^)

  7. #7
    High Overlord Silorn's Avatar
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    My problem with Komplett is the lack of customizability, considering I have a free OS already, I'd be paying 100 euro for something that I'd probably uninstall for windows 7 to begin with regardless. I can indeed add an SSD to the build above (120gb Kingston or Intel for 70 pounds, or 240gb Intel for 150 pounds) I'm still thinking I could be close to that price on Amazon though so getting 2 smaller ones might be better so I have one for both the laptop and desktop.

    The site I'm using is http://pc-specialists.co.uk/, a friend linked me to it while building my current desktop.

    Also for quad core, I've been seeing a lot of feedback through other threads suggesting that the I7 isn't really worth it, and I'm unlikely to be maximizing the cores even while using 2. I have an I7 on my desktop and don't really see 4 cores in use apart from when I'm playing more than 1 WoW at once or WoW + starcraft etc. Is there any real noticable benefits from going quad core when my GPU is looking the be the most limiting factor in the build?

  8. #8
    Deleted
    Chassis & Display
    Enigma IV: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED 16:9 Widescreen (1920x1080) (£35)

    Processor (CPU)
    Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB

    Memory (RAM)
    8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)

    Graphics Card
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

    Memory - Hard Disk
    120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

    2nd Hard Disk
    750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

    DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
    2nd/3rd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY

    Memory Card Reader
    Integrated 3 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS)

    Sound Card
    SRS 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

    Bluetooth & Wireless
    ENIGMA SERIES GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 3.0

    USB Options
    2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD

    Battery
    Enigma Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAH)

    Power Lead & Adaptor
    1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor

    Operating System
    NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

    Price for this Laptop:

    £610 ex VAT.

    £732 inc VAT and Delivery.

    well the reason i picked the quad core is that the price (not that expensive +- 20pounds more) and it makes the sure laptop will have quite some usefullness ahead instead of being outdated allot in 2 cpu generations. also changed the dvd-drive to a storage hdd and picked a ssd for primary storage and makes for a lightning fast boot and overall responsiveness of the system itself.
    you could go for the battery upgrade if you don't want to be stuck to a powerplug but weight will increase quite significant if you do so.

  9. #9
    High Overlord Silorn's Avatar
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    Hello again, thanks for the response and I've messed around with it a bit more myself.

    Current build:

    Chassis & Display
    Enigma IV: 15.6" Matte Full HD LED 16:9 Widescreen (1920x1080) (£35)

    Processor (CPU)
    Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3630QM (2.40GHz) 6MB

    Memory (RAM)
    8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 8GB)

    Graphics Card
    NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M - 2.0GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

    Memory - Hard Disk
    120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

    2nd Hard Disk
    750GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS XT HYBRID, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

    DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
    2nd/3rd HDD HARD DRIVE OPTICAL BAY CADDY

    Memory Card Reader
    Integrated 3 in 1 Memory Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS)

    Sound Card

    SRS 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack

    Bluetooth & Wireless
    ENIGMA SERIES GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 3.0

    USB Options
    2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD

    Battery
    Upgrade to Enigma IV Series 9 Cell Battery (7,800 mAH) (£36)

    Power Lead & Adaptor
    1 x UK Power Lead & 90W AC Adaptor

    Operating System
    NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED

    £813 inc VAT and Delivery.

    So to list changes from your build:
    -Upgraded hard drive for doubled cache size as the price difference was negligible.
    -Upgraded battery for longer battery life.
    -Switched to single RAM stick so I can upgrade later should it be necessary/cheap to do so.

    I'm pretty happy with that for now and will probably order it soon, thanks for all of the help and suggestions, really appreciated. Any last suggestions about anything listed or advice on general laptop programs/maintenance that might be helpful would be cool as it's pretty much my first personal laptop (ex, I use EPU-6 Engine on my desktop which pretty much sets it to turbo/general use/power saving depending on things running).

    Thanks again for all the help shroudster!

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