Cyberpower PC Help - Laptop Setup

[TheDood]

Hi all,

I am in need of a new gaming rig and wanted to go mobile. I was considering buying a gaming rig off cyberpower PCand take advantage of the black Friday deals going on. This is my first time using CP and am a little unsure if everything I have selected will properly integrate into the laptop. Do they only allow you to choose options that will work with each other?


Here is the setup I have selected to purchase:

Xplorer X6-9120 Gaming Notebook

Notebook: A15FD Gaming Notebook 15.6" Full HD 1920x1080 Display w/ Built-in 1.3MP Webcam, HDMI Port, Li-Ion Battery, & Universal AC Adapter

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Mobile Processor 2.40 GHz 6M Smart Cache, Max Turbo Freq. 3.40 GHz

Motherboard: Intel HM76 Chipset Mainboard

Memory:16GB (8GBx2) 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3-1600 SODIMM Memory [Post Black Friday Mega Sale - Free Vengeance upgrade from 1333 + Double Memory] Corsair Vengeance Gaming

Video Card: NVIDIA GT 640M 2GB PCIe Video

Hard Drive: 750GB 7200RPM SATA300 Hard Drive OR 1 TB 5400RPM SATA300 Hard Drive [-15$] (which do you recommend?)

Optical Drive: 8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive (NB-353-DVDRW)

Sound: Built-in 3D Premium Surround Sound

Wireless 802.11B/G Network Card: Built-in Wireless b/g/n + Bluetooth v3.0 WiFi Combo Card

Operating System: None - FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY

^^Important...If i can get windows 7 from Microsoft dreamspark(free MFST software for college students) should I select no operating system? How would I go about installing Win7?

Sorry for all the questions. I am quite the noob here haha. The deal ends in 20 hours so I hope someone can help me out.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Klutzington]

Upgrade the graphics card to a GTX 660m.

The GT 640m is bad.

[GarGar]

7200 RPM hard drives are generally better for gaming (higher read/write speed), though you have to balance higher speed with lower capacity on it.

If it comes with no operating system, you'll have to have to burn your Dreamspark W7 .iso to a DVD to install it. But beware of licenses like that, because educational software licenses often expire after a time, so you may not be able to reinstall at some point in the future. If you can spare the money, go ahead and pay for a license from the site, they'll send you a reinstall DVD and your own license that has no expiration.

As for Cyberpower PC in general, it's where I and my 3 brothers have gotten our computers, and we couldn't be happier with them!

[TheDood]

Upgrade the graphics card to a GTX 660m.

The GT 640m is bad.

Why do you say that Graphics card is bad? In my current laptop I am using the Nvidia GT330M and it works great... I'm assuming/hoping this card is better?

---------- Post added 2012-11-25 at 06:03 PM ----------

ok good insight. Thanks. i guess I'll just buy with Operating system then.

Do you have Laptops or Desktops from CyberPower?
I have heard quite bad things and am worried about buying from them.

[GarGar]

Me and my brothers all have Cyberpower desktops. I don't know about the quality of their laptops, I got mine from Dell. To be honest I don't understand how laptops could possibly be as modular as desktops to allow for such customization, but I'm also not an expert on such things.

[Xs]

Why do you say that Graphics card is bad? In my current laptop I am using the Nvidia GT330M and it works great... I'm assuming/hoping this card is better?

---------- Post added 2012-11-25 at 06:03 PM ----------

ok good insight. Thanks. i guess I'll just buy with Operating system then.

Do you have Laptops or Desktops from CyberPower?
I have heard quite bad things and am worried about buying from them.

going from a 330M to a 640M is pretty much only an upgrade from DirectX10 to DirectX11, the power of the card will be minimal at best, going to the X60 series with nvidia will be a noticeable increase, and if you're going for a full desktop replacement laptop, you'll be wanting to chip in for that bit more power or you'll be running into very low graphics issues and probably overheating

---------- Post added 2012-11-26 at 01:59 AM ----------

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/sa...aspx?id=515295

Thats pretty much just the next model up, downgraded the processor to dual core since the i7s they always throw in just end up being a waste of money and the i5 they provide already has 4 virtual cores, comes with the 660M and put in a 750GB 7200RPM HDD, and personally I'd add another one if I was buying it, but thats optional, also bumped it up to 8GB of ram since that'll make a huge difference

[TheDood]

I am located in the US. I cant order that from UK
They dont offer the 660M in that model in the US for some reason...only the 650M... would that be noticeably better than the 640M?

Also does the 3mb to 6mb smartchache from i5 to i7, respectively, make much of a difference in power?

Thanks again for all the help.

[Xs]

I am located in the US. I cant order that from UK
They dont offer the 660M in that model in the US for some reason...only the 650M... would that be noticeably better than the 640M?

Also does the 3mb to 6mb smartchache from i5 to i7, respectively, make much of a difference in power?

Thanks again for all the help.

ah, same builds on the US site though by the looks of it, and im sure you can get them to do a 660M model if you call them up

and the differences for the CPUs are fairly minimal, specially for the $80 or w/e it is, you're mainly paying for the upgrade from 4 virtual cores to 8, which makes almost no difference unless you plan on video streaming or rendering