Can this gaming spec be had for cheaper?

[mehuk]

Just a quick check really before I blow my load on this girl:

G970X 17.3" Notebook 
Screen
1 x 17.3" 1920x1080 FHD Matte LED Backlit NTSC 72% Gamut £45.00 
Processor
1 x Intel® Core™ i7 990X Six Core with HT 3.46GHz 12MB Cache £495.00 
Graphics Card
1 x NEW!! 2x NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M 2GB GDDR5, 384 CUDA Cores, DX11 & PhysX £701.00 
Memory
1 x 12GB Corsair DDR3 1333MHz CAS9 3x 4GB £82.00 
Hard Drive One
1 x 256GB Crucial® RealSSD M4 - 415MB/sec R / 260MB/sec W £268.00 
Hard Drive Two
1 x 500GB Western Digital 7,200rpm with 16MB Cache £54.00 
Optical Drive
1 x 8x DVD±RW £0.00 
Operating System
1 x Microsoft ® Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit £55.00 
Wireless / Bluetooth Card
1 x Intel® 6230 Advanced-N WIFI Bluetooth combi module £0.00 
Keyboard
1 x English UK £0.00 
Power Cable
1 x UK £0.00 
Warranty
1 x 2 Year - European Collect & Return (all shipping, parts and labour) £0.00 
Battery
1 x 78.44 WH 8Li-Polima Battery £0.00 
Power Supply - Additional PSU & Adapter Box only required for SLI 485M / 580M GTX 
1 x Full Range 300W AC Adapter AC‐in 100~240V, 50~60Hz. £0.00

Rolls in at 3600ish, might be able to get some discount if I call. But is it beatable by any other machine? I know Dell/Alienware cant do anything, MSI dont seem to on here either.

 

[Scrutinize]

I was messing around speccing one of these at the weekend lol. You probably won’t get better but do you need it?

So you are willing to spend £3600 on a lappy but only take 2 year c&r warranty. At least take the three year esp with this level of heat generating hardware.

Do you really need this level of spec you could drop the i7 for the for the i7 950 which is more than adequate. Again 12GB memory is probably unnecessary. You only really need a 128gb ssd as well and then a 750gb storage drive.

The sli graphics again are probably overkill and you could get away with one GTX580m which sits near enough the top of the charts on its own here http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-580M.56636.0.html. This alone will run anything you throw at it.

Oh and no bluray?

You could easily shave 1k off this spec and still have the fastest machine you will need. Speccing it with the 950, 8gb memory, bluray, 128gb ssd, 3 year warranty and I get it at £2400 which imo is going to do the job.

Nothing really comes close that I can think of but this is a true desktop replacement given the size of chassis and nigh on 6kg weight. If all this is doing will be sitting on the desktop then a desktop would be a lot cheaper for the same effort.

 

[mehuk]

Thanks for the pointers, yeah ill add a 3rd year warranty (infact i fancied trying to blag that in for free tbh given the notes ill be spending)...i might drop the RAM to 8GB then, but ill definately go SLI and have a look at the CPU.

Bluray holds no interest to me, I dont watch movies - and unless im mistaken (which I could be as im not that up with the latest tech) isnt it better to have a larger SSD so my games etc load quicker on there?

It will be house bound in the main, but shall travel up and down stairs with me, so a desktop although still in my mind, is probably an outside bet.

 

[Disco Boy]

Thanks for the pointers, yeah ill add a 3rd year warranty (infact i fancied trying to blag that in for free tbh given the notes ill be spending)...i might drop the RAM to 8GB then, but ill definately go SLI and have a look at the CPU.

Bluray holds no interest to me, I dont watch movies - and unless im mistaken (which I could be as im not that up with the latest tech) isnt it better to have a larger SSD so my games etc load quicker on there?

It will be house bound in the main, but shall travel up and down stairs with me, so a desktop although still in my mind, is probably an outside bet.

It's possible that you could buy two desktops which outperform it for that money; and have one upstairs and one downstairs...

 

[Scrutinize]

I would spend some on an epic desktop system then £1200 on an msi gaming laptop from here which will run all your gaming needs. gives you the best of both worlds then.

 

[[TFU] Thegoon84]

Unless your proper minted then as the guys have said.... Desktop and an MSI laptop!

 

[mehuk]

Unless your proper minted then as the guys have said.... Desktop and an MSI laptop!

But surely spending 3k on both, means im as minted as I would be spending 3k on one?

Think ill just tweak this one, although I can afford 3.5k....... im thinking that ill get some buyers remorse for paying that much more than I need to.

Probably go with the 8GB Ram and a cheaper CPU if theres not much difference.

What about screen, does Matte make much difference?

 

[ChrisD.]

Madness to spend that on a laptop, if you have the cash or not. I'd spend £1500 on a beast of a desktop, put it where you spend most of your time and as has been suggested, spend the rest on an MSI or similar Laptop that will still perform very well.

 

[Disco Boy]

What about screen, does Matte make much difference?

Go somewhere to compare for yourself, it's a personal thing.

Matte is better if you are somewhere where you are likely to have lots of reflections e.g bright areas and outside.

 

[masonkian]

spend all on desktop imo

 

[mehuk]

Matte is better if you are somewhere where you are likely to have lots of reflections e.g bright areas and outside.

Cheers, didnt realise what Matte mean't... if all it does is stop reflections then I can deal with not having that.

 

[Scrutinize]

But surely spending 3k on both, means im as minted as I would be spending 3k on one?

Think ill just tweak this one, although I can afford 3.5k....... im thinking that ill get some buyers remorse for paying that much more than I need to.

Probably go with the 8GB Ram and a cheaper CPU if theres not much difference.

What about screen, does Matte make much difference?

Cheers, didnt realise what Matte mean't... if all it does is stop reflections then I can deal with not having that.

Seriously, what you have specced is beyond overkill for your needs and these sorts of systems are full on E-Peeeeeeeen. Nice though and if money is no object then why not.

Spend half your budget (if that) and in a couple of years when you can’t run the latest games just get a new one, even having SLI won’t future proof much beyond that and you won’t notice the fps increase in current games unless you are purely benchmarking.

I would suggest an Aienware MX17

MX17 Intel Core i7 2720QM 2.20GHz
Windows 7 Home Premium
17.3" WideHD+ (1600 x 900) WLED
6144MB Memory
750GB HD
2GB AMD Radeon HD 6990M (review here http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6990M.57308.0.html)
DVD+/-RW Writer
£1599
Code N00W7V05

This will run anything you throw at it at full detail maxed out with less heat issues and they look much much nicer. There may be instances where a single solution card will outperform SLI as well.