Laptop GPU ATI or Nvidia decision

[ATI]

well i did or / do but the 360 is kind of gathering dust here and doing the MSC in engineering is taken all my time away at the moment.

is 80/20 - work / gaming

 

[Xelene]

well i did or / do but the 360 is kind of gathering dust here and doing the MSC in engineering is taken all my time away at the moment.

is 80/20 - work / gaming

Ok, if you are willing to use the 360 for gaming and the PC for CAD / Office then the Alienware or Apple is a bad choice. I'll find you something better when I get home.

 

[ATI]

thank a lot

 

[Xelene]

You don't need a top banana graphics card for Autocad / Office work, and I doubt you'll be doing CAD on the road - ie sticking to Internet/Word when out and about. With this in mind, I recommend pairing a small/fast/light corporate quality laptop with a *good* 24" screen in your study. Play games on your 360.

Budget £400-450 for a screen, either Dell or HP.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-036-DE&groupid=17&catid=510&subcat= (£439.99)

Get an external drive ESATA:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-005-AK&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=72 (£25.29)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-246-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279 (£62.99)

Add a good keyboard and mouse of your choice, probably want a USB hub too. (£100)

That leaves £1100 for a Laptop.

You should be able to pick up a Thinkpad W500 for this, make sure to get the RAM to 4GB.

The idea is you have a nice laptop for laptop use, but when in your study you plug in the external stuff and have a workstation.

As an alternative to the Thinkpad, look at Apple Macbook Pro, HP Corporate line and Dell XPS*.

Edit: Usually worth spending the extra for 3 year warranty on laptops.
Edit2: *Dell XPS are not as well made as others mentioned, definately get 3 year warranty on these.

 

[Rroff]

The 4870 mobile is marginally quicker than the 260m GTX in many common games/benchmarks but not by much... and I wouldn't want to call it overall they are pretty close.

I'm not sure on power consumption - I'd hazard the 260m GTX is a little better - but idle temperatures are quite different - the 260m GTX idles at ~37C whereas the 4870 mobile is in the upper 60s.


EDIT: As mentioned above tho the 260m is NOT a 200 series core but a 55nm G92b core slightly downclocked but in benchmarks it usually snucks in behind the 250GTS...

EDIT2: Battery life wise I get about 1 hour 20 minutes gaming tops - normal desktop use with aero, etc. a little over 2 hours and maybe just about 3 hours if I really go nuts turning everything down/off... thats with a P9600 2.8gig CPU, 4gig RAM, 260m GTX and high end 7200 HDD.

 

[ATI]

thanks a lot for the suggestions.

and thats exactly what i had in mind sldsmkd.

i will look into the thinkpad and hp corp line, i thought the xps would be better tbh.

is it worth looking into the dell studio range as well.

thanks

 

[ATI]

i have also seen this:

Model VGN-FW51JF/H - Silver
Processor Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor P7450, 1066 MHz Frontside Bus, 2.13 GHz Processor Speed (3 MB L2 Cache)

OS Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64bit)

4 GB DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 2 GB)/8 GB*

HDD 500 GB (Serial ATA, 5400 rpm)

Optical drive Blu-ray Disc™ Combo Drive (reader): BD ROM/ DVD±RW/±R DL/RAM Drive

Display 16.4” (41.7 cm) Full HD (1920 x 1080 - 16:9) X-black LCD with multiple lamp

Graphics ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4570 Graphics
(Total available graphics memory of Approx. 2280 MB with dedicated GDDR3 Video Memory of 512 MB)

Multimedia Intel® High Definition Audio compatible • Built-in Stereo Speakers • 3D Surround (Dolby® Sound Room®)

Interface & Security 4 Pin i.LINK™ (IEEE1394), 400 Mbps • DC in • Memory Stick™ Slot (MS Std/Duo/PRO/PRO Duo,
high speed data transfer) • SD Card Slot • Audio out (Stereo Headphones/Speakers Jack) •
Microphone Jack (Stereo) • RJ-45 Direct Port (Network) • 3 x USB 2.0 Port • VGA Connector for Monitor •
HDMI out • Express Card Slot (34 mm)
Communication & Wireless Built-in ‘Motion Eye’ Digital Camera

• Network: Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T • Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g/Draft n • Bluetooth (2.1 + EDR)


Battery Lithium-Ion battery (VGP-BPS13)

Dimensions 261 x 29-37 x 384 mm

Weight 3.2 kg

Supplied accessories AC Adaptor • Battery • Power Cord
Warranty 2 years**

£900

thanks

 

[ATI]

found this as well

hello

well i started with the 16 xps but then found the 17 which is what i was looking for originally:

Components
Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Mobile Processor (1.6GHz, turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) - no idea about these cpus?

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Microsoft® Works 9.0 / English - (Does not include Microsoft® Word)
1 year of coverage included with your PC

4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]

500GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive

17.3" Full High Definition (1920x1080) LED with TL

1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650

Fixed Internal DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software

Primary 9-cell 85 WHr Lithium Ion battery

Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)

No Bluetooth Upgrade

2.0 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera

Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard


But no bluetooth which is hand for me.

all that with 1 year warrenty and p&p for £879.01

 

[wiak]

mobile core i7 i think but the graphics card is half of HD 4870
so it basicly is, do you wanna game with high quality/resolution or game at low res/ medium/low quality and have faster encoding of video etc?

 

[ATI]

i want to buy the dell 24 in for the main screen to hook it up at home but when i get the chance i do wanna game.

but thats what dell is offering for the laptop and the price range - £978