Hi
I'm replacing my 4 year-old desktop with a laptop for space reasons. I've decided to go for a 15" as 17" is going to be too big and heavy (it will need to be moderately portable).
I've pretty much decide to go with a 7970M GFX card as it appears most of the teething problems have been ironed out, and it seems better than the Nvidia options - 675MX is similar price but slower, 680M much pricier.
Unfortunately, OCUK don't do the clevo P150 with a 7970 option, so I've had to spec at some competitors. I won't list who they are, so hopefully this isn't breaking the rules?
The spec I'm looking at is;
15.6" in clevo P150EM
i7-3630
8Gb 1600MHz RAM
7970M 2gb GFX
Windows 7 HP (or Windows 8)
My difficulty is in deciding on storage options. I would quite like an SSD, but the P150 only has space for one HDD, as well as a mSATA SSD, although you can add an extra one if you don't have an internal optical drive.
I originally thought I'd get a 240Gb SSD and try to use that for both OS and games (I have a NAS box for music and video), but I'm now concerned that I might run out of room once I bung a few games on there (*).
A different option for roughly the same price would be a 128Gb mSATA and a 750Gb Momentus. No shortage of space there, but an mSATA SSD is slower than a 'full' SSD. Would I notice the difference? Is it even worth bothering with the mSATA (i.e. should I just go with a hybrid drive, like the momentus)?
I've never had any SSD drives so I don't know how the performance difference is compared to traditional SATA.
Second question - my current desktop that I'll be replacing is a Q9550 with 8Gb RAM and a 4870, running Vista. I'm assuming the new laptop should perform at least as well (CPU is a bit slower, but GFX better)? Some guy (a moderator, no less) on another forum (not sure if I'm allowed to name them?) was claiming it would be much worse, but I'm pretty sure that he's talking bobbins?
Thirdly (and finally) - any reason to choose Win 7 or Win 8? Win 8 seems to have been designed for touchscreens, which I won't have, but are there any other differences to be aware of?
(*) I did a brief check on my current system drive before leaving for work. Total used was 286Gb. I went into add/remove software and looked at programs >500Mb. There were 20 (18 of which games - says a lot), totalling 128Gb. No idea what the other 158Gb is - will need to have a proper rummage tonight! Assuming it is all rubbish, the 240Gb may be big enough!
Edit: Just realised it's probably restore points. Probably loads of them over a 4 years... Will test my theory when I get home.
I'm replacing my 4 year-old desktop with a laptop for space reasons. I've decided to go for a 15" as 17" is going to be too big and heavy (it will need to be moderately portable).
I've pretty much decide to go with a 7970M GFX card as it appears most of the teething problems have been ironed out, and it seems better than the Nvidia options - 675MX is similar price but slower, 680M much pricier.
Unfortunately, OCUK don't do the clevo P150 with a 7970 option, so I've had to spec at some competitors. I won't list who they are, so hopefully this isn't breaking the rules?
The spec I'm looking at is;
15.6" in clevo P150EM
i7-3630
8Gb 1600MHz RAM
7970M 2gb GFX
Windows 7 HP (or Windows 8)
My difficulty is in deciding on storage options. I would quite like an SSD, but the P150 only has space for one HDD, as well as a mSATA SSD, although you can add an extra one if you don't have an internal optical drive.
I originally thought I'd get a 240Gb SSD and try to use that for both OS and games (I have a NAS box for music and video), but I'm now concerned that I might run out of room once I bung a few games on there (*).
A different option for roughly the same price would be a 128Gb mSATA and a 750Gb Momentus. No shortage of space there, but an mSATA SSD is slower than a 'full' SSD. Would I notice the difference? Is it even worth bothering with the mSATA (i.e. should I just go with a hybrid drive, like the momentus)?
I've never had any SSD drives so I don't know how the performance difference is compared to traditional SATA.
Second question - my current desktop that I'll be replacing is a Q9550 with 8Gb RAM and a 4870, running Vista. I'm assuming the new laptop should perform at least as well (CPU is a bit slower, but GFX better)? Some guy (a moderator, no less) on another forum (not sure if I'm allowed to name them?) was claiming it would be much worse, but I'm pretty sure that he's talking bobbins?
Thirdly (and finally) - any reason to choose Win 7 or Win 8? Win 8 seems to have been designed for touchscreens, which I won't have, but are there any other differences to be aware of?
(*) I did a brief check on my current system drive before leaving for work. Total used was 286Gb. I went into add/remove software and looked at programs >500Mb. There were 20 (18 of which games - says a lot), totalling 128Gb. No idea what the other 158Gb is - will need to have a proper rummage tonight! Assuming it is all rubbish, the 240Gb may be big enough!
Edit: Just realised it's probably restore points. Probably loads of them over a 4 years... Will test my theory when I get home.
Last edited: