Advice for a new Vortex laptop specs

[Vladislav]

Hello everyone, ive been looking around for some time, and nearly ready to pull the trigger on Vortex
Here is a specs that im considering right now:

Chassis & Display
Vortex Series: 17.3" Matte Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)

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

Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

Memory - Hard Disk
240GB 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
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)

Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack

Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH

USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD

Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT

Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)

Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor

Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD

Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE

Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM

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

Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12)

Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days


If anyone have and advice about that specs i will appreciate much Few things i was thinking about: is it good enough to have an Intel advanced wireless? Or maybe Killer is the way to go?
Then dont think i will ever need blue ray reader, its dead technology isnt it?
Also about seconf hard drive, i picked the Momentys Hybrid one 750 GB 32mb cache 6 g/s, is it worth to get this one over black scorpio 750 GB 16 mb cache 3 g/s?
And another thing, im currently using Win 7 Ultimate on my 6 years old Dell XPS Duo core 2 CPU , and will risk it and go for as win 8! (i know loads of negative opinions about that win tho).
Thats my thoughts, any suggestions/opinions welcome on that spec. Thank you.

 

[Alloid]

If you dont need BLURAY - dont buy it.
I would go for the 750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK instead of hybrid drive, just because it is storage for files.
Also I would go for the dual 7970m, just 100£ and better perfomance that single 680m, especially now.

 

[kruppsy]

Nice spec, very similar to mine.

I can only really comment on a couple of things.

The wireless question kind of boils down to how good your router is i think. I personally went for the 300mbps purely because my router can only churn out 150mbps so I've future proofed myself. If yours can already do 300mbps then maybe go for the 450mbps one in case you upgrade your router down the line.

Blu Ray isnt dead, yet. There was talk of 4K making an emergence (1TB of data on a disk), but as far as Im aware only cinema has taken this up. Software companies arent going to suddenly take up Blu Ray, DVD is the industry standard and will be for a few years yet. The Blu Ray market is still thriving but mainly for films. It depends what youre going to use your lappy for, I have a large collection of Blu Rays as I've had a PS3 for ages, it was a no brainer to add one into my build. If you dont watch Blu-rays don't bother. You could always get an external Blu Ray drive down the line anyway.

 

[Vladislav]

Also I would go for the dual 7970m, just 100£ and better perfomance that single 680m, especially now.

No thanks, i prefer to stay away from CF or SLI hassles, one good card (680M) is more than enough for games on high-ultra settings for the next few years. And i prefer green team as well, better drivers and support down the road.

 

[westerdaled]

Hi

I am looking for a similar speced machine for work.
https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?20354-IT-Pro-Developer-Spec

I am not sure if the CPU you (and I) have selected is part of the ivy-bridge or sandy bridge release: http://www.cpu-world.com/news_2012/...unces_Ivy_Bridge_desktop_and_mobile_CPUs.html . Intel seems to have some many announcements it is hard to see if is.

Daniel

I think blu-ray given it's low cost will be great if you a stuck in a hotel, train or airport and want to watch a HD movie. The speakers on the Vortex are meant to sound good.

 

[DaveyPitch]

I am not sure if the CPU you (and I) have selected is part of the ivy-bridge or sandy bridge release:

It's an Ivybridge. The easy way to remember is that if the model of the CPU is 3xxx, it's an Ivybridge, and if it's 2xxx, then it's a Sandybridge.

As for the OP's spec, I like it, very similar to my own laptop I ordered. I personally would stay away from Windows 8 for now, as my own preference is to wait at least 6 months after an OS release before I jump on it, in case there are problems people haven't found yet. Windows 7 is more than good enough and stable enough for me for the forseeable future.

 

[Vladislav]

Im still thinking about CPU 3630QM 2.4-3.4. Will it be enough for next 2-3 years for games like Crysis 3 and others what will be released in 2013-14? Im pretty confident in GPU though, 680m will handle everything during that time period. But what about CPU?

 

[Portland]

Do you need the 16gb for any particular app? Might be a bit of overkill if not.

I also shied away from SLI due to cost and CF due to stutter issues and iffy drivers. Singl e680 should kick some for a good while.

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

+1 on RAM overkill, 2x4GB would exceed the needs of any game at any setting, even modded Skyrim.

Im pretty confident in GPU though, 680m will handle everything during that time period. But what about CPU?

If you really want to be on the safe side, the i7-3740QM has a 300 MHz more base/turbo clock and is overclockable with an unlocked multiplier. Both CPUs have the same performance as a stock desktop i7-2600K.

Re. Intel CPU future viability: the i7-920 Nehalem, which was released back in 2009 is still kicking butt and is rarely bottlenecked in games.

 

[Vladislav]

oh right i see thats what i was thinking, in about 3 years it wont much matter 300 mhz difference because there will be 6 core CPU as standart with way much better performance overall thats my guess anyway.
Regarding RAM, well i know it will be overkill, but im just do it for a future. maybe in 2-3 years i will buy another 2x8 memory sticks to make it 32 GB RAM as an upgrade. just a thought.
Can you imagine im still using DELL XPS M1710 which i bought in 2006 (!) with core 2 duo CPU 2.16 ghz...with 100 GB HDD on board! ) ( and it was 1600 GBP at a time )

 

[Iroquois Pliskin]

By the time 16 GBs become a requirement, DDR4 will be available. Suit yourself.

 

[DaveyPitch]

I went for 16GB ram, but I'll be using the laptop for photo and video editing where the extra ram will come in handy. From a gaming point of view, 8GB should be enough for anyone, but I think if you can afford it, the extra ram certainly won't do any harm.

 

[Ninjax]

for my reasoning , it was for re-sale purposes, I will hopefully sell my laptop after a year or 2 , so most ppl in my area are
always so concerned in "how much ram does it have" syndrome , so yeah

 

[westerdaled]

Thanks for the update on Ivy Bridge. Another thing I am curious about: does the chip set have a GPU that can be used for most light stuff and just leave the battery draining graphics card for when it's really needed.

Daniel