New Laptop Advice Needed

[micnev]

First time here at PCS! I've only ever bought 2 laptops in the past, my previous one and this current one, both were bought at my local PC World and despite the fact that I've never needed any repairs done to my laptops (I feel I generally look after them well), I can't help but feel I'm not getting the most out of my money. That's where PCS comes into it, I've looked at the feedback and I've spoken to online advisor's about a couple of questions I had and everything seems great! I've messed around, modifying all the different laptops on offer over the past 3 or 4 days whilst I decide whether PCS is for me and I really think it is, but I need a little advice first on the actual spec that I've chosen. I would be very grateful if someone with a lot more knowledge than me can tell me if I am picking the correct components, or if they feel something could be downgraded in order to upgrade another. Have I maybe gone over the top with the RAM?

This laptop is replacing my current one which has serious issues with playing my favourite game Football Manager 2014 and constantly overheats during the 3D view match days and requires me to use a huge fan directly behind it in order to play the game. I want a laptop that is going to last me a long while (at least 4 years). I love games, but I rarely buy a new game, so I wouldn't be looking to play all these high end games every time they come out. I do have Civilisation 5, so the laptop would be required to run that with no problems at all (unlike this one that runs it for a record 31 minutes before it conks out!). I don't know if it's relevant, but I do buy every iteration of Football Manager every year.

I've tried to leave out the pointless parts, but here's my spec...

The 17.3" Vortex IV

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

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB

Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (4 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 870M - 6.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11

Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)

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

Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® Omni Surround 5.1 External (£65)

Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0

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

Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 230W AC Adaptor

Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Anti-Virus
NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2014 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10) *SPECIAL*

Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC3 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch (£15)

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

Dead Pixel Guarantee
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)

Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)

 

[vanthus]

For gaming 8GB of RAM would be fine.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

As vanthus said, you only need 8gb for gaming. Also, why do you need the external sound card? I'd say get it without the sound card and if you don't like the sound then buy it afterwards.

Here's a build which comes to £1455 (Yours came to £1480 so this is cheaper). This build has 8gb of ram and no sound card, but I've put the 880m in it :

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

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4710MQ (2.50GHz) 6MB

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON SODIMM DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 880M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Free Item
Free Item
FREE £90 IN-GAME VOUCHER with GTX 650 / 750 /7000M / 8000M Series GPUs

Memory - Hard Disk
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB 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 & KILLER™ 1202 WIRELESS GAMING 802.11N + BLUETOOTH 4.0

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 & 230W AC Adaptor

Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NORTON ANTI-VIRUS 2014 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10) *SPECIAL*

Laptop Cooling Stands
Zalman ZM-NC3 Ultra-Quiet Laptop Cooler, upto 17.3 inch (£15)

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
1 Year Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£19)

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

Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days

 

[XplosiV]

Or you could:
-24GB ram down to 8GB
-killer wifi (which is only N) to the Intel AC wifi (for future proofing)
+2.8Ghz CPU
+256 Plaxtor msata SSD (as main drive)

And still save £57 quid, or possibly break even with 16GB ram

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Or you could:
-24GB ram down to 8GB
-killer wifi (which is only N) to the Intel AC wifi (for future proofing)
+2.8Ghz CPU
+256 Plaxtor msata SSD (as main drive)

And still save £57 quid, or possibly break even with 16GB ram

Better to get to 880m and i7-4710 than an 870m with i7-4810 (in my opinion it's a more balanced system) . Also, an ssd is easily added later, it's very difficult to upgrade the gpu later.

 

[XplosiV]

Better to get to 880m and i7-4710 than an 870m with i7-4810 (in my opinion it's a more balanced system) . Also, an ssd is easily added later, it's very difficult to upgrade the gpu later.

I understand your point and I totally agree, it's much harder to upgrade the GPU at a later stage, but you have to offset the extra cost of the 8GB against the software that will use it. Being that the OP spec'd the 6GB that's a very reasonable amount considering only a couple of years ago you were hard pushed to find many off the shelf systems with 1GB dedicated graphics. If the full 8GB gets used, fair enough, if the 6GB will do, for now and the future years, then the extra £200 would be better spent relieving some of them bottlenecks and leveling out the overall performance, imo.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

I understand your point and I totally agree, it's much harder to upgrade the GPU at a later stage, but you have to offset the extra cost of the 8GB against the software that will use it. Being that the OP spec'd the 6GB that's a very reasonable amount considering only a couple of years ago you were hard pushed to find many off the shelf systems with 1GB dedicated graphics. If the full 8GB gets used, fair enough, if the 6GB will do, for now and the future years, then the extra £200 would be better spent relieving some of them bottlenecks and leveling out the overall performance, imo.

The 880m has an extra 200 cores as well as the extra ram (the main reason I suggested it was because of the extra cores). The mobile CPUs are a lot better than the mobile GPUs that's why I'd recommend the better GPU instead

 

[micnev]

It's ok guys, I've ordered my laptop now and I've actually gone with a different model which only allows the 870m anyway. I did take the advice on going to 8GB of RAM though, but it is with the thought that I can always upgrade the RAM later if I wanted or needed anyway.

Thanks for the help.