Oh Golly Gosh I'm Stuck As To What To Buy!

[Kiazak]

Hey there forum peoples.
Last year I bought my PC from PCS and through the unbeatable service and awesome prices, I'm back and looking for a laptop as to buy, and use for my course/future career in game animations - so your usual photoshop, 3dmax and other such programs.
I was going Apple Mac until I decided I would like the option to play games on the laptop if I wished later on, like WoW, LoL, Diablo 3, and some steam games aswell. I'll be travelling a lot to and from work/friends houses so thats how I'm justifying a laptop.

Anyway down to my problem, I'm looking for a 17.3" laptop, or 15.6" but no smaller then that, as lightweight as you'd expect from a very well kitted machine. I was originally going to go all out and get the Vortex III but decided to ask for some advice before going in further.

I'm not entirely sure what else to say except what's your experience/ideas for me, if you don't mind sharing.
Any and all questions and suggestions are clearly welcome

Cheers fellas & fellettes.

Kia

 

[Kiazak]

Should probably add my budget would be around £55-£60 a month (as I'd be going through finance for now)

 

[vanthus]

What's your budget?as in total eg £1000.

 

[Kiazak]

£1200-£1500 ex vat.

 

[vanthus]

Chassis & Display

Vortex Series: 17.3" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3820QM (2.70GHz) 8MB
Memory (RAM)

16GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (4 x 4GB)
Graphics Card

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M - 2.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk

120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk

750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKT, SATA 3 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 & WIRELESS INTEL® N135 802.11N (150Mbps) + 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 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Office Software

FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus

BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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)
Insurance

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

STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time

Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
Quantity
1
£1291.67 ex VAT.
£1,535.00 including VAT and delivery.
Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/vortexIII-17/WbUH7eQxI7/

 

[Kiazak]

Wow looks impressive. I might push for a bluray disc drive, but other then that, sounds awesome!

Thanks very much

 

[M3zxu]

I'd probably go with roughly the same spec as vanthus except for switching CPU to 3610QM and GPU to GTX680M since I think it offers a better balance of cpu/gpu performance.

 

[Bad Bob]

Always worth thinking about future proofing.
Saves you upgrading in a few years unless you really really want to.

 

[Agito]

With a budget of up to £1500 ex vat you can pretty much max out everything in Vortex III 17.3''. My current order is standing at £1350 ex vat and all it requires to be pretty much maxed out is the highest spec processor.

With a budget like that I'd easily upgrade to at least i7-3720QM and GTX680m.