Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Kolgena on May 28, 2012, 06:28:55 pm
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I've been looking around for current generation laptops, deciding that I would like:
1. Gaming performance - doesn't have to max out Metro or Crysis 2, but should push 1080p for modern games (and WiH). (I'm thinking medium to high end 28nm GPU paired to an ivy bridge.)
2. Decent battery life when not running GPU-intensive applications. >4 hours.
3. Screen size >15 inches, weight and thickness somewhat reasonable to keep it mobile. Must be 1080p or higher. Screen view angles and color should try to be be as non****ty as TFTs allow.
4. Some SSD aspect in the HDD setup (either solely SSD or caching SSD drive--by the way how good are these setups anyway?). Minimum total capacity 256 gigs.
5. Should not look flashy/covered in LEDs/have other horrible aesthetic doodads.
6. Price is mostly not an issue, but try and keep it under $2000.
7. Should last me upwards of 3-4 years.
8. Good enough build quality to survive being lugged around by suitcase/backpack fairly frequently.
9. Fan noise should not be overbearingly loud. Obviously should not be prone to overheating (looking at you, HP).
I've basically come up with this: http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/laptops/NP700Z7C-S01US and maybe a 2012 macbook pro (though that seems guaranteed to be >$2000) once specs are revealed.
Switchable graphics are key for battery life, but automatic switchers like Optimus make me nervous. How often is it that it doesn't automatically turn the GPU on or off?
I know it's a good idea to get a cheap gaming desktop and a small cheap laptop, but I have my reasons why I want an all-in-one desktop replacement. Thoughts/suggestions?
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/me looks at #1.
M'kay.
/me looks at #1, then #2.
Hah, good one.
/me looks at #1, then #2, then #7-9.
Stop it, I'm busting a gut here. :lol:
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Oh come on, it's not that unreasonable. Battery life in midrange gaming laptops is improving, though higher end ivy bridge plus graphics plus decent battery life is perhaps pushing it a bit. I'll look around when I'm not posting from my cell.
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if it weighs more than a cat, youre doing it wrong.
but after looking at #7 i cant help but figure that you are looking for a product that most likely does not exist.
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Kolgena, is there a reason that a two-system approach won't work? A future-proof gaming-capable laptop with lengthy battery life is a thing that simply does not exist. For a ~$2,000 budget, though, you would not have a difficult time building a gaming desktop to last you a few years, with enough left over to cover a laptop capable of internet use and office functionality.
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with 2k you could get a decent laptop for $800 and a fairly good $1200 desktop. the desktop would be way better than a laptop valued at 2k, and you still have a laptop. spend it all on the desktop and you will have a rig to be reckoned with. i find portability to be more expensive than its worth.
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with 2k you could get a decent laptop for $800 and a fairly good $1200 desktop. the desktop would be way better than a laptop valued at 2k, and you still have a laptop. spend it all on the desktop and you will have a rig to be reckoned with. i find portability to be more expensive than its worth.
Nah you could do it. Drop in a mid-range GPU and decent Ivy Bridge CPU. Core i5-3570K + HD7770 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227412) or preferably Core i7-3770K + HD7750 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229318) plus monitor (Dell Professional [TN panel] or Ultrasharp [IPS panel]) & speakers (Logitech X-series). Add in an ultrabook (like this Core i3 + IGP + 128GB SSD ultrabook (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214595) for your mobile needs.
But if it's absolutely gotta be a single laptop, here are some models that combine most of the features you're looking for (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%20600004718&IsNodeId=1&name=SSD%20%2b%20HDD#&SubCategory=32). Avoid the HP Pavilion dm4--its SSD is useless and its graphics of course suck. If those were my options, I'd probably choose the MSI GT700NC-013US (with a 128GB SSD, 500GB HDD, and 12GB RAM). Then again, I wouldn't get any of them--since I hate massive bloody laptops.
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Laptops tend to be a compromise from the get go. A powerful one will probably weigh a ton and go through the battery very quickly. A lightweight, non overheating, long batterly life one will suck at gaming. And they're all, in general, not nearly as good at future proofing as a desktop. It's at lightweight portable segment where laptops make most sense to me; a powerful desktop + a portable laptop is still the best combination in my book. A gaming laptop will typically cost a lot, produce heat like your average O-type star, and go through the battery faster than my government can go through the annual budget. And it can still be outperformed by a cheaper desktop system.
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I like my Toshiba's method of working around that: it has an 'eco' mode... seems to work quite well. Satellite P775-S7160 (http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/P770/P775-S7160)
Brief specs Copy+Pasted:
Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM processor on Sandy Bridge
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M with NVIDIA® Optimus™ Technology; 1GB GDDR3 discrete graphics memory
6GB DDR3 1333MHz memory
750GB HDD (5400rpm, Serial ATA)
DVD-SuperMulti drive (+/-R double layer)
17.3" widescreen: HD+ TruBrite® LED Backlit display; 16:9 aspect ratio, 1600x900, Supports 720p content
BATTERY LIFE*: Up to 4.18 hours using Li-Ion (48Wh, 6-Cell) battery with TOSHIBA eco utility™ (Energy-saving mode)
Weight: Starting at 6.6 lbs.
USB ports: 1-USB (3.0) port with USB Sleep and Charge, 3-USB (2.0)
HDMI® output port; RGB port
Memory Card Reader
Headphone jack (stereo), Microphone input port with Sleep and Music (use your speakers when laptop is off/sleeping) on a Waves MaxxAudio® 3 utilizing harman/kardon® stereo speakers
Win 7 Home Premium x64 SP1
MSRP $999.99 (there's a list of different trims of the above model laptop, ranging from MSRP $729.99 to $1,279.99)
I think my laptop might not quite be as powerful as you're looking for, but I think it fits nicely as a compromise between performance and power saving (put eco Mode on, turn your brightness down, and you're gold).
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Thanks for all the suggestions so far everyone. Couple things:
I thought it was now standard that laptops with discrete GPUs would also have an integrated crap GPU (Intel 3000 or 4000 HD) to fall back on, so you could switch off the discrete GPU and get all your battery life back that way. For example, the samsung I was looking into claims to last 8 hours despite housing an ivy bridge i7 and a GT 650M. I'm not expecting any machine to last past 30 minutes while gaming. I just need a long enough battery life for word processing/internet without being tethered to a wall socket.
My current laptop (a VAIO FW) has lasted me three years, and probably has 2-3 more years of functional life. I would keep it if the ATI 3650 HD in it wasn't rapidly becoming an insufficient GPU. What I meant by #7 is 3-4 years of not crapping out and dying (so build quality), not 3-4 years of futureproofing, in case I caused some confusion. I don't even expect desktops to be futureproofed for 4 years without being unusually exorbitant (quad SLI GTX 690s anyone?)
Those MSI laptops have great performance specs, but have close to 0 portability because of their 2 inch plus thickness. (On the "plus" side, because they are not portable, battery life is a nonissue). I wouldn't consider laptops of these kind, because I would sooner get a laptop + desktop combo.
But I don't want to use a desktop for mainly two reasons: way too lazy to keep files up to date on multiple platforms, and the portability is good for travel.
jr2: The Toshiba you have there does look very attractive, though I would sooner get an N55 or N56 Asus simply for comparable portability/battery life and superior performance and screen resolution. The N55 goes for around 1.2k right now. My friends have this laptop, and they say that it's a good performance between power (GT 555M DDR3, i7 sandy bridge) and portability (still manageable dimensions and weight, ~5 hours battery). My main reservation for the N56 has to do with the fact that they put DDR3 ram alongside a GT 650M, which nerfs it pretty hard because of its 128bit bus. It also sucks that most of the SSD options would send the price of the laptop through the roof.
I guess that brings me to another thing... it's really quite frustrating when you can't look at a mobile GPU and know how well it's going to perform. Laptop OEMs sometimes mess with their clocks quite substantially.
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ive just never seen a performance laptop last more than 2 years. has nothing to do with future proofing. last laptop was a dual core asus with a somewhat decent gpu, and one day it just upped and stopped working (literally a week after the warranty ran out). i presume they just cook themselves to death. the thing was in pristine physical condition, never been dropped or spilled on and just refused to post. i see the same thing happen in desktops too, high performance machines are self destructive by nature and can be maintenance hogs, often needing costly repairs and part replacements. this is usually not possible in a laptop (without a hot air rework station and mad soldering skillz), resulting in a useless brick. its enough to make me steer clear of performance rigs and especially laptops.
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I bought this MacBook in February 2008. Given that it has been over four years since the first time I pressed the power button, and the fact that I beta-tested WiH at 4 FPS with it, I assume it's not a performance laptop.
I've yet to see a desktop computer that can last for more than seven years on native hardware. Fury mentioned that he has a very old Mac/Powerbook or something like that, though, so I'm still hopeful that this MacBook I'm currently using will last until I get out of National Service in June 2013.
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my 2003 rig still functions on mostly original hardware, i did do a ram upgrade a year after i built it and i did have to replace the power supply, and as a result the cd drive, and the hard drive has been swapped a couple times, last time being when i installed win 7 on it. other than that its the same old rig and still functional. mom uses it to watch porn. not bad for an $800 rig. then there was that 3k rig i bought, its been through 3 mobos, 2 video cards, 2 sets of ram 2 power supplies. i swear every part of it has been replaced at lest once. i hate that rig. its why my last build was another $800 box, which if things go well will last as long as the one i built 9 years ago. id rather build an $800 rig every 2 years than to build a high performance rig every 5+ years, throwing money at it to keep it alive.
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Thanks for all the suggestions so far everyone. Couple things:
I thought it was now standard that laptops with discrete GPUs would also have an integrated crap GPU (Intel 3000 or 4000 HD) to fall back on, so you could switch off the discrete GPU and get all your battery life back that way. For example, the samsung I was looking into claims to last 8 hours despite housing an ivy bridge i7 and a GT 650M. I'm not expecting any machine to last past 30 minutes while gaming. I just need a long enough battery life for word processing/internet without being tethered to a wall socket.
My current laptop (a VAIO FW) has lasted me three years, and probably has 2-3 more years of functional life. I would keep it if the ATI 3650 HD in it wasn't rapidly becoming an insufficient GPU. What I meant by #7 is 3-4 years of not crapping out and dying (so build quality), not 3-4 years of futureproofing, in case I caused some confusion. I don't even expect desktops to be futureproofed for 4 years without being unusually exorbitant (quad SLI GTX 690s anyone?)
Those MSI laptops have great performance specs, but have close to 0 portability because of their 2 inch plus thickness. (On the "plus" side, because they are not portable, battery life is a nonissue). I wouldn't consider laptops of these kind, because I would sooner get a laptop + desktop combo.
But I don't want to use a desktop for mainly two reasons: way too lazy to keep files up to date on multiple platforms, and the portability is good for travel.
jr2: The Toshiba you have there does look very attractive, though I would sooner get an N55 or N56 Asus simply for comparable portability/battery life and superior performance and screen resolution. The N55 goes for around 1.2k right now. My friends have this laptop, and they say that it's a good performance between power (GT 555M DDR3, i7 sandy bridge) and portability (still manageable dimensions and weight, ~5 hours battery). My main reservation for the N56 has to do with the fact that they put DDR3 ram alongside a GT 650M, which nerfs it pretty hard because of its 128bit bus. It also sucks that most of the SSD options would send the price of the laptop through the roof.
I guess that brings me to another thing... it's really quite frustrating when you can't look at a mobile GPU and know how well it's going to perform. Laptop OEMs sometimes mess with their clocks quite substantially.
I will again suggest a more powerful & definitely upgradable gaming desktop and a small laptop or ultrabook. It really is the most bang for your buck: a low-end laptop should do just fine for 2-4 years when each has its own niche. There are 13" form factor machines with more powerful CPUs so checkout alternatives as well.
At least for my uses, a desktop & high-end smartphone (Samsung Galaxy S-II) are more than enough for what I do.
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I bought this MacBook in February 2008. Given that it has been over four years since the first time I pressed the power button, and the fact that I beta-tested WiH at 4 FPS with it, I assume it's not a performance laptop.
The macbook pro 2011 is the first of its line to actually have a good GPU (Radeon 6750M, runs bpmassive battle in the 10-20 fps range at start). However, it hasn't been around long enough to demonstrate whether it physically lasts a long time. Macbook pro 2012 is rumoured to pack a (possibly nerfed) GT 650M, but they're also rumoured to come with retina displays (2880x1800), which would make native resolution gaming a far and distant dream. At least at that resolution AA would be mostly useless.
@Nuke: I've heard that many models of Asus laptops like to quit working prematurely. I was actually hoping that this current cycle of refreshes might be better for heat generation due to die shrinks, but I've also heard that ivy bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge against all my expectations that a 22nm die would run cooler than a 32nm die.
@Bob-san: Yeah, smart phones are nice, and I pretty much love my iPhone. However, it's too small (960x640) and too clumsy to actually do work beyond checking up references. Lots of my friends use iPads, but I'm not sold on them right now.
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@Nuke: I've heard that many models of Asus laptops like to quit working prematurely. I was actually hoping that this current cycle of refreshes might be better for heat generation due to die shrinks, but I've also heard that ivy bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge against all my expectations that a 22nm die would run cooler than a 32nm die.
modern chipsets do run incredibly hot, hotter than the cpu/gpu. in the case of my latop i think that may have been somewhat of the issue. i actually think were at the limits of thermal design when it comes to portable computing. you can use most gaming laptops to heat a small room, so props to the designers of high efficiency portable heat sinks. theres still stuff you can do by shrinking the fab process to greatly reduce power consumption, not just on the cpu but on the chipset as well. we might even see more parts of the chipset move to the cpu die, at least on mobile processors. throw that in with pcb miniaturization, resulting in shrinking mobo sizes freeing up chassis space for larger heatsinks, and bigger batteries. the fact that mobile computers can actually for the most part keep up with desktops is rather amazing.
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@Nuke: I've heard that many models of Asus laptops like to quit working prematurely. I was actually hoping that this current cycle of refreshes might be better for heat generation due to die shrinks, but I've also heard that ivy bridge runs hotter than Sandy Bridge against all my expectations that a 22nm die would run cooler than a 32nm die.
you can use most gaming laptops to heat a small room, so props to the designers of high efficiency portable heat sinks.
True dat. My friend reported melting his iphone cable because he left it beside his vent.
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ya, if you smell by the exhaust of your laptop when it's under load, it smells like a hot iron ready to press some shirts / or a portable electric heater, minus the dust (well, sometimes not-so-minus the dust.. :shaking: )
Anyways, my desktop cost ~$1000 after I got done putting all of the goodies - multiple hard drives, started with a 160GB and a 320GB, upgraded to dual 500GB, now it has had dual 2TB hard disks... it's still running pretty good, problem is it can't keep up, it's got the max CPU it can handle (AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 2.2 GHz, single core, no SSE2 (darn it!) with 2GB DDR RAM). I've stopped running it for now, I'll probably put it back together at some point, but at this point, the place where I'm living is pretty cramped with all of our stuff, and I also have a storage unit. :ick:
But it kept pace with the flash Pentium 4 3.0 GHz Hyper-Threading CPU powered units, with a fraction of the heat. The lack of multiple cores really shows now, though, when you run a lot of programs on it. IMHO Nuke is right - $800-$1200 rigs are the way to go, just make sure they are upgradeable (name-brand computers sometimes rip you off and intentionally cripple their systems so you can't upgrade them - case in point, I've seen Gateways with the place on the board for PCI-E graphics card slot, but no actual slot, they want you stuck with on-board graphics, if you want more power, pony up for the next better version of the same computer that isn't nerfed). Also, systems will have only a few slots for RAM, etc... it's all a $$$$$ game. Put your own computer together. If you don't feel up to it, research online and ask around here, you'll be happier. Trust me. Just remember to ground yourself to the computer case and/or use an ESD wrist strap when assembling the computer. Don't wear anything that makes you go snap crackle pop (wool sweaters), if you have a rug, put down a piece of plastic / rubber / whatever... that will help, however remember plastic still generates ESD so you must still ground yourself to the chassis, or otherwise, when you put your components in, the extra charge on you will travel to the case through the component. You don't want that. Just go slow, use your head. If it doesn't work, don't panic, you probably missed a wire or have a loose component somewhere. Retrace and try again... hmm... I'm rambling. Sorry. :nervous:
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or, ground yourself on something else metal in your house that's not touching your components at all. the charges involved are not large enough to make this matter, but it's worth noting that the chassis isn't grounded itself.
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i have a hard time keeping the cats out of the case while im trying to mount the mobo. seriously as soon as i start to build they all show up. i always grounded by plugging the power supply into the wall. if youve ever taken apart a power supply (i needed the power mosfets and regulators), you know that the ground pin mounts to the chassis, so once mounted in the case the case is also grounded. so staying in contact with the case is what i do.
i usually do things in this order:
1. prep the case. install fans, psu, if there are screw in drives i install em (if they use drive rails you can do this later on), install standoffs.
2. prep the mobo. if they have jumpers configure them now. i like to lay out the mobo on a bench, install ram and cpu before installation. for this step i periodically touch the plugged in case to discharge, moving around as little as possible to avoid static buildup. also it helps to have a squirt gun in case of cats.
3. stick em together, if you did step 1 right you shouldn't have a problem (dont install standoffs if theres no hole in that location on the mobo).
4. install drives (if you havent aldeady), sata cables, connect power to device, install add in cards, dongle brackets, organize your wiring (zipties are your friend), **** like that.
5. sacrifice a small animal in the name of satan (not the cats, satan is a cat person)
6. ???
7. profit
8. boot, maybe
9. realize you forgot to plug in the mobo and plug it in
10. sacrifice another small animal in the name of satan
11. boot it and install os
12. yell at all the cats and people who drove you nuts while you were trying to concentrate on not destroying some thousand dollars in equipment.
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or, ground yourself on something else metal in your house that's not touching your components at all. the charges involved are not large enough to make this matter, but it's worth noting that the chassis isn't grounded itself.
Yeah but the charge doesn't matter as long as it's equal.. think: if your computer case has a charge (let's say, it's touching something that has a charge on the desk - unlikely, but w/e) and then you touch it, the charge from the computer will flow to you, damaging the component unless you touch it first. You can ground yourself, and that should get rid of the problem, but on your walk back to the computer, you can easily build a damaging charge back up.
Basically: you can have 50,000 V in you, and as long as the computer case is equally charged, no harm done, as no current will flow, meaning no equipment damage. However, now you have to think: that 50,000 V can definitely damage your equipment when you pick it up, or when it gets installed into your computer... so yeah, grounding everything out would be the best bet at the start.
Actually, it's really good if the PSU has a power on/off switch, and you shut that off, and leave it plugged in, as then the case is grounded... only problem is then you're trusting that the switch really did kill all of the power. (Which it should have.)
EDIT:
i always grounded by plugging the power supply into the wall. if youve ever taken apart a power supply (i needed the power mosfets and regulators), you know that the ground pin mounts to the chassis, so once mounted in the case the case is also grounded. so staying in contact with the case is what i do.
ninja'd, didn't read all of your post... ;)
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ive taken countless power supplies apart. its not a task you should take likely, let it sit unpowered for a few days, and discharge caps and inductors properly. its not something most people should do, but if you need inductors, voltage regulators and capacitors, a fan or 2 its loaded with good salvage parts. but then you realize they are all mostly the same kinda stuff. the switch is always the first thing after the plug, might be a fuse of sorts in there, and possibly some sensing components, before the transformer and rectifier. most of the circuitry is dc from there, linear or switch mode regulators, filters, etc.
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my 2003 rig still functions on mostly original hardware, i did do a ram upgrade a year after i built it and i did have to replace the power supply, and as a result the cd drive, and the hard drive has been swapped a couple times, last time being when i installed win 7 on it. other than that its the same old rig and still functional. mom uses it to watch porn. not bad for an $800 rig. then there was that 3k rig i bought, its been through 3 mobos, 2 video cards, 2 sets of ram 2 power supplies. i swear every part of it has been replaced at lest once. i hate that rig. its why my last build was another $800 box, which if things go well will last as long as the one i built 9 years ago. id rather build an $800 rig every 2 years than to build a high performance rig every 5+ years, throwing money at it to keep it alive.
Damn, now I feel more convinced to try and build my own computer once I get the chance. :)
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@Bob-san: Yeah, smart phones are nice, and I pretty much love my iPhone. However, it's too small (960x640) and too clumsy to actually do work beyond checking up references. Lots of my friends use iPads, but I'm not sold on them right now.
My Galaxy S II is pretty much the same but it provides diversions and media pretty well. My mom loves her Kindle Fire... prefers it to her Android smartphone. Either way screen res has less to do with it than density and physical size. Touchscreens do suck though.
Btw my desktops have pretty good lives. My hard learned rule is now to never underestimate the power of RAID arrays. If i was rebuilding my first desktop, I would have bought an Abit IP35 instead of the stripped down IP35-E. And I woulda bought a Radeon HD3850-512 instead of 256. Otherwise a Pentium E2140 @ 3.2ghz rocked. I was a fool for "upgrading" to an E6300 Wolfdale @ 3.8ghz and not going for a C2Q instead.
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Same on the desktops lasting a while. My last desktop was a rebuilt P4 1.8 Northwood that was a free giveaway in..... 2005? I think? After moving to a different case, a GPU upgrade and a RAM upgrade it's still in service as a basic HTPC at my aunt's house. My current box is coming up on 3 years old in the fall, and it was a budget build done on about 600 originally, with a few upgrades here and there (Upgraded to 4 GB of G-Skill RAM, picked up a HD4870 for 50 bucks).
Although, on the original topic: I've looked a bit and haven't seen much in the way of laptops that fit the billing. I've seen a couple that would be alright if you added an SSD yourself, for example, but nothing quite on spec.
Also, side note about Optimus/Switchable Graphics. From what I've read, Optimus is the superior solution in terms of battery life. However, the biggest issue with any switchable graphics solution is that they rely on the system OEM to provide driver updates. So inevitably, several companies leave severely outdated drivers as their "current" drivers for their products with switchable solutions.
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For the SSD, could you just pop a 128GB SD card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007962%20600006211%20600006245&IsNodeId=1&name=128GB) (~$170 incl shipping) in the card reader slot and use that?
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For the SSD, could you just pop a 128GB SD card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007962%20600006211%20600006245&IsNodeId=1&name=128GB) (~$170 incl shipping) in the card reader slot and use that?
You could, I guess. You'd need a very high end SD 3.0 reader to get any decent kind of speed.
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I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be able to install an OS to that, it would just be storage.
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depends on the motherboard iirc, I think it has been done with HDDs using twin USB 2
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For the SSD, could you just pop a 128GB SD card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007962%20600006211%20600006245&IsNodeId=1&name=128GB) (~$170 incl shipping) in the card reader slot and use that?
no do not do this. ive got a laptop using a cf card as a hard drive and it is slow as ****. sd cards have a serial interface, and hc cards have a 4-bit parallel interface, where cf cards have a fast parallel interface (its for all intents and purposes a pata device, you can connect one to your mobo pata ports with a passive adapter board). the fact that its flash is what really makes it slow. for a ssd to be fast it uses arrays of flash chips where things like cf and sd use a single flash chip.
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My current laptop (a VAIO FW) has lasted me three years, and probably has 2-3 more years of functional life. I would keep it if the ATI 3650 HD in it wasn't rapidly becoming an insufficient GPU. What I meant by #7 is 3-4 years of not crapping out and dying (so build quality), not 3-4 years of futureproofing, in case I caused some confusion. I don't even expect desktops to be futureproofed for 4 years without being unusually exorbitant (quad SLI GTX 690s anyone?)
...
But I don't want to use a desktop for mainly two reasons: way too lazy to keep files up to date on multiple platforms, and the portability is good for travel.
If the desktop is build well and properly maintained ( removing the dust in the heatsinks once per year ) the Hardware should last longer than 4 years before crapping out.
But most PC-Systems from the big retailers aren't build well:
Small Cases with bad airflow, no dust filters at the intakes, lots of unneeded stuff like card readers and tv-tuner.
IMHO the best option for you is to use your actual Laptop for working (GPU still sufficient), a Desktop for gaming and a NAS for storing all the data ( movies , pictures, music ) at one place.
Use a good Midi Tower ( mounts for at least 120 mm Fans with dust filter at the intake, and the possibility to route the cables behind the mainboard tray ) and stay away from the newest "High End CPUs and Graphic Cards".
If you don't want to play in 3D or with 3 TFTs a decent middle class CPU and graphic card is enough to get 120 fps with Freespace 2 SCP ( 3.6.14 RC 5 with the newest shaders ) or even Battlefield 3 in 1900 x 1080 with AA.
The main benefit of the middle class GFX Cards: they don't run as hot as the high end cards, so they make less noise.
If you don't want to build the system self, there are more than enough small shops that build systems at the customers request - and they even give more than 2 years guarantee for a small extra fee :D
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For the SSD, could you just pop a 128GB SD card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007962%20600006211%20600006245&IsNodeId=1&name=128GB) (~$170 incl shipping) in the card reader slot and use that?
no do not do this. ive got a laptop using a cf card as a hard drive and it is slow as ****. sd cards have a serial interface, and hc cards have a 4-bit parallel interface, where cf cards have a fast parallel interface (its for all intents and purposes a pata device, you can connect one to your mobo pata ports with a passive adapter board). the fact that its flash is what really makes it slow. for a ssd to be fast it uses arrays of flash chips where things like cf and sd use a single flash chip.
One of those SD cards was 50MB/s read, 35MB/s write (Class 10); the other was 45/45 (UHS Speed Class 1)... that doesn't seem too slow, as long as your card reader supports it (max real throughput on a 7200 RPM drive is IIRC 50-60MB/s (you can have the fastest interface in the world, but the data only flies under the heads based on rotation speed and data density) -- that's not even counting 4200 RPM laptop drives, which are slower. However, also IIRC, they are starting to use different technologies to pack more data on the same amount of physical space on the hard disk, (storing the magnetic bits 'vertically' instead of 'horizontally' on the platters) so that should drive actual data rates up. If you don't believe me, grab HD Tune 2.55 (the last free version) from MajorGeeks.com and do a benchmark.
EDIT: looked it up, the numbers have changed since I last looked:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Data_transfer_rate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Data_transfer_rate)
As of 2010, a typical 7,200 rpm desktop hard drive has a sustained "disk-to-buffer" data transfer rate up to 1,030 Mbits/sec.[88] A little quick maths shows this to be 128 Mbytes/sec. More quick maths shows that 4200RPM drives will be 75MB/s, and 5400RPM will be 96MB/s -jr2 This rate depends on the track location, so it will be higher for data on the outer tracks (where there are more data sectors) and lower toward the inner tracks (where there are fewer data sectors); and is generally somewhat higher for 10,000 rpm drives. A current widely used standard for the "buffer-to-computer" interface is 3.0 Gbit/s SATA, which can send about 300 megabyte/s (10-bit encoding) from the buffer to the computer, and thus is still comfortably ahead of today's disk-to-buffer transfer rates. Data transfer rate (read/write) can be measured by writing a large file to disk using special file generator tools, then reading back the file. Transfer rate can be influenced by file system fragmentation and the layout of the files.[83]
HDD data transfer rate depends upon the rotational speed of the platters and the data recording density. Because heat and vibration limit rotational speed, advancing density becomes the main method to improve sequential transfer rates.[89] While areal density advances by increasing both the number of tracks across the disk and the number of sectors per track, only the latter will increase the data transfer rate for a given rpm. Since data transfer rate performance only tracks one of the two components of areal density, its performance improves at a lower rate.
The real problem here is going to be if they put a POS card reader in your laptop.
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well i was going right through the pata port with a passive adapter. it was a cf card rated at 300x (which is the same rating as cd roms use, where 1x = 150k bytes / sec, so ~45 megabit). i could also go through a pc card adapter, though that would probibly cost you performance and you couldnt boot from it, thought of doing a software raid 0 with a pair of 16 gb cards. granted the laptops an archaic piece of **** that has trouble running xp. i looked at an sd adapter but it seemed slower than the cf card. seems there are higher speed sd cards out there though. i just cobbled this together wits spare parts that i had lying around.
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Yeah, beware -- cheap SD cards are slow as molasses in January north of the US-Canadian border. :ick: Always look at the speed rating unless it really doesn't matter to you. Low speed cards are why cameras have to sit for two minutes after taking an HQ picture - it's saving the image from internal memory to the cheap crappy $10 SD card was bought for that nice $800 camera. :P
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Yeah, beware -- cheap SD cards are slow as molasses in January north of the US-Canadian border. :ick: Always look at the speed rating unless it really doesn't matter to you. Low speed cards are why cameras have to sit for two minutes after taking an HQ picture - it's saving the image from internal memory to the cheap crappy $10 SD card was bought for that nice $800 camera. :P
Class 2 means 2 MB/s, Class 4 means 4 MB/s, Class 6 means 6 MB/s, Class 10 means 10 MB/s. There's now also UHS-I & UHS-II--which define truly high-speed SD cards--starting at about 100 MB/s and extending up to 312 MB/s. These two may be supported by the card but most manufacturers use a USB 2.0 card reader which limits theoretical bandwidth to 480 MBit/s (60 MByte/s--including significant data overhead). USB 3.0 readers may be different, assuming the manufacturer actually dedicates a USB 3.0 interface to the card reader section.
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Late to this party, but I'm another fan of the cheap laptop + gaming desktop solution. If you build your own desktop (Tom's Hardware Mid-range system builder guide is always a good starting point) and just get a cheap laptop that will last 2-3 years without crapping out, you can probably bring your total expenditure in under $2000. Doesn't allow for much mobile gaming, but it's a hell of a lot more economical in the long run than a high-performance laptop as your primary system.
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Yeah, beware -- cheap SD cards are slow as molasses in January north of the US-Canadian border. :ick: Always look at the speed rating unless it really doesn't matter to you. Low speed cards are why cameras have to sit for two minutes after taking an HQ picture - it's saving the image from internal memory to the cheap crappy $10 SD card was bought for that nice $800 camera. :P
Class 2 means 2 MB/s, Class 4 means 4 MB/s, Class 6 means 6 MB/s, Class 10 means 10 MB/s. There's now also UHS-I & UHS-II--which define truly high-speed SD cards--starting at about 100 MB/s and extending up to 312 MB/s. These two may be supported by the card but most manufacturers use a USB 2.0 card reader which limits theoretical bandwidth to 480 MBit/s (60 MByte/s--including significant data overhead). USB 3.0 readers may be different, assuming the manufacturer actually dedicates a USB 3.0 interface to the card reader section.
:yes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Speed_Class_Rating