How many of you are laptop knowledgeable?

[SlyGuy]

Hi,

I will be looking for a laptop computer soon and I have my desired specs. Would you mind looking it over and let me know where I can find a laptop that meets these requirements?

Processor: Intel Dual Core 2; 2GHz (or better)
Memory: 2GB (expandable to 4GB if possible)
Hard Drive: 2x40GB RAID (or better)
Monitor: 15" (or larger)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX (or better)
Operating System: Windows Vista
Optical Drive: CD/DVD+RW
Price: CAD$2000 (approx.)

Thanks!

 

[fischju_original]

Smaller places like cyberpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com are probably your best bet

 

[Sebokie]

Hello,
Everything seems fine with your specs except for the HD.I think it will be hard to find a Laptop with 2 2.5 slots. I've never seen it up to now. However I may be wrong.
And for Vista, seeing the price of this, if you don't want to play games or just a few ones like WoW, you may want to consider trying Linux, especially Sabayon.
I have been installing Vista yesterday and I don't really like it.
Sabayon Linux is better in my opinion if you don't play or use secific software.
Last word, be careful with the brand you choose. Acer especially seems to be a bad choice.

 

[Strider]

Notebook with raid? That's new to me

. Which should it be, though? Stripe (performance) or mirror (redundancy)?

Why the need for Vista, wastes resources a bit.

Since you state very specific requirements, I'd have a look at your local dealers, no notebook off the rack will fit.

 

[Psyfira]

Laptop with 4GB RAM?

Do they even exist? (It's been a while since I looked)

 

[fischju_original]

Big places like Alienware and Voodoo get new components before consumers, if you must have bleeding edge go there

 

[Azimuth]

Notebook with raid? That's new to me

. Which should it be, though? Stripe (performance) or mirror (redundancy)?

Why the need for Vista, wastes resources a bit.

Since you state very specific requirements, I'd have a look at your local dealers, no notebook off the rack will fit.

i was thinking the same thing, raid on a laptop?

40gb is a little low for raid don't you think?

 

[fischju_original]

Alienware has laptops with 2 500GB hdds in raid

 

[DEF-]

With all those speccs you're going to have a nice desktop replacement.

But I will warn you, many desktop replacement laptops have overheating problems. My old laptop would hang because of overheating when I left it on over night. And with your speccs, two hdds, it will be a very hot laptop.

Make sure that you read reviews of it, where they mention stuff like temperatures both on the inside (CPU/GPU/RAM/HDD) and the outside (you dont want to have built in heating on the palm rest or the underside). Also I suggest that you get one with a high quality chassi (anything else then plastic is good for the most).

Also read about fan speeds, it will be a very loud notebook. Make sure you pick a notebook with a CPU built for laptops. If its a desktop CPU it will be much more hot. Also harddrives will fail faster if they are hot.

To sum it up, what you need is:
* Laptop optimized CPU for low temps (and longer batterylife).
* Read review about temperatures, possibility of overheating and such.

These are the most common problems with desktop replacement laptops.
Trust me you dont want the problems I had with mine, it would hang in the middle of gaming, harddrive would overheat and crash. The palmrest would be so hot that I couldnt type comfortably at all.

Just some tips what to look for, that most people miss when they need a powerfull laptop.

 

[Dragonlord]

May I ask what you intend to use your laptop for? Simply because your specs are totally out of mind and silly. Even my developer laptop I use for game developing if I'm not on my home station does not have such specs ( for what... it's a waste ).

Second: Never ever use Windows Vista. If you must use a windows ( I pity you though if this is the case ) use Windows XP. Otherwise any Linux distro will do it. Pay though attention to what hardware you use. I have tested a lot of laptop brands and only Asus so far hold up to the quality standards I require ( for business and customers ). They cost more than other brands but you get quality there.

Then a RAID in a laptop is waste resources. A RAID is used in server systems to prevent data loss if hardware fails. On a laptop you will anyways "never" store data on the HD. Always use an USB HD or a memory stick to move your data to safety at regular intervals. Relying on RAID to avoid having to do backing up things is a bad practice.

2GB RAM extendible to 4GB? Not much use for this. If you use Linux even 512M is enough. Windows XP requires 1G ( above can not be properly addressed by XP anyways ). Windows Vista is as mentioned a waste of resources and should never be used on a sane laptop.

 

[SlyGuy]

Smaller places like cyberpowerpc.com and ibuypower.com are probably your best bet

Thanks. I checked them out though and they don't have good options for graphics cards.

 

[SlyGuy]

Hello,
Everything seems fine with your specs except for the HD.I think it will be hard to find a Laptop with 2 2.5 slots. I've never seen it up to now. However I may be wrong.
And for Vista, seeing the price of this, if you don't want to play games or just a few ones like WoW, you may want to consider trying Linux, especially Sabayon.
I have been installing Vista yesterday and I don't really like it.
Sabayon Linux is better in my opinion if you don't play or use secific software.
Last word, be careful with the brand you choose. Acer especially seems to be a bad choice.

Actually one of the main purposes of this laptop will be to play new PC games and use video editing software like Adobe Premier, so Linux won't work for me. Thanks for the tip about Acer!

 

[SlyGuy]

Notebook with raid? That's new to me

. Which should it be, though? Stripe (performance) or mirror (redundancy)?

Why the need for Vista, wastes resources a bit.

Since you state very specific requirements, I'd have a look at your local dealers, no notebook off the rack will fit.

Stripe RAID is the ideal.

Vista just because it will become the industry standard soon and I will have to upgrade to it eventually. I may as well start with it on my computer. I agree with you about the resource waste but what choice do I have if I want compatibility with new Windows programs?

 

[SlyGuy]

With all those speccs you're going to have a nice desktop replacement.

But I will warn you, many desktop replacement laptops have overheating problems. My old laptop would hang because of overheating when I left it on over night. And with your speccs, two hdds, it will be a very hot laptop.

Make sure that you read reviews of it, where they mention stuff like temperatures both on the inside (CPU/GPU/RAM/HDD) and the outside (you dont want to have built in heating on the palm rest or the underside). Also I suggest that you get one with a high quality chassi (anything else then plastic is good for the most).

Also read about fan speeds, it will be a very loud notebook. Make sure you pick a notebook with a CPU built for laptops. If its a desktop CPU it will be much more hot. Also harddrives will fail faster if they are hot.

To sum it up, what you need is:
* Laptop optimized CPU for low temps (and longer batterylife).
* Read review about temperatures, possibility of overheating and such.

These are the most common problems with desktop replacement laptops.
Trust me you dont want the problems I had with mine, it would hang in the middle of gaming, harddrive would overheat and crash. The palmrest would be so hot that I couldnt type comfortably at all.

Just some tips what to look for, that most people miss when they need a powerfull laptop.

Thanks for the tips about heat. I never considered it from that angle!

 

[SlyGuy]

May I ask what you intend to use your laptop for? Simply because your specs are totally out of mind and silly. Even my developer laptop I use for game developing if I'm not on my home station does not have such specs ( for what... it's a waste ).

Second: Never ever use Windows Vista. If you must use a windows ( I pity you though if this is the case ) use Windows XP. Otherwise any Linux distro will do it. Pay though attention to what hardware you use. I have tested a lot of laptop brands and only Asus so far hold up to the quality standards I require ( for business and customers ). They cost more than other brands but you get quality there.

Then a RAID in a laptop is waste resources. A RAID is used in server systems to prevent data loss if hardware fails. On a laptop you will anyways "never" store data on the HD. Always use an USB HD or a memory stick to move your data to safety at regular intervals. Relying on RAID to avoid having to do backing up things is a bad practice.

2GB RAM extendible to 4GB? Not much use for this. If you use Linux even 512M is enough. Windows XP requires 1G ( above can not be properly addressed by XP anyways ). Windows Vista is as mentioned a waste of resources and should never be used on a sane laptop.

I'm trying to find a laptop that will be good for a long time. The main purposes are gaming and video editing.

The RAID I would want would be optimized for performance, not backup. I intend to have a firewire or usb backup hard drive I will keep at home which can also store my infrequently-used media.

The only reason I ask for RAID is because a computer salesman told me that it is better to have a RAID configuration than a single fast hard drive when using them for gaming.

Will LINUX play games and edit video / images as well as Windows?

 

[Azimuth]

I'm trying to find a laptop that will be good for a long time. The main purposes are gaming and video editing.

The RAID I would want would be optimized for performance, not backup. I intend to have a firewire or usb backup hard drive I will keep at home which can also store my infrequently-used media.

The only reason I ask for RAID is because a computer salesman told me that it is better to have a RAID configuration than a single fast hard drive when using them for gaming.

Will LINUX play games and edit video / images as well as Windows?

performance gains from stripping raid are not easily seen on a consumer desktop. I think you should save your money and invest in a high capacity high speed hdd rather than a raid array. Did the salesman happen to mention the increased risk of data loss with a raid stripe array, if one hdd fails all your data is gone. Just my 2 cents

If your a gamer stay with windows XP, vista does not support all games/drivers currently.

 

[Dragonlord]

I'm trying to find a laptop that will be good for a long time. The main purposes are gaming and video editing.
Illusions. Trying to buy a laptop which should last for many years won't work. If you want something like this you need a desktop computer where you can update individual hardware if required. A laptop is a static thing. Once bought it's over. Upgrading a laptop is something I would not recommend anyone.

The RAID I would want would be optimized for performance, not backup. I intend to have a firewire or usb backup hard drive I will keep at home which can also store my infrequently-used media. The only reason I ask for RAID is because a computer salesman told me that it is better to have a RAID configuration than a single fast hard drive when using them for gaming.
This kind of RAID only helps you anything if you have a server with many concurrent file access. What you plan to use your laptop for is gaming and image editing. What goes for games they are written alike that they access files as scarcely as possible so a RAID doesn't guy you anything there. Image editing requires lots of RAM and you access only one file. A performance RAID doesn't help you neither there since it is strong at accessing multiple small files but one large file is worse on a RAID than on a common HD. Furthermore you do not need a fast HD. Like mentioned games read/write files scarcely to not bottle neck. A good CD-Rom/DVD helps way more than a lighting fast HD for games. Image editing again requires scarce file acces. There a lighting fast HD is also not important. A common HD is enough for what you need.

QUOTE

Will LINUX play games and edit video / images as well as Windows?

Depends on what expections on the software you have. Adobe products won't run on linux usually. There are open source image editing programs around but it depends on what sort of "professional grade" you require for your work. If you require Adobe Photoshop and nothing else floats your boat then you should have a Windows there as even if you get things running under Wine ( windows emulation ) it is slower as native ( easy to see ). So it depends on what you need. Furthermore if you insist on playing recent games you are better of with windows. Developers start to make linux ports ( for example Quake4 had one ) but this is just getting started. So from this point of view you are most probably better of with windows.

What goes for Vista it is true that MS is going to force it into the standard but this definitely takes some time. Upgrading is not a problem so better stick with a mature windows xp than an infant windows vista.

 

[fischju_original]

Vista is only slow to those who don't know how to tweak it. On my PC with 512mb of ram, it's ~2.7% slower than XP, and I get DX10 support

 

[pikachucrackpipe]

Hi,

I will be looking for a laptop computer soon and I have my desired specs. Would you mind looking it over and let me know where I can find a laptop that meets these requirements?

Processor: Intel Dual Core 2; 2GHz (or better)
Memory: 2GB (expandable to 4GB if possible)
Hard Drive: 2x40GB RAID (or better)
Monitor: 15" (or larger)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX (or better)
Operating System: Windows Vista
Optical Drive: CD/DVD+RW
Price: CAD$2000 (approx.)

Thanks!

you cant raid in a laptop
you'll need 3 gigs of ram for vista to run smoothly with those specs - better off with xp
get a widescreen monitor
you're paying way too fucking much

 

[Jiggah]

The new C90 by ASUS is pretty interesting looking. There aren't many places that sell it. It's a DIY desktop replacement notebook though, so most of the parts you will have to buy separately. This notebook is fully upgradeable, it's suppose to be able to upgrade everything from processor to video cards. If I had some dough this is what I'd probably get as it'll be sort of future proof. So, yea you can throw in that 8600 GO card later for DX10 support.

As far as I know, RAID is not possible on notebooks, the motherboard itself would have to support it somehow. Aside from that the power draw from running 2 HDDs is the big downside to this. Until flash drives becomes more prevalent I don't see RAID in notebooks for a while. There are some great advantages from running RAID though. Depending on the type of RAID, you can get twice the storage with the same if not better speed than a Raptor for half the price.

If you just really want a laptop with DX10 support, you'll have to wait till at least Fall for the DX10 laptops to come out.

2GB of RAM for Vista is fine.