Two months to decide on a laptop(or possibly a desktop) der=0>

[Tilitoon]

@Tilitoon, maybe you can answer this for me. I have lots of desktop hardware experience but none with laptops. What does a 'discrete graphics card' mean for a laptop? Can you actually swap it out for a different compatible card in the future, or does it just mean that it's dedicated graphics but not able to be swapped?

I think it simply means dedicated graphics... having discreet graphics and having the possibility to swap the video card are two separate things as far as I can tell. And I'm not even sure if it would be mentionned in the official specs when you can manually change the video card, because it's not something meant to be done by the average consumer anyway. One of the places you might be able to look at and see if you can do it with your laptop model would be to go on the official product webpage and look for the support / troubleshooting section. There might also be an online manual. If there is a section showing you how to replace the video card then you will know it is possible to do so. You can also go on ebay and type in your model number and "video card" and you may find some video cards that are on sale.

[Diab]

So do you know that it is even possible in some laptops then? As I said, no experience with laptop hardware. Only thing I've ever heard of that you can change is RAM, drives, and battery.

[Gekonek]

I just bought Samsung G7A with i7-2670QM, Radeon 6970, 8 GB Ram. In beta i got about 70 fps with all settings high and res 1920x1080. I thought about MSI and Asus (with GF 560M, 570M) but Radeon has better performance. I checked also external monitor (Dell UltraSharp 2312) and cause of 60Mhz refresh rate You must have vertical sync option enabled.
It's a pretty fine laptop and cause my company bought me it i'm double happy . Compare power and price it's a decent choice.
Edit: Review http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...k.66523.0.html I got model with slightly better processor.
The display is awesome and minus of this laptop is it weight. About 4 kg and 1 kg for power source. More like desktop replacement to use at home.

[Tilitoon]

So do you know that it is even possible in some laptops then? As I said, no experience with laptop hardware. Only thing I've ever heard of that you can change is RAM, drives, and battery.

Yea mine allows it (XPS M1730). You can check out this thread if you want to know how I fixed my video card. I could have bought one on eBay but it would have cost me about 550 bucks... or I could have chosen a cheaper video card model instead but I didn't want to do that obviously.

I just bought Samsung G7A with i7-2670QM, Radeon 6970, 8 GB Ram.

Seems like a good laptop, do you know how much it was ?

[darkstarhub]

Most laptops dont have the ability to change video cards, but I am sure most companies are coming around to include more than the ability to add RAM. I am pretty sure Alienware laptops have the ability to change video cards.

The MSI laptop I am interested in is $1750, has i7 2670, 12 gb RAM, 3gb Geforce 570m, 1 TB in Raid 0, and the ability to move it around. The build I had in mind costs $2300, has i5 2500, 8 gb RAM, 1.5 gb Geforce 580(MSI TwinFrozr), 1 TB HD/160 GB SSD, and stuck in place. OK, here is my logic, flawed as it may be do to things I done in high school!

- If I want to be able to move around the house, from bedroom, to kitchen, to living room, I can do that with laptop. Stuck in corner of room with desktop.
- Desktop would be wired connection, a little more stable than Wifi, as I have had several issues with wireless routers going out.
- Desktop with 23" screen would be superior to 17.3" screen on laptop
- i7 vs. i5 probably not going to make a whole lot of difference in playing D3, but i7 would be preparing more for future
- 12 gb vs. 8 gb RAM again, probably not going to make a huge difference in playing D3, would help in future
- Video card= This is the big area, of course. I dont have plans to play any other game besides D3, but I cant say for sure I wouldn't try another game at some time, and future games for PC are going to be more reliant on a fast GPU. I would like to have the ability to do an SLI configuration with 2 Geforce cards, or Crossfire with ATI(have not ruled them out yet). Those MSI Twin Frozr cards look so cool, which means nothing as I would never see it, and performance is what matters.
- Hard drive configuration: I could get an MSI laptop with SSD and HD, but it would increase the price substantially. Is the SSD going to make much difference as far as playing D3, probably not. To make the computer viable for a longer time after purchase, I feel an SSD is a must.
- The MSI laptop would come ready to go. I would have to put a PC together, which I have never done, and could lead to frying something. Now, I am very mechanical and good with my hands. I work with 3,500 degree(F) thermite to weld rail together, and I am pretty damn good at it. I have always done my own work on my cars, and everything has always worked out. I knew I would get the ideas going in different directions once I started thinking this through.

Sorry for what probably seems like the rantings of a mad man. I have a little bit of money to play around with this, as I have been preparing for awhile by saving some money just for this. I got it! I will get the MSI and build a desktop!

[Diab]

Surprisingly as it sounds, the laptop actually seems like a better deal in this case. It seems fairly future-proof, and for the money that you save by not getting the desktop ($550), it will go a long way towards building a desktop PC in the near future. I'm not all at sure how you can come up with a PC that will run you $2300 when you can probably get a very capable PC that can run D3 and the next few years of latest-gen games with ease for ~$1000.

The desktop seems inferior in almost every way in the current state, minus the screen. You can just as easily get a 23" monitor and use it for your laptop's primary or secondary screen whenever you don't mind being stationary.

If you have choices for what hardware you use in the laptop, maybe you could opt for a downgrade of RAM from 12GB to ~8GB, and upgrade to an SSD instead, or save more money towards your desktop build. You will not need more than 8GB of RAM for gaming currently.

[Grishok]

@Tillitoon: unfortunately no beta access :-(

@darkstarhub: ordered from a dutch webshop (azerty.nl), it was about € 1475 (incl. SSD, mouse & headphones). If you want SSD, just order it separately, it's cheaper. I do highly recommend going for SDD, since the HDD is always by far the weakest (slowest) chain in any computer.

@Diabolico: I don't think there are many, if any, laptops with interchangeable graphics cards.

Laptop was a bit delayed, but it just got delivered. Looks great, tomorrow I will have some time to install the SDD & OS. Still have more than a month to go... It actually has a MSI gaming mouse with it, now I have two gaming mouses

PS I chose a laptop so I can game at the living room table while my wife is watching her TV series :-)

[darkstarhub]

Hey Grishok how is the MSI treating you? I have tried to ask a few questions by email to a customer service rep and I have not gotten very far. I asked about changing the hard drives around to a SSD/SATA drive combination instead of the 2 500 GB HD in Raid 0 configuration it comes with and the dude sent a link to system recovery info. And subsequent attempts at info have been handled in similar fashion. I dont really know if I want to go that direction if thats the kind of customer service I am going to get if I have a problem.

[Diab]

Hey Grishok how is the MSI treating you? I have tried to ask a few questions by email to a customer service rep and I have not gotten very far. I asked about changing the hard drives around to a SSD/SATA drive combination instead of the 2 500 GB HD in Raid 0 configuration it comes with and the dude sent a link to system recovery info. And subsequent attempts at info have been handled in similar fashion. I dont really know if I want to go that direction if thats the kind of customer service I am going to get if I have a problem.

I think you're going to find that kind of problem with any kind of computer product and any brand. Just have to keep trying to contact more/different customer service reps and hope you find someone that has some kind of technical knowledge instead of googling for answers to your questions (and poorly at that).

[Grishok]

Things I've done so far:
- Removed the 500 GB HD
- installed the SSD (in same bay, used HDD screws and strip). Will install the HDD at a later time, need to buy a 2.5" connection set (strip+screws).
- Discovered there is no W7 DVD in the box... (sigh, nowadays all new PC's have a recovery partition on the HDD instead of a DVD). I don't like the pre-installed crap anyway, prefer a clean install.
- Downloaded W7 x64 Prof (Dutch) SP1 ISO from MS, with checksum check
- Used the utility to make this any W7 version (changes one bit in the ISO to remove a certain .inf file)
- Burned DVD
- Installed on SSD as W7 Home Premium (=compatible with OEM key)
- Used key on laptop (underneath battery pack)
- Installed fine, but activation failed, told me to dial MS number (=automatic process, no operator on the phone), got code by SMS, activation OK! PS: This process of downloading and using the OEM key is completely legal.
- Downloaded drivers from MSI website, or newer ones directly from Intel, nVidia etc.
- Now installing drivers, looking good!

Startup is insane, takes only 10s to boot into Windows :-) Matte screen is great, keyboard feels solid, instant response on starting explorer or internet explorer.

Unfortunately I've got VERY little time these weeks, so progress on finishing the install is slow. End of April probably, but definately before May 15th ^^

You could maybe use the pre-installed OS and recover to the SDD, but I haven't got experience with this process, I prefer the clean install way. There are excellent guides on helping with clean install process on the internet (where to download, how to make the DVD, what to do after install), but it has to be your cup of tea. If this is too much hassle, you could buy a SSD/HDD GT780DX version, but they are much more expensive (1900-2000 euros).