My current desktop replacement (Dell XPS Generation 2) just isn’t cutting it anymore. Ok, requirements:
Fastest processor I can find, preferably two of them.
Fastest video available, probably needs to be 512MB.
Dual hard drives would be really nice.
17" screen
I definitely do not want that stupid 21" Dell fold-up table.
Is there new laptop video cards in the pipeline?
Research queue, taken from the notebookforums.com brand list:
Acer
Alienware
Apple
Asus
Compaq/hp
Dell
Fujitsu
Gateway
Hypersonic
Lenovo/ibm
Sager
Sony
Toshiba
I want two hard drive because I am incredibly tired of the 2 day process of having one go bad, requiring you to reinstall everything. The Acronis backup image thing has only got me freedom from data loss so far.
Added 3dmark benchmarks from that site - looks like $3000 alienware or sager. Sager is one of the few companies that don’t nail you to the wall on ram prices - I had to guess up prices at most places for upgrading the ram myself to avoid their huge markup.
I don’t get it. Why don’t you use Acronis to image the entire drive to an external device? In the dase of a drive failure, slap in the new drive, boot to the Acronis Rescue CD and restore your latest image.
Because the data differential between the point it died at and the last backup - normally around a day or so - causes hell with data loss since then in outlook, among other issues.
McCullough, I have two hd’s in my 15lb desktop replacement (a hypersonic pc, worked out ok for me, would probably go with a bigger firm next time) for different reasons from yours, and I support your right to want them without being pestered to rationalize the decision. Two internal hd’s are the bare minimum for a computer I will be using on a daily basis. And I don’t even use Outlook.
I suspect Tankero is referring to newer gaming laptops that promise easily upgradeable video cards. So you can jump on the 450$ upgrade train every six months, you know?
How noisy are gaming laptops these days? My current computer is a laptop I got with Half Life 2 in mind and it’s pretty much silent when you’re not playing a game on it. But when I looked at laptops a couple of years ago the fans seemed to be roaring all the time, I think because of the video card.
I just saw an article on AnandTech dealing with these desktop replacements, especially something new by Toshiba. I think you’ll be interested in this page of gaming benchmarks.
I’ve got a Dell M1710 that runs Bioshock at high res pretty smoothly and it is extremely quiet. In contrast, my Dell XPS notebook sounded like a jet airplane revving on the runway whenever I was playing any kind of game.
The most infuriating part about the drive failure is that Jason spent untold hours just figuring out it was the hard drive, since the failure mode was ambiguous and attributable to one of several different components that are more likely to fail, forcing him to chase down each of these red herrings. Trust me dude, let him have his dual hard drives.
I have a Sager NP5760 (the NP5790 is just a refresh of the 5760) with 2GB RAM and the 7950 GTX with 512. It’s shitty fast for a laptop and I can heartily recommend it. You really should be running the fans at full blast when playing games, but otherwise it’s quiet.
Also, don’t buy directly from Sager. Their customer service is supposedly icky, and the resellers will give you a better price and better service. I’d check out Xoticpc.com and Powernotebooks.com as both appear to be good. Mine came fomr Xotic and they were awesome about keeping me updated on the build and everything. I can’t speak to their post-purchase service since I’ve had nary a problem with it in 6 months.
Although the 5790 probably isn’t what you’re looking for since it can only handle a second hard drive if you remove the optical drive.
