Hardware Discussion Thread

Looks pretty good for the price. Except the 32-bit OS. Did it fall off the back of a lorry?

Decent enough for gaming.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html

Although 2.7kg is not desperately heavy (15'' laptops were often around the 3kg mark before), you probably wouldn't want to be taking it around unless that is the only contents of your bag. You would notice something like that in your bag.

Thanks for the advice. Its not going to be used everyday for college, or even frequently, i just need a justification for getting it tbh

its over in bargain alerts, a gentleman over there has a 50% off voucher for them, but can only order 5, so its from Dell.

after repairing many, many Dell laptops, and owning a few of their PC's, ive developed a real hatred for the company, but i figure at that price i cant get anywhere near the specs from anyone else? And being Vostro (ie small company orientated) i figure it will have a fair standard of quality?
ah decisions decisions.

im in no hurry to get a laptop. i know this is a painful question, but what will laptops be like in 6-8 months? could i get similar or better for the same money? I find anything pre early i3 era to be painful and slow, with dreadful graphics and no gaming what so ever, so maybe in 6 months cheapo laptops (read: under €400) will wipe the floor of this one?

It's a steal for that price and you will have to wait a while longer to get a better one for that kind of money. I would get one myself but my 4 years old Aspire is still alive As for mobility, I'm carrying my 17 inch to and from work every day, it's a 15 mins walk and it became a real pain in the ass. That's without the battery. It's not even the weight, but the size of it, I'm a known threat around Stephens Green, people see me walking up against them with my laptop bag they make sure to avoid me. Lamps and bins on the other hand are pretty banged up If I got to pick again, I would go for something smaller. If you think about bringing it to college even once a week, I would think twice about getting 17 inch.

Solitaire wrote: »

When sheer size strikes...

low-profile Laptop backpack >>>> Laptop bag/briefcase/carryall

Or if you have ever played DnD: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/bags/aaa5/

Ah nevermind slim and fashionable when you have a sack with unlimited space that always weighs 1 pound /neeeeeeeerd

Solitaire wrote: »

It... doesn't work like that IRL

Unfortunately

Still massive though, I'd get one if shipping wasn't astronomical from Thinkgeek.

Guys i need advice on a new Mobo. im getting an SSD when the new gen ones hit the market, but ive only got SATA2 300, so to take full advantage of the new stuff, im going to need the 600 6gbps throughput.

requirements are:
USB3 (atleast 1 or 2 ports)
SATA 600 (minimum of 2, preferably more)
2x PCIe for SLI (preferably having both running at x16 when 2 GPU's are used)
AM3
good quality onboard sound!
low budget if possible =P
also it must allow for unlocking cores so i can run my Athlon X3 @Phenom X4 6mb L3 cache (already stable like this)

any reckomendations?
my current 1 is a MSI 770-G45
tbh im actually very happy with my current board. i dont ask alot from them though, only beef with it is no USB3 (something i plan on investing in for faster transfer rates to my external HDDs) and no SATA600. it'll only run crossfirex at x16 and x4 (apparently, though it seems hard to find a real answer here)

would i be better off buying a PCI card that has USB3 AND SATA600 built in? how does a card like that affect having an SSD attached to it as the primary boot drive? can the board boot from a PCI slot?

thanks for any advice!

Need advice again guys RE: buying an SSD now.

ive won a bid for an new (still in box) Intel x-25m 80gb SSD @€;116 delivered.

but just now ive read about the c400 SSD's possibly coming out in the next few weeks? is there anywhere that confirms this?

what should i do? take the intel? i was idealy looking for 120gb+ for futureproofing, but i suppose 80gb can do, and as of writing €116 is a good deal for 1 of these, but will trheir value drop significantly in the next 2 weeks? should i turn it down and wait it out?

ive only got SATA2 on my Mobo, so thats a concideration..

Monotype wrote: »

The C400s are already appearing as OEM products in the US, so it shouldn't be long before they show up on mainstream sites both there and in Europe.

A C400 is going to be of little benefit to you with SATA2. I'd say a 64GB one would be at least the price you paid for your X-25M. Prices probably will drop soon though.

Due to your current board, I don't think the C400 would have much advantage, unless you plan to make it last across a new system/get an SATA 6Gbps card.

i would get an expansion SATA3 card if it doubled the performance though. arg so the 120gb c400 will probably be €200+?

Monotype wrote: »

Probably more like €220-240. Starting off anyway.

**** it, there's probably no real performance gain ill likely see anyway.
im gonna bite the bullet on the intel.

Thanks Mono.

You can always buy a second SSD and RAID 0 it if you're looking for more performance out of SATA2. SSD's scale very well if you run then in RAID 0 with almost 100% increase in i/o performance.

Hi guys, after reading an article about SSDs on RPS today mentioning they're good for games (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/04/04/if-you-buy-one-pc-upgrade-this-year%E2%80%A6/)

I'm pretty sure my mobo only supports SATA I though, would it be a huge bottleneck getting one of these instead of my 10000rpm raptor from a few years ago?

Hey guys, will a Phenom X6 1090T be a worthy upgrade from a crappy x3, or would i be better off going for an x4?