quote Zuidy

Processor
Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM Mobile Processor (4x 2.4GHz/6MB L3 Cache) Probably one of the biggest downsides for me, wish I could have more speed. Max is a 2.8 GHz quad core i7 processor........ Tips on how to boost speed possibly? Overclocking isn't likely on a laptop...... or is it in this case?

Nah, to my knowledge no laptop can be overclocked and trust me CPU speed is barely noticeable especially with an i7 - very few games are CPU intensive enough to make a big difference especially goinf for 2.4GHz to 2.8GHz i7 that'd make very little difference.

quote Zuidy

Memory
8GB [4GB x 2] 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM [Laptop Memory] - Corsair or Major Brand Changing to 16 GB most likely, will it be necessary for simply gaming and minor web surfing, etc?

Gaming would barely require more than 4GB tbh - but 8GB is becoming a trend due to how intensive some games and backgound apps are starting to get. I would just stick with the 8, even in the next couple of years 16GB will most likely still be overkill, even if it becomes an issue you can upgrade at a later date quite easily.

quote Zuidy

Video Card
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M 2GB GDDR5 Video w/ NVIDIA Optimus [CZ-17] Could upgrade to 675m w/ 4 GB or 680 w/ 4 GB. Which should I go with?

Go with the 680M if you want the best performance overall if you want to save money just keep the default - the 680 will drain battery A LOT quicker especially playing games - they default has Nvidia Optimus which is a neat battery saving tech iirc.

quote Zuidy

Internal Wireless Network Adapter
802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth Combo [CZ-17] Upgrading to Intel Ultimate-N 6300 802.11 a/b/g/n 450Mbps Dual-Band Wi-Fi. Good?

You will notice very little difference changing your wifi since they all do the same job - the only time they would do any different is if you had a Gigabit connection in your house, for that case you would need a card that supported up to 1Gbps. But nah I would go with stock on that.

As for the SSD - Yes what hiigaran says is true but if the stuff you put on the SSD is to stay then it won't really matter.
Install your OS to that, a couple of programs you use a lot (eg in my case Photoshop) as well as games you play VERY often.
For the standard HDD put EVERYTHING else on that.

Or just skip an SSD and get a second HDD to keep the OS separate from all your clutter which will help boot times and make defrags MUCH more efficient.



Append Quote Prepend Quote

Can't tell you since my SSD is too small for games, but considering the improvement it has with loading windows, and basing on my knowledge of Raid setups, you should see an improvement in load times compared to a single HDD... note that having a fast SSD will not improve your gaming performance, just your load times... Graphic performance is based on the GPU and CPU's ability.



Append Quote Prepend Quote

SSD's are great, I have an mSATA SSD on my laptop that's over a year old... I just upgraded the Firmware and it's faster than when it was new!

I suggest you get the SSD if you can have both an HDD and the SSD. I have a 750GB HDD for all my games and data, and the SSD for the OS and small important stuff (it's only 64GB) but the OS load times are staggering.

Here's a benchmark showing the speed with the new FW (did this 30 min ago)



Here's with the original firmware (over a year ago)




Here's what a normal laptop hdd will do



The 4K random read/writes are what make the OS load fast.



Append Quote Prepend Quote

I think hiigaran's point of view is perfectly valid and if lots of people like SSDs for a gaming computer then it has to be for the OS only and may be for one or two games only if it's 120GB or over. I still haven't plucked up the courage to buy an SDD, maybe it's me, but I think there'll be problems down the road for the early buyers but time will tell.



Append Quote Prepend Quote

quote hiigaran

heres the major problem with SSDs. because of the way they work, they only have a limited number of rewrites, before they cannot be used again. every time you put data on to a certain section, that area becomes worn away. its very tiny, but its there, on the microscopic level. when you erase the data and put new data in its place, that place becomes work away a little more. eventually, after roughly 10000 rewrites, that section becomes unusable. i dont remember if it leaves the last bit of data intact, or if that area becomes completely unusable, but neither is good. now you might think that 10k is a lot, but a lot of rewriting happens without you even seeing it. this is why people move their page files off the SSD, and anything else that acts as temporary storage, like a cache. these cause a lot of rewrites, and lead to an early SSD death. in addition, it seems like the performance of SSDs as time progresses, decreases. depending on how you use your SSD, after 1 to 3 years, there will be a noticeable decline in SSD performance.

it is because of this that i would never want a SSD. i used to suggest it to people before, but now i only do it at their request, after i have informed them of the downsides to SSDs. now, until SSDs fix this issue, im not going to change my views on them.

btw, take the performance thing as you will. i dont have a source on it that you can read, other than the ramblings of several SSD owners over IRC. however, the rewrite issue is a well known issue.

Yeah I heard about that as well. But for a gaming computer a lot of people like SSDs..... I will judge for myself. Thanks a lot!



Append Quote Prepend Quote