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668 - Neighbor of the Beast

Might makes light! And I'm feeling MIGHTY!

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36 Comments
by
Dark Pulse
, August 14th, 2012 at 10:03 AM (3684 Views)
I found out that my laptop passed its cruel and torturous 96-hour burn-in period, and has now been mailed out to me. I should have it no later than next Monday.

What laptop, you ask? This laptop.

Actually, I lied. It was a customized version of that laptop. What did I do to it?
  • Got upgrades to 16 GB of DDR3-1600 RAM and a 750 GB, 7200 RPM HD for free due to a special.
  • Upgraded the screen to one with 90% Color Gamut.
  • Upgraded the CPU to a 3820QM. (The extra 2 MB of cache is worth it.)
  • Upgraded the disc drive to a 6x Blu-Ray burner.
  • Upgraded the NICs to use an actually good NIC (Bigfoot Killer Wireless-N)
  • Changed the videochip to a GeForce GTX 680M.
  • Put superior thermal compound in for both the CPU and the GPU.
  • Opted for a three-year warranty.
  • Purchased a 256 GB mSATA SSD. (Their best option only allowed an 80 GB mSATA, so I did this off another site.)

The base config will run you about $1400, and it's not a bad price for a laptop, and even the stock hardware isn't too bad. To do what I wanted, though... well, that's closer to $3000.

Extra costs, itemized in no particular order other than how it appears on my bill:
  • Screen: +$135
  • Processor: +$350
  • Burner: +$135
  • NIC: +$60
  • Compound: +$35
  • Warranty: +$149
  • Videochip: +$445
  • mSATA: +$279

It will be a very screamin' laptop for some years to come, though. And I can even throw in a second hard drive at some point in the future if I need to. Which I well might do in some time down the road. That said, between the OS being on the SSD, the bulk storage being on the mechanical HD, and a 128 GB USB3 stick I bought... if I'm running out of space on the laptop, perhaps I should download less porn I have bigger issues.
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  1. Bittersweet's Avatar
    I'm sorry, did you just say your laptop has more than double the ram of my desktop?
    Are you King of All Nerds?
  2. Kotonoha's Avatar
    Everyone thinks it's absurd that my college program requires a laptop with 8GB of RAM, meanwhile DP goes out and gets himself 16GB.
  3. Dark Pulse's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Bittersweet
    I'm sorry, did you just say your laptop has more than double the ram of my desktop?
    Are you King of All Nerds?
    No, just a technophile. My desktop also has 16 GB of RAM. Hell, the videocards in both also have 4 GB of RAM (and the desktop will have 8 GB if I buy another videocard... though I'm leaving that for a "later in the year" purchase, if I decide to do it).

    Yes, I love computers. I'll let it be my one expensive hobby.

    Quote Originally Posted by Kotonoha
    Everyone thinks it's absurd that my college program requires a laptop with 8GB of RAM, meanwhile DP goes out and gets himself 16GB.
    Pretty sure the program doesn't actually REQUIRE it, as I said. Usually only things like games - or memory leaks - will push a program past even 2 GB of RAM used.

    That said, most laptops now come with 4 or 8 GB of RAM as it is, since 64-bit OSes are rapidly becoming the norm.
  4. Kotonoha's Avatar
    That's not what I meant by "college program" but okay.
  5. Dark Pulse's Avatar
    I still doubt it requires 8 GB of RAM. It probably actually needs 4.

    That said, more memory is generally better. And RAM is actually cheap... unless you only have one RAM slot for a SO-DIMM. If you do, then to get 8 GB, you have to buy a 8 GB stick, which is a lot pricer than if you can do 2x4 or 4x2.
  6. Kotonoha's Avatar
    It requires 8GB of RAM because they have a list of minimum specifications your laptop must have, and one of those minimum specifications is 8GB of RAM.

    Doesn't matter whether or not the computer would actually need that amount, it's just what they decree it has to have.
  7. Dark Pulse's Avatar
    Again, that's why I'm pretty sure they're talking out their ass, but without knowing what runs on it, it's impossible to say.

    It's clear they haven't heard of things like swapfiles, though. I mean, if the thing's got less RAM, it gets paged out to swapfile...
  8. Mike1984's Avatar
    You really think a 750 GB HD is plenty?

    I have 2.5 TB total, and I'm not far from filling it....
  9. Nicktendonick's Avatar
    ...wow. And all I have is under 200 gigs of HDD space...

    How much did all of this cost you? Sounds like alot really.
  10. Five_X's Avatar
    If DP was to start downloading anime like a normal otaku, then he'd realize that 750 gigs isn't nearly enough. I have a 300GB and a 1TB and they're both getting awfully close to having all that space filled.
  11. Dark Pulse's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Mike1984
    You really think a 750 GB HD is plenty?

    I have 2.5 TB total, and I'm not far from filling it....
    For a laptop? Yes.

    And again, that thing has a second HD bay where I could put in more space if I need it.

    Now, on my desktop? 18.5 TB of storage. Have a nice day.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nicktendonick
    ...wow. And all I have is under 200 gigs of HDD space...

    How much did all of this cost you? Sounds like alot really.
    I gave a price in the post. Apparently you didn't notice.

    Quote Originally Posted by Five_X
    If DP was to start downloading anime like a normal otaku, then he'd realize that 750 gigs isn't nearly enough. I have a 300GB and a 1TB and they're both getting awfully close to having all that space filled.
    That's what the 128 GB USB3 stick is for - transient storage. Store it long-term on my 3 TB HD at home, move to and from the stick as needed.
  12. KENTA's Avatar
    It will be a very screamin' laptop for some years to come, though
    More like for a year to come. That three year warranty was definitely money well spent with this particular monstrosity.
    Updated August 14th, 2012 at 06:16 PM by KENTA
  13. ZidanReign's Avatar
    See, this is the kind of thing I dream of having. Too bad I won't be getting the money to do things like that until AFTER I get my associates in IT and find a good job at least...

    Till then I'm stuck with 6 GBs of RAM. A Outdated Dual-Core Processor. A Mediocre Radeon HD 5450 with about 512MB. And a mediocre Gigabit Ethernet and also 250HDD.

    Being lower-tier Middle Class sucks.
  14. xm0123's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Pulse
    Now, on my desktop? 18.5 TB of storage. Have a nice day.
    Eighteen point five tetrabytes!? Great Scott!

    My desktop computer (circa early 2010) has half a tetrabyte. I still have close to 300 gigs of free space. What do you people fill it up with!? And before you say the obvious answer, allow me to say there can't be that much porn out there . . . can there?
    Updated August 14th, 2012 at 07:52 PM by xm0123
  15. KENTA's Avatar
    What is this strange thing you call a tetrabyte?
  16. Kotonoha's Avatar
    A tetrabyte is when you get nibbled on by small brightly-coloured fish.
  17. Mike1984's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xm0123
    Eighteen point five tetrabytes!? Great Scott!

    My desktop computer (circa early 2010) has half a tetrabyte. I still have close to 300 gigs of free space. What do you people fill it up with!? And before you say the obvious answer, allow me to say there can't be that much porn out there . . . can there?
    Well, mostly torrented stuff. TV shows and so on.
  18. Dark Pulse's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by KENTA
    More like for a year to come. That three year warranty was definitely money well spent with this particular monstrosity.
    When you blow $3000 on a laptop, as long of a warranty as you can get is definitely a good investment.

    Quote Originally Posted by ZidanReign
    See, this is the kind of thing I dream of having. Too bad I won't be getting the money to do things like that until AFTER I get my associates in IT and find a good job at least...

    Till then I'm stuck with 6 GBs of RAM. A Outdated Dual-Core Processor. A Mediocre Radeon HD 5450 with about 512MB. And a mediocre Gigabit Ethernet and also 250HDD.

    Being lower-tier Middle Class sucks.
    Well, again, even the base version is pretty good stuff and only about $1400. That's pretty affordable, really. For a good laptop you should expect to pay roughly $1500 as a rule.

    Quote Originally Posted by xm0123
    Eighteen point five tetrabytes!? Great Scott!

    My desktop computer (circa early 2010) has half a tetrabyte. I still have close to 300 gigs of free space. What do you people fill it up with!? And before you say the obvious answer, allow me to say there can't be that much porn out there . . . can there?
    6x 3 TB Mechanical, 1x 512 GB SSD.

    The SSD is the system drive. The other drives are divided into Programs, Torrents, ISOs/ROMs, Music, Movies, and Dump Drive (for when I record gameplay footage, for example).

    Quote Originally Posted by KENTA
    What is this strange thing you call a tetrabyte?
    1000 or 1024 Gigabytes, depending on your definition.
  19. KENTA's Avatar
    Pssst: That's a Terabyte, not a Tetrabyte.
  20. Enhance's Avatar
    Tetrabyte would be 4 bytes, obviously

    Also, this laptop. Is it -really- worth putting it all into laptop instead of a proper desktop? I'd much rather laptop-for-random-crap and desktop-for-all-else.

    Not to mention if we avoid apocalypse, in some years it will drop value drastically.

    It sure is very convenient for bragging about, though. You monster.
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