Recent content by sidewinderx2

that actually sounds pretty awesome. The only thing with a small-ish SSD is that you'll only be able to keep a handful of games on there at once... which isnt really that big a problem, tbh, but it's something to keep in mind about anyways.

If you do get an SSD (which i strongly recommend, especially since you'll be saving some money on the graphics card side), you'll have to install it by yourself (and windows along with it), so just keep that in mind. If you wont do much more than office applications, you can just spend about...

I would personally recommend the Y570. The high res screen is nice but not entirely necessary... and if you really want 1920x1080, you can always hook it up to an external monitor :P The better graphics card that comes with it would perform better at that resolution anyways, if you ever decide...

Well, the demands for Starcraft and that of AutoCad are pretty different. You can run SC2 on low on the integrated Intel card, but i don't think AutoCad would run well on the same setup. If you think having a high res screen (higher than 1366 x768) is important, then i think your only choice at...

Sager has been around for a pretty long time, and has a good record as far as reliability is concerned. If you see something you like from them, you can go for it with confidence. WR2: That's exactly what I said: You can run office apps, but just don't expect to play games on a 4 year old...

Yeah that Asus is a nice computer (even tho it's like 20% more expensive...). My former room mate has one of the earlier versions of that, and he loves it. I don't know how hard the XPS 15 is to upgrade, but i don't imagine anything important (hard drive, ram) to be more than 2-3 screws away...

All modern processors are 64 bit. From the english translation of that page, it seems the it doesn't come with a operating system, meaning you'll have to install Windows 7 by yourself? If that is the case, then you can find a copy of 64 bit Windows 7 and install it on there yourself, as the...

The XPS 15z isn't really the XPS line's performance model... more like it's "pretty" model, so it may be unlikely for it to get the better parts that the regular XPS 15 can get. The Nvidia 540M that the XPS 15 has should be ok for most newer games on medium with the 1080 screen (btw, BF3 looks...

The 2410M has a slightly better integrated graphics card, better single-thread application performance than the other two. The 2410M, along with the 560M, also has some security-related hardware that the 480M does not have. If your matlab processes interacts with anything that requires...

While gaming/under heavy load? probably pretty uncomfortably hot, actually. Most laptops are like that... it's not something you can change :/ The most important thing you can do is to keep the ambient (room) temperature low. Also, keep the vents clean by either opening it up and cleaning it...

The new Sony Vaio Z or some of the Lenovo Thinkpad series would be awesome for you. You really dont need $3000-4000 for such a laptop, unless you're talking about Toughbooks. Alternatively, for the sexy Macbook Air look, you can try the Samsung 9 series. They're not quite as powerful as the new...

Another option that has potential is the Asus G74, which actually has a very good graphics card, high res screen, and should be around your budget limit. http://www.amazon.com/G74SX-XA1-Republic-Gamers-17-3-Inch-Gaming/dp/B00592CFFM/ Not entirely sure about financing options from Amazon tho...

what are you using it for? Not all discrete graphics cards are created equal. Some are in fact worse than the integrated graphics cards that come on the new Intel i3/5/7s.

Although Lenovo's having a sale, their nice laptops with the Geforc 55x graphics cards has relatively crappy battery life, along with no high-res screen. If battery life is important to you, you can take a look at Acer's new TimelineX series (maybe the 4830TG or 3830TG... both should be...