Best laptop under $4.5 Million

[tachros]

1. What is your budget?

$2,500 - $3,500

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

At least 15.6"

3. What screen resolution do you want?

1920x1080

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

desktop replacement

5. How much battery life do you need?

none

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

yes

Diablo 3 (highest)
Torchlight 2 (highest)
Guild Wars 2 (highest)
Starcraft 2 (highest)
Call of Duty Black Ops (highest)


7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Watching movies

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

I would like multiple drives. At least 1TB combined

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

origin PC, alienware, maingear, msi, sager notebook

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

at least five years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

bluray burner

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

I like MSI's superRAID design of having two SSD for the operating system.
I did not like the Razer Blade because of the limited customizations.
I like xoticpc's vast skin collection for customizing the look
i like a particular origin pc skin
Alienware's slot loaded bluray drives looked nice

13. What country do you live in?

United States

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

SuperRAID seems nice but I wonder if only MSI can do that

 

[Azn Cracker]

Damn if you have 4.5 million dollars, I think you could get any laptop you want + a ferrari.

 

[Labrynthian]

LOL I absolutely LOVE the thread title.

You have a really good budget. I suggest you go for either the MSI GT70 or the Alienware M17x. Both laptops are absolute beasts, in terms of both size and performance. They're designed for high end gaming. I normally don't recommend Alienware when people have a strict budget, but it's well within your budget, so go for it.
you can customize the Alienware, of course, but you can also customize the MSI depending where you get it from. Both are 17.3 inch screens with 1920x1080 resolutions. You can choose the graphics card for the Alienware, but it normally comes with a NVIDIA GTX 670M or a AMD Radeon HD 7970M. The MSI comes with the 670M. They're all high level class 1 graphics cards and will play all of your games on high settings without a problem. Both come with a default RAM of 8GB, but both can be upgraded to 32GB, if needed. Both have hard disk speeds of 7,200 RPM and the hard disk size can be customized.

These are the first recommendations for you. Take a look. If you want something more or less, let me know

MSI GT70 link - http/www.msi.com/product/nb/GT70-0NC.html#/?div=Specification

Alienware link - http/www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-M17x-r4/pd.aspx

 

[bigcyco1]

The MSI GT70

 

[tachros]

I just found out that the Alienware M18x from XoticPC with two Radeon HD 7970M's scored 38,000 on 3DMark Vantage. The question is how much of a difference that would be from two GTX 675M's or a single GTX 680M. I'm currently looking especially at XoticPC because you don't pay sales tax and the customer service is better than Dell.

The problem is that Crossfire has bad problems with not being supported compared to how many games SLI supports. I know a particular one called Darkspore that won't run at all on Crossfire. The second issue is to get GTX 680M SLI will cost about $550

so I have these options which are confusing me:

ALL ARE BASED ON XOTICPC'S ALIENWARE M18X SYSTEM COSTING BELOW $3,675

Option 1
CPU: 3rd Generation Core i7 4.2GHz (heavily overclocked)
GPU: Single GeForce GTX 660M
RAM: 8GB DDR3 2133MHz
HDD: 750GB 7200RPM (1x750GB)
SRT: 64GB mSATA Cache
ODD: Bluray Writer

Option 2
CPU: 3rd Generation Core i7 2.4GHz
GPU: Dual GeForce GTX 680M SLI
RAM: 12GB DDR3 1600MHz
HDD: 360GB SSD RAID (3x120GB)
ODD: DVDRW Combo

Option 3
Factory Overclocked
CPU: 3rd Generation Core i7 2.7GHz
GPU: Single GeForce GTX 675M
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1866MHz
HDD: 768GB SSD RAID (3x256GB)
ODD: Bluray Writer

Option 4
CPU: 3rd Generation Core i7 2.7GHz
GPU: Dual Radeon HD 7970 (Crossfire)
RAM: 24GB DDR3 1600MHz
HDD: 2.25TB 7200RPM RAID (3x768GB)
SRT: 64GB mSATA Cache
ODD: Bluray Writer

Option 5
Factory Overclocked
Upgraded CPU/GPU 3 Pipe Heatsink
CPU: 3rd Generation Core i7 2.8GHz
GPU: Single GeForce GTX 680M
RAM: 20GB DDR3 1600MHz
HDD: 512GB SSD RAID (2x256GB)
ODD: Bluray Reader

I don't want to go anything over $3,675

 

[tachros]

Best answer selected by tachros.

 

[Labrynthian]

If you're getting an Alienware M18x, you won't really need to overclock it. That said, it all comes down to whether you're willing to spend money on the 680M SLI. I'm not too sure about the Crossfire problems you mentioned, but if that's the case then the good looking option 4 isn't so good looking anymore
The bottom line is, SLI produces much better graphics than the single cards. So IF you have the money to spend, then get option 2 with the 680M SLI. Although check if the RAM in option 2 can be upgraded. You can manage fine with 12GB RAM, that's a lot, but just in case you need more later on, you should be able to.
Otherwise if you can't afford the 680M SLI, then go for the 680M single, in option 5.

 

[tachros]

If you're getting an Alienware M18x, you won't really need to overclock it. That said, it all comes down to whether you're willing to spend money on the 680M SLI. I'm not too sure about the Crossfire problems you mentioned, but if that's the case then the good looking option 4 isn't so good looking anymore
The bottom line is, SLI produces much better graphics than the single cards. So IF you have the money to spend, then get option 2 with the 680M SLI. Although check if the RAM in option 2 can be upgraded. You can manage fine with 12GB RAM, that's a lot, but just in case you need more later on, you should be able to.
Otherwise if you can't afford the 680M SLI, then go for the 680M single, in option 5.

You have been very helpful. It's down to the wire on this. I'm getting a new computer within the week. Here are the final refinements and then I'll leave you alone


15 inch or greater
CPU: 3rd Gen 2.4GHz minimum
GPU: [Required] Top 40 rank from http/www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
GPU: [Preferred] Crossfire or SLI
HDD: SSD Primary Drive
HDD: If not, 7200RPM with SRT Cache
ODD: Bluray Reader

15" limit is $1800
17" limit is $2500
18" limit is $2800

Add $200 to spending limit if there is something special about it

 

[Labrynthian]

Sounds good. Good luck

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar