Xotic PC MSI GT70-276US or Maingear Nomad 17?

[snowmobiling88]

Hey all I need help with this decision between an MSI GT-70 or a Nomad 17. Below you'll find the configurations for both, and I am set on the configurations, I am just wondering if anyone has had any experiences with Maingear Laptop's or heard anything about them. Any input would be greatly appreciated on this decision, cause its been driving me crazy!! Thanks in advance! Also, I think that the main difference between the two is the processor, do you think I would actually see any performance increase with the bigger processor?



MAINGEAR NOMAD 17 CONFIGURATION:



Chassis: Nomad 17 Performance Chassis with sound by DynAudio (Stereo sound with subwoofer) and backlit keyboard

Display: 17.3" FullHD 16:9 LED Display (1080p) matte screen

Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 3840QM 2.8GHz/3.8GHz Turbo 8MB L3 Cache HD 4000 [45W]

Graphics and GPGPU Accelerator: NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 680M 4GB GDDR5

Memory: 32GB Corsair® Vengeance™ DDR3-1600 1.5V (4x8GB, SODIMMs)

Hard Drive Bay One: 256GB SuperRAID - Powered by MSI (Dual 128GB Crucial® M4 mSATA] [1000MB/s Reads]

Hard Drive Bay Two: 500GB Seagate 7200 RPM SATA 2.5"

RAID: RAID 0 - Increase and speed up your storage array (requires 2 or more identical drives)

Memory Card Reader: All-in-One Integrated USB 2.0 Flash Card Reader & Writer

Optical Drive One: 6x Blu-ray Burner/8x Super Multi Combo

Ethernet Adapter: On-board Gigabit Ethernet

Wireless Network Adapter: Atheros® Killer™ 1202 802.11n + Bluetooth Wireless Accelerator

Audio: Integrated High Definition Audio

Web Cam: Integrated 2.0MP Webcam

Primary Battery: 76.96Wh 8-cell Li-Polymer removeable battery pack

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Angelic Service Warranty: Lifetime Angelic Service Labor and Phone Support with 1 Year Comprehensive Warranty


Reconfigure MAINGEAR Nomad 17 [HM77] - Ultimate
Product Subtotal: $3,079.00



XOTIC PC MSI GT70-276US CONFIGURATION:

- 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Matte Screen (1920x1080) (SKU - X1R553)

- 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (2.3GHz - 3.3GHz, 6MB Intel® Smart Cache, 45W Max TDP) (SKU – X2N300)

- nVidia GeForce GTX 680M 4,096MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11 w/ Optimus™ Technology (SKU - X3R708)

- 32GB DDR3 1600MHz [SKU-844P] (Dual Channel Memory (4x8GB SODIMMS))

- 128GB Solid State Drive (Super RAID) mSATA - [ In Primary Hard Drive Bay ]

- 128GB Solid State Drive (Super RAID) mSATA - [ In Primary Hard Drive Bay ]

- 750GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s) (SKU - X5R303)

- Raid 0 Stripe Enabled (Requires 2 or 3 Hard Drives. Combines Hard Drives for performance)

- 6X Blu-Ray Writer/Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive (SKU - X7R551)

- Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 (3x3) (Includes 3rd Antenna) (Dual Band) (SKU - X8R053)

- Integrated Digital Video Camera

- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included

- Smart Li-ion Battery (9-Cell)

- Stock MSI SteelSeries™ Chiclet Backlit Keyboard

- Windows 7 Professional - 64-Bit - [ Upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 (Directly through Microsoft) ]

Price:$2,771.00

 

[jonathan_569]

i think the main gear uses the same chasis as the GT70, i think the xoticpc is the better buy.. at 2771 vs 3079 although the components on the maingear is top notch...

 

[chrismorley]

Thanks for your interest in MAINGEAR! Spec for spec we're about the same price but we include an automotive paint job for free. It's hand done, applied in our facilities, and we only use the finest Glasurit paints found on super cars.

But one other thing that sets us apart is that our SuperRAID array uses dual Crucial M4 drives (1000MB/s in RAID 0) vs the SanDisk drives in the MSI shell, which would be 880MB/s in RAID 0.

 

[mustache]

Mind if i ask for the durability / lifetime longevity of both MSI GT70 and MAINGEAR NOMAD 17? cause i had many friends using Dell laptop and many of their laptop die after a year they bought. And i've also had a Compac laptop before it die after nearly 2 years. But my Toshiba last for more than 3 years and it still very healthy

 

[KernalPanic]

MSI makes very well-made laptops. The Maingear one looks like it is custom-built off the MSI whitebox, so its essentially the same as the MSI one from xotic with a few creature features on either side of the fence.

Those two are premium laptops and you should expect premium service and warranty for that price.

Both of those are very nice, but you added so many goodies that you pushed it into the price range of a 680m SLI setup (Sager/Clevo or Alienware) which would bury both of those if you sacrificed the Raid0 SSDs (down to single Crucial 128GB SSD boot drive and 500GB 7200rpm data drive), and made due with 8GB and an i7 3630QM.

http/www.xoticpc.com/sager-np9370-gaming-laptop-clevo-p370em-p-4896.html?wconfigure=yes
(this is the xotic link... I am sure many other retailers offer a similar machine)

Yes, you'd give up some storage performance and a little less CPU and RAM, but you'd have SLI 680m, and still only pay around $2758 with Holiday and cash discounts. The Clevo has a lesser speaker set, but at this price range, you likely will be hooking it into a 7.1 system anyway.

If processor is that important, you could still bump it to the 3740QM and be down only 100MHz and 2MB of cache on the CPU while keeping it under $3000.

If gaming is the point, (and it should be if you are sporting a 680m) the SLI rig gives up so very little and gains so much that these two maxed-out single-GPU units make less sense IMHO.