Aftermath remorse of purchasing 7700

[ethanweku]

I've just purchased my first Alienware system after VERY MUCH deliberation... I did like a million research everywhere, even looked through other notebook manufacturers such as Sager, Voodoo, etc. They offered basically the same deal and their notebooks offer inbuilt tv tuners (why didn't AW do the same?), and now the new Sager provides the newest p4 w/ht supporting 64 bit instruction... and, plus dell has come up with the xps gen2 notebook which has the drooly geforce go 6800 ultra... man, I was like really confused which system to go with... But anyways, I went along with the 7700 and am now waiting anxiously for its arrival.

Now, my question is:
1) i chose raid 0 which is basic data striping, unlike raid 1 which provides much more data security, so did i make the right choice? what is actually the fault rate of raid 0? i know that hard disks have a typical lifespan of 3 years? correct me if i'm wrong, so i was just wondering if one of my harddisks fail, does that mean the whole raid 0 config go bonkers, along with my computer?
2) i chose the p4 w/ht 3.6ghz with buffer underrun protection, so in the future, microsoft is going to come up with longhorn, is that going to be 64 bit? because if it is, i want my pricey system to be able to handle it... or in any case, can the 7700 be upgraded to the 64 bit p4 processor?
3) i chose the geforce go 6800, so what is the raw speed of this card? and if i want to upgrade to the ultra version when AW has finished testing and ensured its total compliance to the 7700, how much would it roughly cost? and will my system be able to take it? also when newer graphic cards come out in the future, for example, a new geforce card that is 7xxx series, will my system be up for an upgrade? or will there be problems?
4)i chose the 7200rpm ata-100 60gb hitachi drives, so when the sata version of 7200 rpm drives come out, will my system be able to take it?

I know these are a lot of questions, but I am really having a lot of thoughts about these... I own a Dell 5150, which is totally a piece of crap due to its unupgradeable graphic card... and I face a lot of upgradeability problem with it, which I hope my 7700 will eliminate... so can anyone enlighten me? Thank you so much for your time guys!

[mistariceboi]

1. it would be hell

2. yes, you can upgrade to 64 bit later on.

3. i forgot the speed but it could be upgraded depending if clevo develops the GPU for this model. the price should be the same as an upgrade for a desktop. The compatability also depends on which version of the laptop itself, you might have to send it back so they could adjust your lappy for the upgrade.

4. it needs to be the exact same thing so no

[Merin]

got my 7700 today, and i love the machine, the ddr3 card is solid...by this i mean i have half life 2 at 1680x1050 4x8x with no HINT of slowdown ever. it's warmer than i thought it would be, but since my hands are always cold, it's actually a benefit...and it's not too hot....any time i think it's going to go over that too hot point, the fans kick in and it noticably cools down. i actually went with the 2 non raid hard drives and split my data, that way i get more storage without the potential hard ware failure of raid 0. not much is know about the upgradeability yet, or rather when a ultra card will be available for the 7700. there is a built in sata controller so yes, it can handle those drives. grafix upgradeability is still a big unknown considering the machine came out in november. trust me when i say the ddr3 is a monster, doom 3 at ultra settings without any flicker....i'm sold. also, i purchased an internal wireless nic for mine which is picking up no less than 3 wireless networks in the neighborhood....none of them mine...so...shrug... i had buyers remorse as well, but there's so much space in this damn thing i'm just happy i didn't wait.

[ethanweku]

thank you guys for your comments, so if i would like to remove the raid configuration would that be easy to do? and if so, how do i do it?

[ethanweku]

i was just finished with reading the review of the inspiron xps gen 2 notebook from gamespot and i am absolutely won over by it... i am on the verge of cancelling my alienware order, because dell has packaged everything so beautifully (not the chassis), what with portability, battery life and performance... whereas aw only has performance and neither of the two... so is there any good reasons i shouldn't make the switch?

[Fidget]

that is a question for the techs at AW to help you with in the 7700, i think....but the members here are very knowledgable and may be able to help you do it, i still woudl recomend talking to AW about removing it, if your machine has not been shipped you should still be able to remove it, and if it has you should talk to AW before you go messing around with the insides of it.

(btw longhorn has 64bit and 32bit support, i am playing with it as we speak and it is great fun....a very awsome os and will be supporting both so no worries about that)

[Forsaken1]

the dell system is awsome so thats a tough question to answer. 1 thing to remember is the 6800 ultra will be available for the 7700 soon. really as of now and for the next couple years we have already passed whats is needed to play games . in other words we are already in overkill mode. it will probably be 5 years before we see any games that make these 7700's seem outdated and thats with the ddr2 card. im looking forward to in a year or so upgrading to the ultra or what ever is out then becuase then ill be good for another few years.

[supernatural]

Hard to say if we actually will see the ultra for the clevo laptops. Dell has exclusive rights from Nivida for the ultra chips.

[ambitwogunz]

Originally Posted by supernatural

Hard to say if we actually will see the ultra for the clevo laptops. Dell has exclusive rights from Nivida for the ultra chips.

really? thats odd, because voodoo and hypersonic are promoting that card as well.

[ethanweku]

dell has rights but only for some time, nvidia stated on its website that a few months down the road, other vendors will start having that card as well.

[ambitwogunz]

a few months? Thats money in dells pockets. I am sure there will be some people that will wait it out until some other resellers offer the ultra option. I am personally returning my current 9860-dead pixel...and am gonna wait until the amd64 and windows xp64 with a superior card is offered. Screw dell.

i just checked the hypersonic page and they removed the ultra from their configurations, voodoo still has it available though. It states it as THE card to get with their dtr model. I hope somebody will marry this card with a amd processor @ clevo soon.

[ethanweku]

hahaha yea i'm sure that'll be pretty cool combination. for me i've cancelled my order and am waiting until the ultra version of the card comes out before repurchasing my alienware. hmm... actually maybe even until at least the 64 bit processor comes out.