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17" Gaming Laptop

post #1 of 11
Thread Starter 
Hi all,

Firstly i'd like to say what an excellent website! it's greatly aided me with my laptop finding information so far

Basically, im wanting to spend about £900 on a laptop that has as much gaming power as possible. This is the way I was thinking of doing it. Prices have to be in UK £ as i'm english, sorry.

Buy an Inspiron 9400 for £622 including delivery from Dell. Has these specs:
Intel Core2 1.83GHz CPU
1GB PC4200 RAM
160GB hard disk
17" panel @ 1440x900
ATI X1400 Graphics

I was then hoping to upgrade it with an nVidia 7950GTX 512mb graphics chip, which can be bought on ebay for £225 (£250 - 260 including shipping). (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Nvidia-Go-7950...QQcmdZViewItem)
and 2GB of generic PC5400 RAM for around £60

Is the installation of this 3d card possible in this laptop, as this is by far the cheapest way I have of getting the most power, according to the auction it will fit but I am not sure.

This would cost in total £930 - £950 and the equivalent XPS is £1400+

Thanks in advance for any advice!

Ben
post #2 of 11
as far as I know the 7950s will fit in 9400s but you have to cut/trim some of the plastic inside the chassis to accomodate the extra heat pipe.

(I don't have a 9400 to verify this)
post #3 of 11
Yeah you can use that graphics card. You just have to break this piece of plastic that is in the way of the second heatsink. Anyway, your cpu and lcd may limit your enjoyment of the system. Personally I think I could deal with the lcd but I can't go below 2 ghz for my processor
post #4 of 11
Thread Starter 
I think I can probably get a 2GHz CPU but it's £70 more.

1920x1200 sounds too high for a laptop LCD, i dont think event the 7950gtx would run this res in the latest games
post #5 of 11
1920 x 1200 is a very nice screen, i love mine. I have a 7900GS which is waeker than the GTX and I run quite a few games at max resolution and theres no problrms. Although i dont run all games at this res, theres still a handful. Im not sure Id agree w/ "i dont think event the 7950gtx would run this res in the latest games"

I see u want aftermaket hardware. I like to think ahead so ill say this. When the unfortunate day comes and ur laptop bites the dust, dell will only honor what u purchaed w/ the system. It may be worth it to just pay the extra now and so ur covered down the road and u wont have to go out and buy all this new aftermarket hardware. Lets say u buy ur laptop now then do aftermarket upgrades. Then years later when it bites the dust, all that aftermarket hardware u purchaed years ago is now useless becasue dell doesnt honor aftermarket hardware. Just something to take into consideration. I wish i had gone from 1Gb RAM to 2GB when i bought my 1705 but i chose newegg 2Gb ram a few moths later. So when my rig breaks down ill have to re-buy 2Gb cuz dell most likely wont honor my aftermarket newegg ram. (stupid move on my part)

Personally Id downsize the HD ( i have external for movies/music) and up the CPU,GPU and RAM, but thats just me. Also i think if you stick w/ the 1440x990 i think u might regreat it. Honestly my 1920x1200 screen is really sharp, bright, and displays everything beautifully. Id highly reccomend the 1920x1200 screen.



For the GTX u wana install be careful on ebay. Im not one to take apart my laptop to install a new GPU since I have little experience replacing hardware (except RAM). So as long as ur comfortable opeing ur laptop and doing some work under the hood then go ahead.

Some people may not agree w/ my aftermarket/biting the dust/ advice, but I always look for ways to protect my investemnts.

GL dude- hope my 'ranting' helps
post #6 of 11
Thread Starter 
Hey there, thanks for the advice

I was not looking originally to puchase such a large hard disk, a 80gb 7200rpm would be ideally, but they only seem to sell the laptop with 160gb @ 5400rpm or 200gb @ 4200rpm which is a shame.

Surely if I keep the original parts i wont have a problem if it breaks, i can just re-install the original parts? I will only be taking out 1 year warranty on this laptop anyway so im not really concerned about it going wrong after maybe 2 years.

I can either afford the 7900gs and the 1920x1200 panel or the 7950gtx and the 1440x900 panel. Which one do you think is best?
post #7 of 11
id go with the 1900 x 1200 screen, i have this and my games look excellent, my 7900gs scores 9500 in 3dmark05. (Overclocked tho and no heat issues)
post #8 of 11
1920x1200/7900GS ThE GS can pull really good scores when AS5'ed and Oc'ed. As far as screen res, 1920x1200. you can always drop res down in games to 1440x900 if you had to & it would still look great.
post #9 of 11
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the advice, ive had another play about with the dell site and I found this configuration:

Inspiron 9400
Intel Core2 2GHZ 4mb cache
2GB 667MHZ DDR2
17" 1920x1200 Panel
160GB 5400 disk
7900GS Graphics

£898 total

Approximately what would I be able to get in 3dMark06 for example if I overclocked this?
post #10 of 11
anywhere from 4000-5500 depending on how high the overclock
post #11 of 11
Hey Ben, thats a good price right there, i paid £1300 for mine just over a year ago.
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