buy quality notebook parts in canada?

okay i will bite..

im canadian. i have owned several laptops including an alienware machine. thus far out of my machines the alienware was the one which i was the most happy with, not only build quality and performance wise but also for the way they treated me through the process.

now on to your real question. you cannot just buy GPU's for laptops that easily, most machines on the market today use a GPU that is specific to the motherboard of the laptop and those are specific to the model and the manufacturer/OEM. its not like a desktop where you can assemble for widely sourced parts. basically you are stuck paying what the company selling wants. there are some exceptions with MXM but i cant confirm that the alienware is and even then a single mxm GPU can run upwards of 300 euros for a higher end card, which means the $1000 price, though steep is not that out of line.

now for stuff like ram there are a couple of places i have dealt with that are exceptional,newegg.ca and memory express. if you are in western canada there is a chance they may even have a retail location near you. prices are not bad (and for ram way cheaper than getting it from AW).

also be sure when you are upgrading your parts that you are not going to void your warranty, some companies are incredibly strict about it and if you void it a repair that seems simple can be hugely expensive. laptop parts are not cheap in the slightest and things like fried motherboards or a broken LCD will be into the hundreds to fix so dont void that warranty.

part of the reason for pricing things they way that they are here is the much lower volume and higher import costs/tax/duty. the price you see when you are ready to finalize the purchase and enter your details is the cost including shipping which can be very expensive since that includes most (if not all) your taxes. our dollar is weaker at the moment and on top of that alienware sells relatively few machines in canada so they are not as concerned about the market here. its the same as alot of other luxury brands which is what alienware is. canada can get the product but always at a premium.

if you want cheap best look elsewhere from alienware. they are great machines but not for everybody.

make sure it's SODIMM DDR2 667 Mhz. The SODIMM means it's notebook memory.

. Nah, Alienware just takes advantage of its brand name, just like Apple, Sony etc ...

. Good buy.

cheers ...

you also need to make sure the drive isn't too high (thick). I found out relatively recently that there are some notebook hard drives that are too thick for many systems. Make sure the hard drive is 9.5mm (or less) in height/thickness and you won't have any problems.

the hdd and the ram you picked should work fine. dont think you should have any issues.