5690 vs. 8790 vs. 4750

Toshiba is coming out with a 7200 rpm 100 gb notebook drive soon.

The 8790 has proven to be uncomfortable hot for many people.

Processors, memory and harddrives are easy to upgrade on all these notebooks. So far, the only way to upgrade the video cards has been with occasional motherboard/video card upgrades that have been offered on some models. This is always pretty expensive and, to me, it seems like you'd be better off selling your old model and just buying the new model for nearly the same difference in price. You can't just go out and upgrade the motherboard and video card like you can with a desktop, it has to be a specially made motherboard and card by the notebook manufacturer. Sager sometimes provides an upgrade option for a previous version to a newer version that is based on the same case. (ie 5680 to 5690)

You didn't mention anything about battery life, none of these have much, but it looks like the 4750 is potentially the most, however the batteries in the 4750 and 8790 are screwed in, which really annoys me.

RAID is technology that uses 2 or more harddrives to either speed up effective harddrive speed or reliability or both. With only 2 harddrives (8790) you can only have one or the other (greater speed or greater reliability). RAID 0 is called striping. It improves data transfer speed by about 100%. This is done by splitting the data across 2 drives so that when you read from or write to the RAID array, it only has to read or write half the data to each drive. RAID 1 is called mirroring. A copy of each write is done on each drive. If one harddrive dies, your data is still intact on the second drive, and you can just shove in a replacement drive, rebuild the array and your working again. With RAID 0, you get the full effect of the combined harddrive space. (ie 2 60 gig drives = 120 gig RAID array drive), but with RAID 1 you get have the space of the combined drive space of the 2 drives. There are other type of RAID using more drives that provide both performance and security enhancements.

Just delete or use a dvd burner to back up data.

If you get a 4750 I would buy it with the amd 64 3000+, sell the chip on ebay, and replace that with the 3200 amd 64 mobility. $250, and you will be saying this is one cold laptop.

I voted for the 8790 simply because it's widescreen. RAID doesn't seem to be an issue here, so no extra points there for the 8790.

I would've picked the 5690 for your particular needs except it isn't widescreen. If you aren't that big on widescreen, you might want to opt for the 5690 as it seems as it should fit your needs pretty well.

4750, while sporting the AMD chip, still doesn't keep up. Dual HDDs. End of story.

jnev 89,

On the 5690, the "extra" hard drive, "extra" optical drive, floppy disk drive, and "extra" battery all occupy the same slot. Only the battery is "hot swapable" and it's swapping ability for this is limited to another battery. All other devices require the machine to be rebooted.

The 4750 and 8790 have the same WSXGA+ screen (a very nice one). On both of these macines the TV Tuner is optional. For the 8790, order the 12 Cell battery and you "loose" the ability to house the TV Tuner and/or subwoofer (unless you also purchase the 8 cell battery).

Video cards are not upgradable on any of the machines. All of the models should last for 3+ years.

With a budget of $2,500 - I would recommend the 4750. The AMD processor (which you prefer) and the widescreen, IMHO makes it the prime choice. Many of the "options" on the 8790 don't appear to be needed at this time and to buy them now (without a need) would be a waste of money. Later, in a few years, when you do need these attributes, then you simply sell the "old" machine and buy the "newest/greatest" machine that will satisfy your needs at that time.

not to much of a difference. the 3200 is the best costing one. but there would be a very large difference if you bought the 3200 mobile athlon 64. Its a 20 watt difference.

no it gets hotter. but eventually the mobility version will be available and I would highly recommend that. Less than half the price of the p4 EE 3.4 and the same if better performance in gaming.

you betcha. did you see when i installed the as5? i showed what the processor looked like. it was in a socket and there was a metal release latch to the left. that means its user upgradeable.

the link is in my signature. i think its page 11 of my review. as5 stands for arctic silver 5. its a thermal grease you put on your processor.

its made out of silver. so its a very good conductor of heat. i bet gold would be even better but its pretty expensive.