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Picking the spec for my New Dell i9300

post #1 of 9
7/5/05 at 3:30pm
Thread Starter 
Hi guys

This is my first post on the site. Going to buy a 9300 but need some help deciding on the spec

I am not a huge gamer but am going for the 256mb graphics card anyway. Will be doing a bit of video editing to make dvds but that is about the biggest task this will be used for

I am thinking of a 2ghz CPU but is it worth the $400 upgrade from 1.6ghz? Should I go halfway with 1.86ghz?

For the HDD, I will probably need 80 or 100gb but the speed is unspecified which makes me think this will be slow. Anyone got any advice, will the speed of the hdd matter? Should I buy a fast one from newegg?

I will upgrade my ram at newegg

The screen is important to me, I definately want truelife (shiny, not matte) . Is the 1920x1200 the one to go for?

I will get the built in bluetooth, does this work ok? Any suggestions for a rechargeable bluetooth mouse without a bluetooth usb hub?

Thanks very much in advance for your help with everything!

Tom : )
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post #2 of 9
7/5/05 at 3:58pm
Hi teejay,

Welcome to the forums!!

Anyway, as for the processor, I would just go with the 1.6 or the 1.86 Ghz processor. Paying an extra $200 (for the 2 GHz)for that type of performance gain isn't worth it in my opinon.

I also think buying a 7200 RPM drive is too expensive unless you are in the business that requires tranferring and accessing huge amounts of data. I went with the 100 Gig (5400 RPM) drive. Once again, it came down to a money issue for me.


As for buying thr RAM from Newegg instead of Dell.. Great choice!!


Also, I think you made a good decision getting the video card upgraded. Who knows, you might want to get your hands on some of these new games that require a good video card.

I really don't know anything about the screen or the bluetooth so I can't help you there. Anyways, good luck to you!
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post #3 of 9
7/5/05 at 4:20pm
That is definately the screen you want. Don't worry about the sparkle issue. It is nonexistant on my LG screen.
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post #4 of 9
7/5/05 at 4:21pm
I have 2 different hard drives I swap out on my 9200, one with 5400rpm and one with 7200rpm. I can tell a bit of a difference speed wise. But as long as it is 5400rpm the speed should be fine for most people.

I would not go with the 2ghz, I believe the 1.6ghz or 1.8 is more than fine. The Truelife is a good upgrade, my brother has it and it really looks nice at higher resolution.

Get your ram from Newegg or CompUSA.

The 9300 is a sweet notebook, you are going to really like it.
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post #5 of 9
7/5/05 at 4:54pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks very much for your advice guys!

So it is between the 1.86ghz and the 1.6ghz. Anyone out there with any advice? Is the difference noticeable and worth $200?

I will get the uxga and hope for the best, I bet I will love it!

As for the hard drive issue, does anyone know if the stock dell harddrive (the default 100gb hdd) is 5400 or 4200rpm? If it is only 4200rpm, then what would my best option be?

I will only be doing data transfer with the firewire card and my minidv camcorder and that will be infrequently so I guess the 7200rpm is not required.
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post #6 of 9
7/5/05 at 4:57pm

Cpu

You could consider pin modding a processor to get to 2.13 GHz.

a) Get 1.6 GHz processor with Laptop
b) Sell/trade/whatever the processor
c) get a pin mod-friendly Pentium M from ebay, fairly cheap
d) pin mod it to 2.13 GHz
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post #7 of 9
7/5/05 at 9:19pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I am really not keen on messing around with the cpu.

Anyone out there with a 1.6ghz or 1.86 ghz, is it worth the money?

Anyone know what the speed of the 100gb hdd that dell offer (is it 4200rpm or 5400rpm?)

thanks!
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post #8 of 9
7/5/05 at 9:44pm
I've found that HiDef WMV content @ 1080P resolution plays smoothly, barely, with the 1.6 GHz processor. If I had it to do over, I would have gotten the next step up for more headroom.
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post #9 of 9
7/5/05 at 10:14pm
Thread Starter 
The 100gb is 4200 I gather. What is the speed of the 80gb hdd that dell supply? anyone out there with the 80gb, what is the default speed that dell supply?

tom
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