Personal computing discussed

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lonleyppl
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Sandy bridge or not...

Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:10 pm

I'm looking at laptops now. I'm being rather impatient since I'm currently stuck on an Atom which is good for just about nothing. I'd like to get a Lenovo W5*0. With the rebates and an educational discount I can get a W510 with 2GiB RAM, 1080p screen, and an i7-820QM for ~$1500. After adding in an SSD and 16GiB RAm (I plan on removing the 2GiB stick) I think the total cost would be $1900-$2000. $2000 is the strict upper limit of my budget. And please don't suggest getting less RAM or skimping on the screen or getting something consumery. I plan on running many virtual machines and disabling pagefile, and I trust Thinkpads for their build quality unlike any other brand.
The question is, should I try and go for it or should I wait for Sandy Bridge and go for one of the lower end quads? I can only go for the 820 now because it's on a serious discount due to them trying to clear out inventory. If I go for the 820 I'll probably try to get a reconditioned one and save an additional $100.

Edit:
Quick check puts the laptop @ $1500 and change and the upgrades @ $390 ($230 for 128GiB C300 on Newegg right now and $160 for 16GiB of GSkill or Corsair RAM)
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mikeymike
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:19 am

You haven't said what your use for the computer will be.
 
lonleyppl
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Mon Mar 14, 2011 1:39 pm

Sorry should have stated that from the start. I'll be a Comp Sci and Microelectronics Engineering major so I will be coding, using CAD, gaming (a bit and mainly older titles) and many virtual machines.
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ludi
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Mon Mar 14, 2011 4:28 pm

How soon do you need the computer for educational use and how long will your course of study run? If you're starting in the fall, and especially if you're planning to maybe go Master's Degree or higher, I would suggest waiting until the back-to-school specials roll in and then buying the nicest thing that fits your budget, which will probably be Sandy Bridge. Unless you get some really nice grants or happen to be independently wealthy, this computer will need to pull its weight for a while.
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lonleyppl
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Mon Mar 14, 2011 5:33 pm

ludi wrote:
How soon do you need the computer for educational use and how long will your course of study run? If you're starting in the fall, and especially if you're planning to maybe go Master's Degree or higher, I would suggest waiting until the back-to-school specials roll in and then buying the nicest thing that fits your budget, which will probably be Sandy Bridge. Unless you get some really nice grants or happen to be independently wealthy, this computer will need to pull its weight for a while.

It is for the fall. I'm just that impatient with the Atom and Thinkpads have a pretty significant discount right now.
Lenovo W520
IBM dx340
Nokia Lumia 928
Sony a7 with far too many lenses to list or even count
 
potatochobit
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Mon Mar 14, 2011 6:11 pm

sandy bridge is not on discount right now
it may be a little later after the new AMD chips launch in JUN
also, prices this time of year seem to always be at their highest
but you know, 100$ for an extra 3 months of use is no big deal
lenovo makes good stuff, go ahead and get something now
atoms suck unless you are checking email
you plan to run lots of virtual machines with 2GB of RAM on a laptop, huh? :x
not all laptops support memory upgrades so be sure to check this model specifically
 
Flying Fox
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Fri Mar 18, 2011 11:07 am

Mistake #1: getting an Atom in the first place. :P

potatochobit wrote:
you plan to run lots of virtual machines with 2GB of RAM on a laptop, huh? :x

Getting only 2GiB of RAM to run virtual machines with no pagefile? Are you crazy? :o Panda's are rare already and you want to kill more of them?
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lonleyppl
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Re: Sandy bridge or not...

Fri Mar 18, 2011 11:20 am

Flying Fox wrote:
Mistake #1: getting an Atom in the first place. :P

potatochobit wrote:
you plan to run lots of virtual machines with 2GB of RAM on a laptop, huh? :x

Getting only 2GiB of RAM to run virtual machines with no pagefile? Are you crazy? :o Panda's are rare already and you want to kill more of them?


The entire Atom system was <$200. I'll take it.
And I plan to upgrade to 16GiB of RAM. It's just cheaper to do it aftermarket if I get a 2GiB stick originally than anything else. But I currently have 2GiB of RAM and can run up to 3 openSUSE VMs at once. Just can't spare much memory.
Lenovo W520
IBM dx340
Nokia Lumia 928
Sony a7 with far too many lenses to list or even count

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