The winner (so far) The choice is down to these two http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showproduct.asp?productid=371598&menu1id=13&menu2id=104&menu3id=38 $2100 http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showproduct.asp?menu1id=13&menu2id=104&menu3id=38&productid=371738 $2400 The tech guy tells me the second is twice the computer for $300 difference. Comments welcome and thanks
256mb vs 516mb: If you are trading, it won't make a tiny bit of difference. you won't be using 3D and shading, etc., therefore very little Video memory is used. 99.9% of the trading software require very little graphic power (approx 8mb per 1280x1024 screen). ie. even if you have attached a TripleHead2Go, you will use about 56MB of memory. Even if you are gamming at the highest level, the benefit is minimal. There is a test done by one of the gaming website, (I can't locate the URL at the moment, but you can google for it), it found no difference in most of the test benchmarks. They believe the 512MB is a marketing gimmic to sell more expensive boards. Alienware is own by Dell. Their computer is aimed at the extreme gamers. Their focus is on graphics -- Definitely an over kill for trading software.
if you can afford to wait a few more weeks, you will be able to buy the newer generation of CPU (45nm technology) at the same price. The new CPUs are faster, and uses less power. i.e. notebook battery lasts longer, fans are quieter, computer runs cooler. p.s. Dell has just started shipping the 45nm notebook last week.
Gateway is shipping this machine now with the new chips. http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529667906.php
Joab, That is the exact notebook I reccommend to you (except I got mine from Eurocom in Ottawa...) LOL The advantage of getting it from Eurocom is that they are already shipping them with 45nm chips. The 2nd notebook is identical to the one I have with 2 exceptions... I have the 2.5GHz 45nm (6GB l2 cache) chip and I have a 200gb 7200rpm drive. Besides you can configure it exactly how you want... Choice of processor, amount of RAM, OS etc... Just so I don't sound like a biased idiot, if you buy the hypersonic notebook from extreme-pc you've got an extra middleman... You could probably get an identical laptop from eurocom cheaper... (and if it's not cheaper, you could probably talk them down) Pictures: http://www.eurocom.com/gallery/189/index.html Specs: http://eurocom.com/products/showroom/specselectnew.cfm?model_id=189 Configure your own: http://web.eurocom.com/EC/ec_model_config1(1,189,0) - mnx
That Power Notebooks site looks awesome. I am looking at the Sager NP6790 with the Intel T9300 processor. It has 45nm technology. An excellent price, too. They beat the price of a Dell even with my university discount.
Thanks for all your help guys, it's been 3 years since I bought a new rig and I've lost touch with the technology. One last question: Is the 45nm 64 bit or not, I'm confused. Esignal, my data provider says they don't support 64 bit