Military deployment- need advice for gaming laptop

[Nebulous112]

Lol, I'm glad to hear he likes the colour!

 

The 128GB SSD will be the main "C:" drive that Windows will be installed on. The 1TB HDD drive will be a separate drive, probably labeled "Data", and it will likely be the "D" drive.

 

Everything will usually want to install on the "C:" drive automatically, unless you tell it otherwise. However, with only 128GB of space (not including the size of Windows itself), the quick SSD may run out of space quicker than you think.

 

I'd recommend to install most basic programs on the "C:" drive, along with the one or two main games he is playing at a time.

 

He should install everything else he can into the HDD (drive "D:") This includes music, pictures, movies and other games he is playing which he doesn't have room for on the SSD.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Nebulous112

[DoubleYou]

I'd wait till Black Friday. There will be good deals around then.

[Shadriss]

I think he might go for the red one. He says he likes that it's obnoxious, lol I guess when you're wearing green 12 hours a day you take what you can get in terms of different. I'm not entirely clear on how the SSD operates...would you download your games to that drive and run them through there to make them faster? Not clear on how that one works.

First, thank him for his service. I'm USN myself, and understand the pains of a deployment, though it sounds more like USMC or Army than Navy from what little I've read. That said...

 

A) Red = Highly Obvious, therefore not to likely to be 'borrowed'. I have shipmates who deliberately buy stuff that's pink (one guy had Hello, Kitty! and Barbie sheets...) to prevent 'borrowing'. So brightly colored and distinctive = good. Not saying that's why he likes the Red... but it's a possibility.

 

B) SSD operates essentially the same as a HDD from the user perspective. It's access times are much faster however, so there is a general improvement in performance related to read/write from the disk, which CAN translate into improved game performance. If you want to know more, there are a number of articles out there, but for simplicity's sake, SSD > HDD in general terms, and operates identical.

 

Finally, though I haven't looked at the red one, I have to plug MSI. I bought one of thier gaming rigs prior to a deployment back in 2011. Aside from a full on HDD failure (very unusual, and replaced almost immidiatey after i returned to port by MSI), I've had no issues with it or it's included systems. The only problems with it now (yes, it still works and pretty well) is stemming purely from how old it's getting. I bought it for $2100 (?) back then, so for it to still be viable for a lot of stuff means I got my bang-for-buck out of it.

 

Good luck.

[aaltair]

Ha, Hello Kitty and Barbie, that's pretty amusing. He's the seniormost NCO in the unit and in charge of everyone's security clearances, so I doubt he's worried about theft but you never know! This is his 3rd deployment in 17 years so not that bad really though it still sucks for both of us of course. It is what it is. I have a friend whose husband has deployed six times in ten years and has barely seen his kid's single digit years, so it can always be worse.

 

Thanks for all the great help and info about SSD's! This was a lot easier than it would have been otherwise :)

[darkside]

SSD is cheap now a day. Get at least 256GB

[DoubleYou]

I just bought a 480 gb SanDisk Ultra II the other day for $95. You might save yourself a pretty penny by buying one without the ssd and installing one yourself.

[DoubleYou]

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?sdtid=8307047&SID=6b40844a93e211e5b419322ab8b4d5e40INT&AID=10440897&PID=1225267&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-cables-_-na-_-na&Item=N82E16834152925&cm_sp=

 

MSI GE Series GE72 Apache-264 Gaming Laptop 4th Generation

- Intel Core i7 4720HQ (2.60 GHz)

- 12 GB Memory

- 1 TB HDD NVIDIA (7200 RPM)

- GeForce GTX 960M 2 GB GDDR5

- 17.3"

- Windows 8.1 64-Bit

 

Initial Price - $829

Visa checkout Offer with code VCOBF15 25$ off 200 purchase

Buy using Mobile App - MBLNOV2515 (5% off) - $41.45 off

MIR - $100

 

Final price is $662.

 

Add a 480 gb SanDisk Ultra II for $110-ish.

[EssArrBee]

17.3 inch i7/GTX960 for under $700? Damn, time to treat myself to an early Christmas gift.

 

EDIT: Not MIR, it's a card worth 100 bucks. Probably a vise or mastercard giftcard.

[aaltair]

DoubleYou, that rig has a 2Gb video card, isn't at least 3gb vram needed? 

[GrantSP]

That is truly a great buy. Even converted to Aussie dollars its still cheap!

[n0mad23]

My eldest daughter has been using an Apache for about a year and a half now.  She's got nothing but good things to say about it.

 

That's an amazing deal for a really decent gaming laptop.  No kidding.

[elwaps]

SSDs are not only way faster and almost a MUST HAVE today (who wants to wait for his OS to boot longer than 15 seconds anyway?!) but in a Notebook they got another advantage. In contrast to HDDs, that hate vibrations and hits, you can almost throw your SSD at the wall while it is running. Plus: no moving parts mean less power consumption, so an SSD always adds a few minutes to the battery time, in case of my old Netbook it was even ~20 minutes.

 

So there's no actual reason to not have an SSD. Get one. Period.

 

 

Two remarks about STEP:

As my benchmarks have shown 2GB of VRAM should be enough for the complete setup.

Also, DynDOLOD will thank you for an SSD. I already need about 40 minutes for this - WITH an SSD. Now imagine having a HDD. :p

[aaltair]

He ended up choosing the GE72 Apache-264 that DoubleYou suggested. Seems like a really good buy for what he's after. Thanks for all the input!

[DoubleYou]

It's too bad the price went up $100 since yesterday. It got real popular on Slickdeals.

[DoubleYou]

Hope you waited until today. It's back down to $799.00 - $100 rebate prepaid card = $699.00.