I've been waiting to buy one of these until the time was right, and now it is. I'm replacing my gateway P-7805u which has been a great laptop aside from the random (frequent) b(lack)sod issues I've had. While I'm excited I want to make sure I do it right.
First the JW vs JH. From what I've seen they are very similar in benchmarks, each one topping the other in certain tests but the JW has had less out of the box issues (yes I'm aware of the vbios update for the JH), so is there a clear cut winner? Or is it more or less personal ATI vs NVIDIA preference? The only major difference I'm aware of is the 3D support of the JW, am I missing anything?
Second, Upgrades. I haven't decided if I'll be ordering from xoticpc already upgraded or do it myself (pricing on black friday will likely determine this) but I plan on doing the following:
Primary SSD Boot drive. I'm leaning toward the 180 GB ocz vertex 2 but am open to suggestion.
Secondary HDD: 500 GB Hybrid 7200 RPM
Optical: Considering upgrading to the BD Burner but will likely hold off on that for my next desktop.
RAM: I'll likely hold off for this but I'm considering upgrading to 16GB, xoticPC currently offers it for ~ $350, I feel I can do it for much less early in 2011.
Wireless LAN: Upgrade to the Intel Ultimate N6300. I've read that the stock wireless adapter has issues regardless of better performance in the 3 antenna N6300?
Finally, Xoticpc is now offering both the -A1 and the -3DE, to me self contained 3D is a great option, but will I use it enough to spend the extra $250?
Any suggestions to which upgrades are reccomended/overkill, which to do now, which to do later, which model to buy, or if I'm missing anything would be greatly appreciated! Ultimately I'd like to stay right at $2k but that's slightly flexible. I'll be the proud owner of one of these machines sometime between today and black friday.
Thanks,
DC
Edit: xoticpc also offers their own overclock service for $45, price isn't terrible but is this worth it? Seems like a bit of toying on my end (if even nescessary) would be much better.
Edit 2: I personally have never oc'd a machine however have a ton of experience in hardware swapping/upgrading so while ordering from xoticpc is convenient for upgrades, I am more than capable of handling them myself if anyone has any suggestions in that regard.
Again, thanks ahead of time for any support/suggestions.
