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**schmosef** · 13 January 2007, 06:09

Another tradeoff with SFF cases is upgradability. You don't get a lot of room for drives and typically only one PCIe slot and one PCI. PSUs on SFF cases are underpowered too so you have to use video cards that are certified for that case.

Almost everyone is making SFF cases these days. Off the top of my head Asus, Thermaltake, Silverstone, and Shuttle all make nice ones.

I'm not sure what exists in the AM2 space but Asus has a really nice fanless intel 975X chipset based mobo that I've sold quite a few of: P5W DH Deluxe. I've been selling a lot of Thermaltake cases too and they are very low noise. Combined with a PSU that has case fan leads (generally the higher end models) the PCs I've built with thermaltake cases are very quiet. Oh, and before I forget, Asus has 0db (fanless) video cards based off nVidia 7600GS and 7600GT GPUs. I've sold several and even have two 7600GT cards in my PC at work. I wouldn't have believed just how big a difference in noise level not having fans on my video cards could be until I ran two systems side by side to compare.

**RhinoZ** · 13 January 2007, 07:40

Hey schmosef,
How are those ASUS cards, in terms of build quality? And picture quality? Are they really good video cards, because the prices seem nice.

I'm looking to upgrade my computer for the same reasons as you Paddy. So I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.
Also I'm looking into Intel cpu's too, I've been out of the loop for a while to know what's good out there, so I'm almost starting from the begining.

**Paddy** · 13 January 2007, 08:35

Whilst shopping with the wife tody, I came across a 14.1" HP notebook that was very nice. I'll try and find the model...

**Paddy** · 13 January 2007, 08:58

right, having looked on ebay, I could sell my current setup in bits and comfortably get Â£350-400. I've had a long chat with the wife and I think we are going to replace the desktop with a laptop.

Curry's (argh!) had a HP DV2166 (Turion 64 X2 TL-52 - 1.6GHz, 1024 MB, 120GB HD, 128MB GeForce Go 6150) for Â£700. It's a nice little laptop, but I couldn't comment on the quality or value. Any thoughts?

*edit*

It seems that I need to do some more research on the subject. I am looking for a roadmap of nvidia/ati's mobility technology with a comparison to their desktop counterparts. In other words, I'd like to be able to see how the mobile GPU offerings compare to my ati 9700 pro. I guess I need to do the same with intel/amd to compare to my XP 3200+

**Paddy** · 13 January 2007, 13:28

Right

I'm new to laptops, but I think that the most important factor to consider is build quality. I am somewhat reluctant to buy a random brand without being able to give it a good squeeze. I've heard bad reports about the HP Pavilion range, but the model I saw today looked sturdy enough.

The next consideration is price. I really dont want to spend any more than I have to. Having looked around, they 'all' have wifi, card reader etc... so the main differences seem to be screen, cpu and graphics. I will be using this on the go, but does the extra couple of inches between 14" and 17" really make that much difference? As I will carry it in it's own bag, I don't think so. I guess larger laptops = large screen / batteries...

The prices seem to be hiked up for either the sub 14" range or 'mobile gaming/desktop replacement". If I reside myself to the fact that I wont be able to play the latest and greatest of games without forking out ? Â£1000 for a laptop, then what is the minimum standard to accept? I cant see a 14.1" laptop that has better than the GeForce Go 7400 (most being 6150 or 7200) It would nice to know what each of the three are capable of so I can justify their cost. 15.4" gives me more choice, but if I can't play current games anyway, is it worth it??? This gives an approximate guide.

The other consideration is CPU. The AMD vs Intel debate seems to be 'AMD is more power hungry and perhaps a tad slower'. If that's the case then it's Intel all the way. But again, there are 2250, 5500, 5600 Intel Core 2 Duos. How would they compare to an AMD 64 X2 TL-52 (or indeed my XP3200)???

I can't seem to find the answers to these questions.

I am quite attached to this or it's AMD counterpart, here. Both of which are the same price. An extra Â£200 gets me this with a faster CPU, more ram but less HD space.

Has anyone used this range?

**schmosef** · 13 January 2007, 14:18

@RhinoZ,

I have two PCIe Asus 0db nVidia 7600GT cards (driving three 22" CRT monitors) in my PC at work and at home I've got one PCIe Asus (with fan) ATI X1950XTX and one PCIe Asus (also with fan) ATI X1300X (together driving three LCD monitors). Both PCs use an Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard and both have an Intel Core2 Duo E6700 and 2GB of RAM.

Both systems are very stable. I've had no major driver problems. I think that the nVidia cards are slightly (very slightly) better at handling multi monitor. When I first boot (and especially when I reboot) my home PC there are often a lot of weird text mode rendering problems but they go away as soon as Windows (XP and Vista) boots. That said I did initially have some problems setting the nVidia drivers on my work PC to multi/independant resolutions. The option was missing from the nVidia control panel. I had to reboot several times before it appeared.

These computers are fairly new. My previous work PC had a 4x AGP Matrox Parhelia card and a PCI Matrox P650 card. The previous setup had much better IQ in Windows. I was able to run one of the CRTs at 2048x1536 and it looked crisp and beautiful. With the nVidia cards the best I can do is 1600x1200 if I want to be able to read anything. The Matrox cards had no HD video acceleration and the two monitors I had on the PCI bus had video rendering issues on even low resolution sources.

I haven't tested my new PCIe ATI cards with my CRT screens at work so I can't say 100% if they would be any better or worse at rendering high resolution but I did fairly recently try an ATI AGP X1600Pro card in my previous work computer and the image quality at high resolution was terrible.

@Paddy,

I'm HP reseller. They don't let us sell the Pavillion line. Whenever we go for dealer training they tell us the the bulid quality on the Pavillion series is crap and that they wouldn't hold up in heavy use environments. Basically the Pavillion line exists to compete on the low end of the price scale and even HP is afaid of what would happen if business class users started to buy them.

It's hard to generalise about a brand in the notebook space because build quality and engineering can vary so much from model to model (even with high end units).

Whatever notebook you get you should research the specific model, not just the brand, to see what others are saying about it.

There are some good low end Acer models out there (but there are also some duds) that might fit your budget.

Dell seems to have good overall quality in their low end notbooks too. Just be sure to research any model that catches your eye. Getting customer service from Dell can be a very frustrating experience too. Be mindful of that.

It's been a while since I've looked into it but I think that nVidia has better (for games) mobile GPUs than ATI.

There are even some notebooks (I think high end ones) that come with upgradable mini PCIe cards.

I had an employee who bought a high end Dell notebook (after much research) and it had both an upgradeable CPU and a GPU (via a mini PCIe card).

**Paddy** · 14 January 2007, 01:34

Cheers mate. If the Pavilion range are not durable then that certainly writes them off.
I have heard people comment that HP are not built to last, but the reviews of the specific model don't mention it. It certainly passed the squeaky plastic test.

I'll try and have another look. How can i assess it's build quality?

The dilema I have is this:

As portability is not a huge concern, a larger laptop = more screen state, larger battery and room for better parts. However, if <Â£900 wont get me a laptop that is similar in spec to my 9700Pro/XP3200 then is there any point, and should I just go for an intergrated solution?

I think I need to make a list of models and see what bang I get for my buck...

**schmosef** · 14 January 2007, 01:45

When I'm researching a notebook model I check the comments for it on Amazon.com and epinions.com. Then I generally google it and look for other e-commerce sites where people have left comments. A while ago I was researching some problems with a high end Acer notebook and I found a forum that had a pretty good breakdown by notebook manufacturer. I think it was http://www.notebookreview.com/ but I just looked at that site and the cosmetics look different than I remember so that might not be it.

If you don't need the portability I wouldn't get notebook. There's a huge price premium and performance hit. Prices for PC components are always coming down, which makes it easy to do minor upgrades over time on a desktop PC but you're pretty much limited in what you can upgrade on a notebook.

**schmosef** · 14 January 2007, 01:50

another thing to consider...

**Paddy** · 14 January 2007, 01:52

Thanks mate.

I don't need portability per se, but I am being relegated to the dining room which means that everything must fit away into a drawer

. Oh to be a single man!

I would like a new desktop, but I wont have anywhere to put the monitor.

*edit*
Thanks for the link. I'll avoid that range. Although I am sure that they all overheat to a degree...

**ND66** · 14 January 2007, 08:04

Here is a nice site to compare the CPU next to each other, plus all the other things.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

Their main web site:

Tom's Hardware: For The Hardcore PC Enthusiast

http://www.tomshardware.com/

Tom's Hardware helps you buy the best hardware and build the best PC to play, create and work..

Have fun.

.

**RhinoZ** · 14 January 2007, 09:47

Jeez, my processor dosen't even make the list. And I didn't think there are that many cpus on the market.
Thanks for the info Schmosef.

**Paddy** · 17 January 2007, 01:38

Cheers for the help guys.

After much research I went in to my local store and had a play.
There were marked differences in the build quality between the laptops. After hearing your concerns about the Pavilion build quality I wanted to get a feel for myself.

Most of the reviews that I had read stated that the build quality has improved since the HP-Compaq merger, although they are still designed for the casual user and not as durable as the thinkpad range.

I gave the laptops all a good squeeze and found that there was a range of creaking to squeeking, then flexing then nothing. These findings seemed to be proportional with the price. I was quite alarmed to find that most of the laptop screens would distort if you applied pressure to the top of the lid! I assume that translates to lack of protection from the top. In any case, the HP Pavilion 6174ea (which is the model I finally went for) seemed to slightly flex when squeezed and the screen would not distort no matter how much pressure I applied from the top. The hinges also seem of good quality contruction.
All in all, I was impressed with the build quality, although I don't know how long that fancy finish will last.

I managed to negotiate Â£100 off the asking price too

I'll let you know how it performs.

**Paddy** · 17 January 2007, 13:21

Well it plays HL2!

The screen is very glossy, loks fab but you get reflections from light sources behind you. I'll post some pics if anyone is interested?

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