Moti

I know that... even though VW made that engine (German roots). Do you understand what German powerhouses running everything means? I was hinting at the VW group.. a German group owning pretty much every European luxury and sports car brand out there. Oh and you forgot that lamborghini is Italian, Seat is Spanish, etc... Thats not the point buddy..

Actually Jag is now owned by Tata motors. They also own Land Rover.. but both Jag and LR operate separately from Tata. The VW group includes Audi,VW, Seat, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Bentley, Porsche, and a few others.. German powerhouses running everything Steve gratz on the sick ride! You should check out the Pioneer IS-F for inspiration on a setup in your whip!

So you plan on reusing your case, monitor, keyboard, and mouse? I suggest building it by yourself if you are comfortable with it. Most bang for your buck. CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471 Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128443 PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371020 HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185 Ram: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277 Graphics Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858 DVD-RW: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118032 Comes out to $687.93 and the power supply has a 20 dollar MIR. This setup is well rounded and very powerful. The AM3 platform has a great upgrade path.. if you ever need more performance you can drop in one of the six cores in the future. The motherboard is future-proofed with sata 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0. Alot of the components have really good manufacture warranties... for example the PSU is covered for 5 years and the G.Skill ram has a lifetime warranty. If you need to get a case I would recommend the Antec 300 and if you need a better cooler I would go with the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus.

You made a thread a little while back about laptops.. not to be an ass or anything. http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/topic/77982-loking-for-new-laptops/page__st__20 There also a few other threads where people are also looking for laptops.. so it doesn't hurt to check those out. http://www.stevemeadedesigns.com/board/topic/78819-which-of-these-computer-is-better/ CSS or WoW aren't demanding games (unless you plan on running wow on full settings)... a GT330m will be fine.

If you are running really old computers I would just recommend staying on XP. What are your specs? In general you want at least 1-2gb ram. Also it depends what type of raid you are using. I mean if it's software or hardware. One of the things is you need to make sure all your hardware is compatible before your upgrade to another OS. I mean it's your fault for not checking before hand.

Steve uses a regular hard drive in his mac mini. It works perfectly fine from what I see... so no need to spend money on a military grade ssd. The best thing do is make sure you get a good HD enclosure and mount it securely.

I am sure you can if you wanted to make a beastly mini itx rig. P55 or H55/57 mini itx board paired up with a core processor.

The 5870m is equivalent to the desktop 5770. The two 4870s are tad bit faster. But it's not too much. You can look at the links below. The 5870m will give you better battery life and it is almost as fast as the two gpu solution. Not to mention less heat output! 4870 x2 mobile benchmark: http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-4870-X2-Crossfire.14406.0.html 5870 mobile benchmark: http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5870.23073.0.html There are a bunch of configs available for that ASUS.. So just search for the one you need. The one I linked is 500 gb HD, 1080p, 8gb ram, 720qm, and a standard 2 year warranty. IIRC the next expansion in wow will support quad cores. The core i7 is worth it, you do not want to pay that much for an old laptop. For like a 100 more you will be able to future proof. Unless you can get him to go way lower on the laptop. Also you might reconsider if you really need a laptop, you can save some money by getting a desktop instead. I am not a fan of desktop replacement laptops, since they aren't really mobile and battery life in general blows.

It's all ways nice to future proof a little bit. So if I were you I would go with the ASUS. It's come with a good standard warranty and it's guaranteed to perform. You never know if he took good care of his M17x, the condition, and the condition on the batteries. As newer games come out more will take advantage of quad cores. It's pretty simple the 720qm just destroys the core 2 duo. I think your gaming experience will be much better on the core i7... due to the memory controller, the cache, and turbo boost. All the new games coming out will be DX11.. something you might want to consider (The 4870's are dx10). Check this config out: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695&cm_re=G73JH-_-34-220-695-_-Product

You are comparing an outdated Alienware to an ASUS. That ASUS is faster hands down. The Core i7 mobile quad core kills that dual core. 4c/8t. Also it has turbo boost. The 5870m is going to give you better battery life than the two 4870s. To answer your question.. two 4870s will be a little bit faster. Notebookcheck says its around a 9 fps difference in COD MW2 on Ultra Settings. With the extra ram, dx 11, and better processors the ASUS is the best choice. That ASUS laptop is one of best bang for your buck gaming laptops. Specs like that from other manufactures would cost about 2x more.

It's a tossup... each of them have their pluses and minuses. If I were building a team I would pick LeBron, but if I needed that one final piece I would go with Kobe. I give LeBron the edge over Kobe. LeBron is way younger and has time to gain that killer instinct. Once he improves his jump shot, he will be even more unstoppable. He may be struggling in the playoffs.. but there is so much he can do single handedly.. He has enough time to improve on his game closing skills. He is also a better teammate and he knows how to share the ball. The media is so messed up... LeBron is getting so much blame for nothing. The Cavs have a shitty roster.. except for Mo Williams. LeBron can't do it by himself. Kobe has Gasol, Bynum, Artest, Odom, and Fisher. So if Kobe is having an off night there are plenty of other options for the Lakers in order to get over the hump.

It's totally up to the OP. But my opinion is that you are getting way better hardware in the ASUS for the price.

The reason the ASUS is worth it, is because it has a 5870 mobile. One of the fastest mobile video cards... it completely shits on the GT 330M. Did I mention it has DX 11. The extra 100 is worth it for the performance increase you will get. It already is configured nicely.. with a 500 gb hdd, 5870, 8 gb DDR3 (more than you will probably need), 1080p screen (something you will have to pay extra on the alienware). It also comes with a 2 year warranty and 1 year warranty for accidental damage. It already comes with a quad core, that has turbo boost. You won't really need to upgrade anything in the laptop anytime soon for more performance. Plus the Alienware doesn't even have a option for a 5870 on the M15x.. It all depends on how much performance you really need. The sony is decent, but it won't have the performance of a decently configured alienware or asus. But if you are a light gamer; you could get away with the sony. The sony is more mobile and it has better battery life.

The Alienware will be more expensive... but it's faster hands down. This ASUS has really good components. What you are getting for 1600 is really hard to beat imo.

Back in the day I wanted an alienware really bad.. but one of my buddies conivinced me to build my own and it all started from there. Trutfully I only wanted one because of the case.. since then my tastes have changed drastically.

Cache acts like memory. Temporarily holds the data, so whatever data you were accessing is stored and doesn't need to be reaccessed. There are less delays since more data is stored and it just improves the overall system performance. The 300 gb velociprator gets average read/writes of 108 on HD Tach using the IC10R chipset. The 1 TB 64 mb drives average around 113 on read/write on HD Tach. So it's faster storage for way less. If you really want a noticeable difference switch over to a budget ssd boot drive. I am not trying to bash what anyone suggested. Just trying to help you out and suggest a setup that will be worthwhile. So by ditching the velociraptor you can get a better psu or a six core. If you run into a wall with the onboard gpu, then you can switch over to hybrid crossfire. A lot of these parts come with really good manufacture warranties, so you will be covered if you are worried about reliability.

That's typical of any manufacture these days. You don't need to point out the obvious. The G.Skill is faster and it hasn't failed on me yet for a few budget builds.

Ditch the velociraptor. You get similar performance for less from the new 64mb cache lineup from WD. Save yourself some money. Great case... I have used it for a few builds for my buddies. Lot's of room considering it's size... great cooling. The onboard gpu will be fine... this chipset allows you to run hybrid crossfire. So down the road you can drop in a 5770 or so if you need more performance. I also recommend going with the 1055T.. if you can wait get the 960T. Updated design process... great overclockers and very efficient. I would also consider ditching the ram for some G.Skill. Better overall imo. Also if your budget allows I would switch over to a corsair unit. Do you already have a disk drive or are you reusing?

Still that doesn't make any sense... no offense. A splitter is intended to take an output and convert it to two outputs. It does make a difference. Each output is for different channels. Simply take the L/R output which is stereo and send it to your HU. On your sound card settings you set the output type, 2 channels, 4 channels, 5 channels, etc. If's he worried about a 5.1 setup and movies, then he'll most definitely need a processor and the addition of the center channel in your car. In a car the center channel is pointless, you can get away with a really good L/R front stage.

Well if you look at the OP, he wants a laptop for FSX which is not a demanding game at all. Any of the laptops I posted in my first post will run it easily.

I love how one of your links is to Hypersonic. They are out of business. If you don't want to spend alienware money... this is the best laptop imo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220704&cm_re=asus_5870-_-34-220-704-_-Product

Shouldn't need much horsepower. What is your budget? Here are a few decent gaming laptops... Dell Studio 15 Sony Vaio F, CW, or E series HP dv6t

I just thought it wasn't a brilliant idea nor was I calling him out... The 3.5mm should be fine... unless you want to dish out a lot of money for a digital processor. I wouldn't do that unless you are running all high end sq type equipment. You can change the output format if you are worried about sound quality. Simply use the PC as a media source. You can skip the HU if you want to by getting something like a audison bit one and using the optical out from the pc to the processor. Take the preouts from the processor to your amps.

Haaa that van is so sick. Look's like you had so much fun babysitting it .

Sorry that suggestion is just stupid. That is a splitter, you can't take three sources and combine it into one. Take the 3.5mm front left and right output from your pc directly to the input of the HU. There is nothing else to it, really simple. The three other outputs are for different channels, intended for a 5.1 setup.