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General discussion (archive)Help my Brother Build His m11x(22 posts)(22 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 04, 2011
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Gilou: But money is an issue, and what he won't spend on useless ram may be spent on the video card
It's not useless ram it's what a Core i7 is designed to work with. He could go with 3x1GB sticks but given he's likely to want to use Win 7 64-bit 4GB should be considered the minimum so with i7 you really need 3x2GB. If he wanted to save money he could go with an i5 which is designed for dual channel and then you could go with 4GB.
Post edited May 04, 2011 by Delixe
Posted May 04, 2011
It is a laptop: if he needs he can still add some ram in the future when he has money.
Posted May 04, 2011
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Gilou: It is a laptop: if he needs he can still add some ram in the future when he has money.
It's not about laptop or desktop it's about getting the CPU's best performance. For an i7 that's tripple channel ram.
Posted May 04, 2011
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Gilou: It is a laptop: if he needs he can still add some ram in the future when he has money.
Not all laptops permit so many sticks of ram - if I was him I would order the 3 sticks as a precaution to ensure they actually GIVE a laptop WITH three slots....
Posted May 04, 2011
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Gilou: It is a laptop: if he needs he can still add some ram in the future when he has money.
I think you missed the part where he said the parents are paying for it. The upgrade to 6 GB on this model is $60.



On a side note... when I bought my Dell 5 years ago, the upgrade from 512 MB to 2 GB of RAM would have cost something like $700 (Newegg to the rescue!). With the family discount being used in this thread, that amount would buy this entire PC!
Posted May 04, 2011
It might tempting to save a few bucks with a i5 4GB config but for longevity of the machine he would be best with a i7 6GB triple channel config - the minimum triple channel config for a 64 bit environment. Keep in mind that portable gaming on that machine would require digital downloads or disk-less based games since it has no internal optical drive and requires an external one.

I still would suggest a dedicated gaming desktop with a good cheap refurbished laptop that will game some. It's the best of both worlds and he has the redundancy of 2 machines while away at school in addition to being cheaper over all.
Posted May 04, 2011
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HampsterStyle: It might tempting to save a few bucks with a i5 4GB config but for longevity of the machine he would be best with a i7 6GB triple channel config - the minimum triple channel config for a 64 bit environment. Keep in mind that portable gaming on that machine would require digital downloads or disk-less based games since it has no internal optical drive and requires an external one.

I still would suggest a dedicated gaming desktop with a good cheap refurbished laptop that will game some. It's the best of both worlds and he has the redundancy of 2 machines while away at school in addition to being cheaper over all.
While a desktop would be nice, he's not going to college yet. He's going to Americorps, and he needs something mobile.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Help my Brother Build His m11x(22 posts)(22 posts)
(22 posts)