First off, NEVER bother with Dell - what a completely useless company.  I put in an order for a machine on 4/10...yesterday I spoke with four different agents who gave me four completely different answers about the status, until finally someone admitted that they ran into a parts issue and were now projecting shipment in LATE JUNE.

I’ve looked at Macs, but with the new videocard emphasis they’re out.  I have a powerful desktop, but need something for casually (but nice) fiddling about, somewhere in the price range that will get me a system AND service plan (around 3 years - I don’t want unexpected expenses, and am willing to pay to avoid them...around $2k total.

So my only requirements are:

1) Not a Mac

2) NOT a Dell!!!

3) Powerful and compatible with Nitrous

4) Around $2k or less (WITH some kind of extended warranty)

Any thoughts?

JT

Jim Todd
Coloma, MI
(home of Deer Forest!!!)

Fastest notebook available at newegg within your wallet: i7 2630QM with 460M 1.5gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152239

Fastest notebook at amazon within your wallet: Intel Core i7-2820QM with Quadro1000 2gb
http://www.amazon.com/Thinkpad-W...F8&qid=1304996268&sr=1-39

Alternate within your wallet:
http://www.amazon.com/Thinkpad-W...F8&qid=1304996268&sr=1-36 i7 Core i7-2720QM with Quadro1000 2gb
http://www.amazon.com/G73SW-A1-R...TF8&qid=1304996224&sr=1-3 i7 2630QM with 460M 1.5GB

Just more info Quadro 1000M is weak about the same as 540M.

There some out of your wallet there > 2k..

Benchmark of those 4 choices can be found here
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/...2C;2441,2737,pa

See chart here
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Geforce485M>Geforce480M>Quadro5000>470M>460M>555M>445M>FX3800M>280M>285M>2800M>360M>550M>160M>9800M GTS>3700M>9800 GTS>9800 GS>260M>8800M>435M>540M>2700M>8800M GTX>8800M GTS>250M>330M

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
Intel Core i7-2920XM @ 2.50GHz>Intel Core i7-2820QM @ 2.30GHz>Intel Core i7-2720QM @ 2.20GHz>ntel Core i7-2635QM @ 2.00GHz>Intel Core i7-2630QM @ 2.00GHz>Intel Core i7 940XM @ 2.13GHz

Says the fastest gpu notebook today: (GTX 485M with the power 384 Cuda core same as 295 GTX Desktop!)
and the fastest cpu notebook today: Intel Core i7-2920XM @ 2.50GHz (with the power same as 2600S Desktop)

if you have thick wallet, go to http://www.maingear.com they have those fastest component customized

For further reading, you can go desktop processor on a notebook...whoaaa those get faster
http://www.laptopspec.net/tag/intel-core-i7-980x/