Legit Reviews

Well I've been shopping around for a laptop for about 4 weeks or so. I'd like to get a barebone the only problem is finding a barebone that meets my requirements without breaking my wallet.

I'm looking for a laptop to do gaming and computer graphics on mostly. I don't care much about battery life since it will be plugged it most of the time. But I would like a notebook with a MXMIII video card slot so that I can upgrade in the future. To meet my budget I'm looking at a Go6800 128/256MB (can't afford the 7800GT). I will also need a 17" display and DDR2 slots.

I have yet to find a Pentium M barebone that has a 6800 or a MXMIII equivalent. There are plenty of Pentium 4 barebones (including clevo, asus) that offer a 6800 at resonable prices.

So would a P4 system be better suited for me or are there Pentium M barebones with a MXMIII video card (7800GT excluded)? My concerns with the P4 is that it might cause heating issues and I know that the Pentium M CPU is faster.

Any thoughts?

The PM is the way to go, even if you dont need the battery life. I do lots of video editing, dvd authoring, and graphics on my laptop.

I did find the Clevo M570A which supports either the 7800GTXgo or the X800XTm

Link

I also found the Sager NP5720 and the soon to be NP9750
Link to 5720
Link to 9750

I forgot about the Clevo M570A to be honest. Rjtech has it for about $1200 barebone only X700 videocard, cdrw+dvd and wi-fi card. A little expensive seeing as how the Z71V has a better videocard and will cost about $300 less with a similar configuration.

I'm trying to find a supplier that carries the M570A. I've gone through about 5 distributors so far and they don't carry it, I've even tried to contact Clevo sales to see if I can either get an account with them or a list of distributors.

Im pretty sure most manufactures for the PM notebooks dont offer high end video cards as the PM chassis is geared towards battery life. I've seen some but not a lot.