Laptop is from PCSpecialist.com
They are making laptops for high-end gamers and I am wondering if there are any issues I should be aware of with the specs below. Has anyone else bought a laptop from them for X3?
Do I need to upgrade the processor?
Thanks in advance. 

Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-4810MQ (2.80GHz) 6MB
32GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3(4 x 8GB)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 880M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
750GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD7500BPKX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-7260 (300Mbps, 802.11BGN) + BLUETOOTH
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Depending on which system you are looking at they are using a Clevo laptop setup, which is pretty well known for custom high end laptops. Sager and Eurocom are two big names in Clevo laptop makers. I have one, from Sager, and it is quite nice. You can get them without any branding on them, just a nice black case.
 
Your specs are more than fine to make Sonar and Vegas happy. Sonar in particular isn't that demanding. Should be just fine for Vegas too, unless you are really hitting it hard. Remember Vegas knows how to use nVidia cards to accelerate H.264 decoding and FX compositing.
 
Only thing I'd probably do is switch out the WD drive for a Seagate SSHD if you can. Those are Seagate's hybrid drives with 8GB of flash and then a magnetic platter. They give really good performance, particularly for random writes.
 
If you don't play games, and are looking to save money, you could step the GPU down a couple notches. Such a high end GPU is useful for playing games, since they love all the GPU power they can get, but probably not needed for Vegas unless you do really FX heavy projects.

Thank you for the input, I really appreciate it.
I went for the best graphic card within my budget. I have played a lot of games in the past but don't have time now. I don't discount it in the future though!
Instead of switching it out, would actually adding another SSD make a real world performance difference? The idea behind the large WD drive was to have all my samples and loops on it. What did you mean by "random writes"?
My problem is that I don't have the knowledge of what is actually happening "under the bonnet" at the basic level when I am accessing samples, recordings, video etc on a drive. I just want to know that this set-up won't give me any issues. 
From what you wrote it looks like I am on the right path.
Once again, thanks a lot.

Well all SSD all the time is certainly the fastest. I like having all my samples on SSDs. However it does get expensive. If you can afford to buy enough SSD space to hold everything you need, then sure. If not, then of course magnetic media is the way to go since it is so much cheaper.
 
What I mean by random writes is when it needs to write out a bit of data in a few locations. Magnetic drives are pretty good at sequential access, but are quite slow at random access. So what SSHDs do is have some flash to act as a buffer, which helps them be a lot better with random access. They are nowhere near SSD level, but much better than traditional magnetic drives. They are particularly nice for writes, since the writes can be cached to the flash, but also for commonly read data, since it'll cache that there too.
 
If you have the money to put all your samples on SSD, it'll just mean that your system should never suffer from dropouts due to high polyphony. You won't need to bounce tracks since your system will be able to handle streaming tons of instruments. Of course with 32GB of RAM, loading the whole instrument in to RAM is always an option for many instruments. Not necessary, but nice.
 
Just make sure you can afford to have the space you need. I mean say you need 500GB of sample space. For a Seagate SSHD, that's only like $65. Getting an 840 EVO instead would be about $240 for the same space.
 
But if you can afford it, it is real nice. I have a 512GB 840 Pro for my main samples and a 240GB Seagate 600 for my drum samples and it makes for fast loading and tons of polyphony :).

One thing you will need to be careful of os dpc latency with nvidia cards on laptops. They are great for video but rememberbto disable the nvidia audio drivers or you will go nuts figuring out why your audio crackles and stops.

Thanks for all the info.
I think I will go for 2 SSDs. As you say, much more expensive but I want the best performance possible.
Good tip about the NVidia audio drivers but how do I disable them?

percepto
Thanks for all the info.
I think I will go for 2 SSDs. As you say, much more expensive but I want the best performance possible.
Good tip about the NVidia audio drivers but how do I disable them?

Go to device manager and go to audio devices. You will see a list of devices which likely include the nvidia along with Realtek ( which suck for audio production but have not caused me any latency issues). Just right click on the nvida ones and select "disable". Also see if there is an option to disable nvidia audio in bios.

Thanks again.

Hi there. I actually work for a CLEVO brand, and i even work with PCSpecialist (as a partner) :P
 
Can you tell me whats the model of that laptop? Since there is firewire i would guess it is a P series, P150SMA or P170SMA.
 
First thing i notice is the graphic card, let me just tell that you are getting a switchable graphics system, it switches from Intel integrated VGA to the dedicated VGA. For Audio the current gen NVIDIA cards are just BAD, 600ms DPC... so when doing Audio just disable the NVIDIA card and use the Intel Integrated.
I currently only use M290X on CLEVO laptops for Audio, NO DPC above 100ms. 
 
Even if you disable stuff like NVIDIA powermizer it will still be a lame card (im really mad with them for some time now).
 
As for the firewire let me give you a good news, it's a really good controller, its texas instruments!
I can also supply you my modded BIOS / EC, it will allow you to tweak the BIOS and disable stuff like turbo boost, C states, internal audio, internal lan, etc... its useful if you want to tweak it to the max, or in this case to the min DPC.
 
By doing minor windows tweaks and disabling devices you dont need, that laptop can get you REALLY low DPC.
I would also use ThrottleSTOP app, with it so you can lock the CPU at a fixed speed! ;)
 
About performance... its a monster!
 
Anything you need let me know.