New laptop time!

So... as you can see by reading my specs, it's upgrade time.
This laptop has done exceptionally well considering the life it's had. Poor thing has been dropped, crushed and drowned in strongbow by my ex and it still soldiers on.

Anyway, I digress. I have about £1500 to spend and it's going on another laptop.

I'm looking to purchase the 17.3" Vortex III from PC Specialist.
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/vortexIII-17/
(Anybody know anything about them?)
It's based around the Clevo P170EM by the looks of it. I cannot justify Alienware's prices. And neither can they.

I have a few spec options at my disposal and would like some feedback

Option one -

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Mobile Processor i7-3610QM (2.30GHz) 6MB
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - 4.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V+200 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (535MB/R, 460MB/W) (Special Offer)
2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days

Price
£1,481.00

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Option Two -

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-3740QM
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
AMD® Radeon® HD 7970M - 2GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V+200 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (535MB/R, 460MB/W) (Special Offer)
2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD SCORPIO BLACK WD5000BPKT, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
SONY BC-5550H 4x BLURAY COMBO DRIVE & CYBERLINK SOFTWARE
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Intel 5.1 Channel High Definition Audio + SPDIF/MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® ADVANCED-N 6235 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
USB Options
3 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT AS STANDARD
Firewire
1 X 1394a FIREWIRE PORT
Battery
Vortex Series 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (5,200 mAh/76.96WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 220W AC Adaptor
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED BACKLIT UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 2.0 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days

Price
£1,408.00

I've been reading around and the 680m and the 7970m seem very similar in performance but the price difference is insane. If I drop the 680m for a 7970m it means I can upgrade the processor and still stay within my budget so I guess it comes down to, is Physx in modern gaming something I should get excited about? My gut tells me to go for the Nvidia card.

Other question is - how important are SSDs? Normally I'd just buy two drives and RAID 0 them. Redundancy isn't a problem for me I backup regularly onto external storage devices.
I'm interested in keeping this laptop a good number of years like the last one so anyone thinks it's worth jumping for the slightly pricier options or if you think you can build a better laptop in the price range then I'd appreciate your input!

Thanks.

Lots of good ideas here! Apologies for the slow reply, it's a long day at work.

That Sager is very good for the money actually, however I'm after something with a bit more grunt in it and a larger screen. Thank you though.

I think I'll go for the nvidia card and drop the processor then. I was favouring the nvidia option myself, I'm a bit of a fanboy... But I also just wanted to make sure I wasn't being a tard.
Now it's just the drive combo. My original plan was just to have an ssd and a standard mechanical drive, however the idea of using that mSATA option previously hadn't crossed my mind. If I could whack windows and a few programs like office and photoshop on a mini ssd and use a raid array for all the other programs and games, that might work out rather nicely. It takes me slightly over my budget but it's something I'll read into now.

Thank you for your input.

I have a question for you guys...

For my £1.5k I can build a laptop with a single 680m under the bonnet. Benchmarks are very respectable and I'm something of an Nvidia fanboy anyway. It's also relatively portable (I'm quite strong)
However for the same money and the same config etc, I can build a laptop with two 7970ms...

This has thrown a spanner in my works. Reading into benchmarks now and the scores are daft. However I've heard truly awful things about that Enduro thing and I've not used an ATi (I miss ATi ) card since the days of the Radeon 9000.

Thoughts?

Call me chicken ****, I've overclocked all my previous PCs but overclocking in a laptop scares the living daylights out of me.