[nist7]

I had bought a Clevo laptop from a friend with specs of T9400/4GB DDR3/1GB 9800M GTX/17" @ 1920x1200, but I am simply not satisfied with its performance (the GTX285M doesn't seem that much better and while the SLI laptops cost an ARM and a LEG and a KIDNEY so those are out of the question.)

The goal is to build a relatively mobile desktop (using mATX mobo of course) with a single video card that willl blow away any current SLI laptop (Clevo X8100 with 2 GTX285M in SLI, starts at $2400) for much much cheaper and not much less mobility as the friend that sold me the Clevo with the 9800M GTX now has a Clevo M9880NU with 2 280M in SLI and it is not that portable

The goal is high gaming performance while keeping mobility AND low cost. So at this point I'm thinking an AMD/ATI build.

Case: Thermaltake LANBOX or Da Box (still hasn't decided, the thermaltake is certainly cheaper and would work, but Da Box is very well designed and built with a little fan on top of the GPU slot)

The other issue with case is that I'm still not sure if it can fit into a large backpack of some sort, since I don't want a case with handle built in because I know I will have to carry the monitor in one hand and I want my other hand free. I know this is not the case forum but if anyone has any ideas it would be greatly appreciated.

Mobo: mATX of course, looks like most are of the AMD 785G chipset. Not too up on mATX and the 785G, good bad? Also

CPU: leaning towards a AMD Phenom II X4 955 C3, a high-end AMD quadcore that would not be a bottleneck yet still reasonably priced (~$160)

GPU: ATI HD5850, which should be faster than 2 GTX285M in SLI

PSU: PC Power & Cooling S75QB (currently powers my powerhouse desktop with no issue: i7 920/6GB DDR3/GTX 260 in SLI/Asus P6T mobo, will likely upgrade to the Corsair HX1000W for my desktop, which will be getting a GPU upgrade soon as well)

Monitor: 22" Hanns-G @ 1680x1050 (currently my main home desktop monitor as well, will upgrade to a 26"/28" 1920x1200 at home and the 22" will become the mobile monitor)

Monitor carrying:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/28...tl=g31c187s415

LANBOX carrying:
??? Will have to find some kind of very large backpack to fit the actual lanbox case as well as finding some way to fit the keyboard and mouse as well.

What do you guys think? Any other ideas or thoughts? Or should I just go for a high-end gaming laptop for ~$1500 (Asus G73JH) and be done with it? (although if I do build a portable gaming desktop I will also be getting a work-only laptop, something like a Thinkpad T61)

 

[Hy3RiD]

If you have the money, do it!

 

[Baldy]

I found a micro ATX motherboard with an AMD 890GX chipset for you: BIOSTAR TA890GXE AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

To be honest, there really isn't anything wrong with a 785G chipset on the motherboard. If you want to cut costs, you should definitely go for the ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO AM3 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard.

As I did not see you list any RAM in your set-up, you could go for this combo. Comes with the latter motherboard, and Patriot G Series 'Sector 5' Edition 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) RAM.

I say go for it. You'll save much more money on this rig, and if you manage to find away to lug this power machine around, it's like a sucker punch to all laptop users.

 

[CapDubOh]

I had the same idea since I travel a lot. Da Box is the case I ended up with but I wish I would have chosen another one. I can't even complete the build because of awful fit and finish. I've pretty much given up on getting replacement parts since its been 3.5 months. The design us fantastic, execution was terrible.