Money's not exactly tight but I still like to seek out the better value wherever I can.
I've been researching SSDs like crazy trying to catch up the last few days. Boggles the brain having to learn new things like this.

My understanding is that I can still get better access times on my commonly used programs stored on my HDD with caching enabled.
So the cacheing was mainly for random programs (such as Steam), not the OS which I would boot directly from the SSD.

Set me straight here if I'm confusing things.

EDIT: Good lord the price on the Corsair goes up $30 when I go to order it.
Convinces me I'll wait a bit to see how prices go, as well as allowing me to do some more research.

I was planning on using it as the boot drive AND allocating the max of 60gb allowed for caching.
Also, I'm really debating the Corsair Force GT vs the Crucial M4 right now if anyone has any advice on that.

Decided to join the SSD club finally, and have resolved to get a Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GBGT-BK
($164.99 on Newegg + $35 MIR atm)

I currently have two 1TB Samsung F3s in RAID 0, and would like to take advantage of Smart Response Technology (SSD Caching).
However I recently learned that TRIM can't be used on a RAID drive, and an SSD MUST be in RAID to be used for SRT.

So my question is, how much of a benefit will I really lose or gain from having SRT vs TRIM? (since I can only use one)

Prety much all modern day CPUs come with coolers designed to sufficiently cool the CPU under heavy load at stock clock speeds.

So since you're not overclocking, I'm pretty confident that that cooler will be perfectly fine for you as long as your case is properly ventilated.

I agree with the other to turn it off.

No reason at all to sacrifice cooler temperatures so that you can save the unnoticeable time it would take for the CPU to spped it's clock up.

Let's be honest here though.

2 570's in SLI is already "overkill" for todays games.
By that I mean it already runs everything perfectly.

Only way this can be close to justifiable is if you want to take advatage of eyefinity or run one monitor at an absurd resolution.

Acer are poor quality. But the Asus is also recertified. Maybe you should take a look at Alienware's stuff.scar-hawk

Not to contend with you, but I actually have that third Acer I linked, and it is certainly not low quality.
Acer was low quality years ago, but the have really rocked as of late.

I also suggested to him that recertified probably isn't the best way to go since he'll be overseas with it and will want something reliable, but he's still willing to look at them.

An alienware would be great, but the higher prices of them put it out of the question. And the m11x isn't really what he's looking for either.

One of my best friends is being deployed to Iraq within a month and asked for my help in finding him a fair gaming laptop for around $700 that he can take with him.

So since I've called upon the Gamespot Community in the past and received tons of helpful advice and recommendations, here I am again!

Basically he wants to be able to play games like CoD, Battlefield: BC2, StarCraft 2 and Left 4 Dead 2.

Doesn't need to max everything out of course but it needs to run well and be a fairly durable and light machine (no big 17" laptops).

Some we've been looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220796
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215037
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115987

These are the best ones we could come up with, but I know you guys have a keen eye for sweet deals!

So are there any other laptops you can recommend for around that price that'll game nicely and hopefully last through and beyond his deployment?

Thanks in advance,
SubGum

you should consider spending some $$ on some gaming peripherals. I purchased an alienware gaming mouse for $40 on dells days of deals, its really cool and really upped my accuracy with the mouse.

blaznwiipspman1

I actually already have all the external peripherals I need.
I have a Gateway P-7811FX Gaming Laptop that I dock at my desk, so I already have a nice monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, as well as some other good stuff.
I also have an OEM copy of Win7 that I'm not using so I don't need to buy that either.

So once I build this tower up, I can just hook it up to everything I already have here, and then my poor laptop that's been playing the role as a desktop can go back to being mobile as a laptop should.