Xtreme Notebook Raptor 766X with dual graphics cards

Here's one for the "traveling-executive-by-day/extreme-gamer-by-night" crowd. The Raptor 766X actually has two graphics engines: an Intel integrated graphics processor for number crunching and an nVIDIA 6600 G-Force Go for fragging. Why not just go with the more powerful graphics card and burn through those spreadsheets? Xtreme figures there are times when you'd like to preserve your batteries, and running a less robust graphics engine is one way to do that. We're not sure how much juice that actually saves, compared to other measures like stepping down your CPU's clock speed, lowering your display's brightness (the display, after all, accounts for as much as a third of a laptop's power consumption) and spinning down your hard drive. But if it helps you justify writing this off as a business expense, more, er, power to you.

[Via LAPTOP Magazine]

[josh @ Jan 13th 2006 2:04PM]

i wrote off my dell xps m170, so anything is possible

[Christobal @ Jan 13th 2006 2:09PM]

Wow... Why not just get a desktop? You'll get more for less, and it'll be easier to upgrade. Beside's... gaming on the go? Leave mobile entertainment to iPods, PSP's and Gameboy's. Dontcha think?

[GeeksAreSexy @ Jan 13th 2006 2:16PM]

"Xtreme figures there are times when you'd like to preserve your batteries, and running a less robust graphics engine is one way to do that."



While this may be a good solution to preserve your battery life, the company is probably pumping the price way over the real cost of adding a simple and stupid onboard intel graphic card.

[Patrick Bennett @ Jan 13th 2006 2:22PM]

Alienware has been doing this for a while. Not much of an innovation...

[Ghozt @ Jan 13th 2006 2:44PM]

I play World of Warcraft at work with my laptop. Try that with a PSP

[bluetrane @ Jan 13th 2006 2:46PM]

number2 - the day they have cs source for the psp or iPOD is the day i will agree with you

[David McCluskey @ Jan 13th 2006 2:49PM]

This is the same notebook as my ALIENWARE i just got, same case same dual graphics cards same everything... im pissed. check it out area51-m5500, they dont talk about the dual cards in the discription but is there, I through the switch a couple times woundering why my system started to preform poorly.



http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5500/area-51m_features.aspx
This is the same notebook as my ALIENWARE i just got, same case same dual graphics cards same everything... im pissed. check it out area51-m5500, they dont talk about the dual cards in the discription but is there, I through the switch a couple times woundering why my system started to preform poorly.



http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5500/area-51m_features.aspx

[Say What @ Jan 13th 2006 3:13PM]

I'm sorry but I can't find any where a dual grpahics card laptop even on the site listed. You can swap out the graphics card but I don't see anything about dual graphic cards.

[David McCluskey @ Jan 13th 2006 3:18PM]

Its not a swapible thing it is a hard switch in the case the switchs between the two cards



http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5500/area-51m_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51-M-5500&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT

[Kintwa @ Jan 13th 2006 3:22PM]

I think Uniwill makes these.. http://www.uniwill.com/

[Larry @ Jan 13th 2006 4:22PM]

Why don't they put a 7200RPM notebook drive in this??

[Endeavour @ Jan 13th 2006 4:28PM]

The new VAIO SZ ultraportable also has a dual graphics card (Intel GMA900 & GeForce7400Go, remember, it's a 13.3", 0.9in thick, 4lbs laptop) and claims 7 hrs of battery life. It has a "stamina" switch to change between cards.

[Persian @ Jan 13th 2006 4:32PM]

This thread title is a bit misleading, I thought this laptop had SLI for a second

[James @ Jan 13th 2006 4:56PM]

how do you figure? as soon as i saw the picture i knew it meant a battery-friendly video card + a gaming video card.

[n17ikh @ Jan 13th 2006 8:46PM]

Why even bother with the dual graphics card thing? My laptop with 6600 Go takes up very little juice and gets gobs of battery life when not gaming or something similarly intensive. Seems like that would save little if nothing in terms of battery power and take up more space and cause added complexity and problems with drivers. Bad idea IMO.

[cw @ Jan 13th 2006 10:34PM]

@11: it does, you blind?

[Chris Hillier @ Jan 13th 2006 11:10PM]

Mr. McCluskey,



I hate to break it to you, but it says right on the Alienware website that it has two video cards. In fact, it is even in bold.



http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_m5500/area-51m_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51-M-5500&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT



"Depending on your performance needs for a particular application or task, you can switch between the GeForce Go 6600 and Intel Media Accelerator Graphics."



Just so you know. I wouldn't be pissed if the product description clearly said it. Also, laptop manufacturers have been sharing different chassis for ages. Nothing new there.

[Aaron @ Jan 14th 2006 10:52PM]

The laptop is actually made by a company called uniwill. Then other companies took it painted or changed back of lcd panel and called it theres. The alienware 5500 is the same system. Actually the first company to sell this laptop was vigorgaming.com. The vigor ares. Im posting on one now.

[Giles @ Jan 15th 2006 12:09PM]

This is a Uniwill notebook. These new graphics modules are going to be less rare in the next year. This notebook is exactly the same as the Nitro notebook sold by Novatech (UK only www.novatech.co.uk ) I've seen 3D mark running on these 6600GO GPU and you cannot believe it's a notebook! Very powerful... upto 2Gb of 533 ram too

[Hayden @ Jan 16th 2006 7:32PM]

Why not just buy a Ferrari and be done with it? Looks, business use, and gaming. Oh, and better resolution, bigger drive, ...