Acer Aspire 5742G laptop with NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M graphics reviewed, es ist schnell

When first announced, we had fears that the new NVIDIA GeForce GT 500M-series graphics would be little more than a tweak of a clock speed here and a new sticker there, as the specs of the 540M (96 CUDA cores, 128-bit memory interface) match the 435M series bit-for-bit. But, a Notebook Journal review of the first laptop to bear NVIDIA's latest, the Acer Aspire 5742G, finds that the performance boost is tangible. "Much stronger," even, scoring 8315 points in 3DMark 06 -- a good bit higher than the 435M scores we've seen. The laptop otherwise is said to be quite a powerhouse, with a massive 8GB of DDR3 memory onboard, but it's a gentle machine too, Optimus letting the thing run cool and long (up to five hours on a charge) when you're not getting your frag on. Indeed it's deemed the most powerful notebook you can buy for €700, and while that translates to roughly $920, we'll have to see what Acer decides to charge when it comes Stateside.

[Thanks, Markus]