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Beastly Toshiba Satellite X200 laptop gets spotted
You already knew that Toshiba was doling out the HD DVD love to the X205, but a purported Satellite X200 machine has apparently been apprehended by a Frenchman (or woman) and revealed to the world. Reportedly, this "desktop replacement" starts off with a 17-inch 1,440 x 900 resolution LCD, and packs a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT, 2GB of RAM, a 200GB hard drive spinning at 4200RPMs, Harmon Kardon speakers, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, a DVD burner, 1.3-megapixel camera, hordes of USB 2.0 connectors, fingerprint reader, an ExpressCard slot, and even a numeric keypad thrown in for good measure. While we've seen nothing official, word on the street has this bad boy landing next month for around €1,599 ($2,147), but for now, click on through for the rest of the show.
Diamond stuffs 1GB onto ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
With leading-edge graphics cards getting more and more dedicated RAM shoved onto their PCBs, it's only surprising that it has taken this long for a 1GB single GPU card to hit the market. Diamond Multimedia has just announced the launch of its Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB, which packs a full gigabyte of GDDR4 memory, second-generation unified shader architecture, 512-bit memory interface, integrated CrossFire scalability, and built-in HDMI support. Moreover, it also includes ATI's Avivo display technology, dual-link DVI output, HDCP compliance, and DirectX 10 support. No word just yet on what kind of premium you'll be expected to pay for this momentary claim of superiority, but we'd wait for the benchmarks to see if it's even worth the extra coin.
Today's most comparative game videos: Crysis DirectX
If you can geek out to API advancements, we salute you. Today's video picks compare DirectX 9 and the messiah DirectX 10 with Crysis footage. Yes, we can actually see a difference in the clips, and GameTrailers provides big, non-embedable HD files on its site.Will Crysis be the best-looking game ever, and will it require a DX10 system -- and, of course, Vista -- to earn that title? We've seen "best-looking game ever" mugs at a mall kiosk and will set one aside for the game's release later this year. (Don't let us down, Crysis. We could end up taunting you by giving it to the Wii.)See the videos after the break.
A-Power's AP-Halo gaming PC dons Halo 2 outfit, beastly innards
With Dell's XPS 720 getting ready for showtime, it's quite possible that a few of you out there are eying a slightly different kind of animal, and for the Halo faithful, look no further than A-Power. The AP-Halo machine sports a fully customized Halo 2 chassis to go along with the game's PC counterpart, but it manages to look fairly good on the inside as well. Beneath the metal you'll find an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor, up to 640GB of SATA II hard drive space, Asus' P5K Deluxe motherboard, a Samsung dual-layer DVD burner, Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sound card, gigabit Ethernet, a 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX handling the DX10 duties, a 700-watt power supply, and to cap things off, it also comes bundled with Microsoft's own Reclusa keyboard and Habu mouse. Of course, it'll come pre-loaded with Vista Ultimate and Halo 2, and deep-pocketed gamers can add on an Xbox 360 PC controller if they choose. The Halo 2-themed system is slated to launch on May 22nd, and while the base price sits at CAD$1,659 ($1,505) sans a monitor, those hardware upgrades will send that figure quite a ways north.
Acer fleshes out Aspire / TravelMate portfolios
While Acer did make a quick stop to confirm that this Gemstone brouhaha was indeed becoming a reality, the firm has apparently gotten around to fleshing out the rest of its healthy Santa Rosa lineup. On the consumer side of things, the the Aspire 5720 touts a 15.4-inch CrystalBrite display, integrated CrystalEye webcam, Dolby Digital Live audio, and a choice of ATI graphics cards. The 7720 steps it up by packing more powerful Core 2 Duo processors, a 17-inch widescreen display, an ATI graphics card with up to 512MB of RAM, webcam, and an optional DVB-T tuner, while the 9920 takes things to the extreme with a 20-inch screen, NVIDIA's DX10-capable GeForce 8600M-GT, and an HD DVD drive to boot. Meanwhile, the TravelMates are also seeing updates, as the 6592 packs a Core 2 Duo CPU, 802.11a/b/g/n, dual-layer DVD burner or HD DVD drive, ATI's Mobility Radeon X2300-HD graphics, and a 15- or 15.4-inch display. The 6492 loses an inch of screen space, steps down to integrated X3100 graphics, but sports up to 8.5-hours of battery life with a secondary cell installed in the media bay, and the 6292 wraps things up with a 12.1-inch display, WiFi, ezDock II compatibility, and a lightweight design. No word just yet on pricing or availability, but at least you've got a smattering of choices on the Acer horizon to decide upon.Read - Acer TravelMate lineupRead - Acer Aspire lineup
NVIDIA's DX10-capable 8M laptop GPUs get official
NVIDIA's been parading its DirectX 10 desktop GPUs around for some time now, and while we've seen lappies in the pipeline that tout the DX10 niceties, the firm is getting all formal on us with the release of the 8M series of laptop graphics cards. Hailed as the "world's first mobile GPU to support DirectX 10 and fully accelerate decoding of H.264 full HD movies," the 8M series will initially consist of the GeForce 8600M and 8400M. NVIDIA claims that these chips will provide "up to twice the performance of previous generation GPUs," and also boasts about the PureVideo HD processing engine and PowerMizer technology that purportedly conserves battery life when you're not engaged in a ruthless deathmatch. Unsurprisingly, the chips have already been made available to laptop manufacturers, so watch for these suckas in forthcoming "HP, Toshiba, Acer, Samsung, and Asus offerings."
ATI's Radeon HD 2900 XT benchmarked, trumps NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTS
Although preliminary testing proved that ATI's R600 architecture wasn't messing around, DailyTech added another layer of proof to the pudding as it benchmarked a bonafide Radeon HD 2900 XT against NVIDIA's 640MB GeForce 8800 GTS. The DirectX 10-capable card is a notch above the HD 2600 XT that was snapped in the wild, and the tested unit featured 320 stream processors, 512MB of GDDR3 RAM, a dual-slot "blower-type heat sink," dual dual-link DVI ports, and a serious desire to crank out impressive FPS numbers. While the marks weren't the end-all answer to the ATI vs. NVIDIA question, the Radeon managed to best its opponent in every single trial, including Call of Duty 2, Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., Oblivion, 3DMark06, Maya 02, Cadalyst C2006, and a few more for good measure. Of course, we're sure NVIDIA will be hitting back with something of its own, but feel free to hit the read link if you take pleasure in graphical beat downs with ATI escaping victorious.[Thanks, Mathieu]
Zepto's Znote 6625WD does DX10, HSDPA, and HD DVD
Considering that Zepto isn't exactly "the name" in full-blown gaming laptops, we certainly hope this one won't turn out like ones prior, but the Znote 6625WD purportedly packs a plethora of lavish innards if it proves legitimate. The 15.4-inch machine is based around Intel's Santa Rosa, er, Centrino Pro platform, and sports a WSXGA resolution, Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth 2.0, NVIDIA's 512MB GeForce Go 8600 graphics card, DirectX 10 support, an optional HD DVD writer, 802.11a/b/g/n, HSDPA compatibility, and to top things off, an HDMI output. The company will supposedly be taking customized orders in May to satisfy your wildest dreams, and while the bottom-end of the bunch could land at around "$1,100 to $1,200," we imagine that some of the aforementioned luxuries will ratchet that right on up.[Via Laptopical]
Nvidia's affordable DirectX 10 cards benchmarked
If you find the lack of DirectX 10 compliant games disturbing, you probably won't be interested in ExtremeTech's review of the just released, more affordable variant of the GeForce 8800, the 8600 GT and GTS. The cards -- which range from $150-170 for the EVGA GeForce 8600 GT and $200-230 for the XFX GeForce 8600 GTS -- may have that all important DirectX 10 qualifier, but without any DirectX 10 software to test them on, the crew at ExtremeTech are unsure of how to evaluate them. They write, "Unfortunately, we don't know if these new mid-range graphics wonders are going to be "enough" for true DX10 content. Simply put, there are no real DX10 games for us to try out." Nvidia's got a full lineup of DirectX 10 cards but no software to test them on; seems like a hollow victory to us.
Famitsu reports Lost Planet coming to PC, rocking DirectX 10
According to a Famitsu report released earlier this morning (translation), Capcom and Nvidia are jointly announcing that the platinum-selling Xbox 360 title Lost Planet: Extreme Condition is coming to the PC. Visuals have been improved and the title will utilize DirectX 10 (with resolutions up to 2560x1600). The report cites a June 2007 release in North America and Europe with no date listed for a Japanese release.We're left wondering if Lost Planet PC is going to be Vista-exclusive, and if there are similar PC plans for Capcom's other Xbox 360 "exclusive."[Thanks, Rob]
Today's leafiest game video: Crysis footage [update 1]
We're interested in upcoming shooter Crysis based on our time playing, but we're not yet sold on the graphic hype the game has been gathering. Today's video pick from GameTrailers shows off footage from the game the game engine, mostly highlighting plants and their shadows. We held on to our skeptic streak through the video, but the movement of the plants and the intricate shadows chipped away at our cynical shells; the engine looks good. But we'll have to wait for the Crysis release to decide how much praise -- and hype -- the game warrants.See the lovely leaves after the break.[Update 1: Thanks to the commentors who pointed out that the video is a tech demo and not directly from the game.]
Crysis will run on ye olde gaming rig
As Crysis looms, anxiety levels are high. The perceived demands of Crytek's DirectX 10 showcase present a financial burden to those with dated PCs. Speaking to Next-Gen, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli assured gamers that Crysis will be playable on 2- to 3-year-old gaming rigs, but warned that if you do plan to rely on aging hardware, avoid those who have the game running on DX10 -- it might be hard to go back to your scaled-down DX9 experience.Yerli also seemed to express Crytek's approval of Vista, telling Next-Gen, "Most likely we will upgrade all dev stations to Vista and move to Vista-only titles". This apparent commitment to the new operating system stands in stark contrast to comments issued by id Software's John Carmack, who isn't pleased that Microsoft has "artificially" tethered DX10 to Vista.
Watch 3 videos, get DX10 and Vista for free
Forget the PS3 and Xbox 360, the next great thing in gaming graphics is called DirectX 10. The only catch is you'll need a fairly beefy PC and a copy of Windows Vista. However, the Vista half of the equation could come cheaper than expected. Microsoft, through a website called Power Together, is offering up a free copy of Vista Business edition just for watching three videos. The videos are geared toward system admins or even internal auditors, but we could all sit through it just to get a $300 operating system for free (legitimately we might add). The only catch is you have to use IE6 or better and install the Live Meeting Replay Wrapper. The site is currently moving at a snail's pace right now and the videos themselves are an hour long, so it could take a bit of work to get your free copy of Vista. The downside is Vista Business Edition doesn't come with the Media Center feature (like any of us care); however, Vista Business will be just fine for any of us who want to enjoy some sweet DirectX 10 gaming.
