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Liquid-cooled Asetek prototype redefines our all-in-one expectations (video)
We've been moaning about middling AIO performance for a while now, and outside of Apple's spendy iMacs, not many have stepped up to the plate with equivalent grunt to what you might be able to splice together with a separate case and a bit of elbow grease. That won't stay true for long, however, if Asetek's prototype gets picked up by one of your favorite vendors. This liquid-cooled beastie -- which proudly proclaims it has the same profile as the iMac at 58mm in thickness -- is capable of powering and chilling both a 2.66GHz Core i7-920 and a GeForce GTX 280M. That's a total TDP output of over 200W, which is handled by a proprietary radiator design that's integrated into the stand and some pump-assisted action convecting the heat away from the chips. It both sounds and looks like a winner to us -- check it out after the break to see what you think.
Origin's Eon18 gaming laptop reviewed, found to be a great performer, not a great value
Now that's a shocker, isn't it? A gaming laptop that isn't particularly friendly on your wallet? It's true, Origin's Eon18 is not the machine to consider if you're ready to make the step up from a netbook but aren't yet willing to step into quadruple-digit price tags. As tested by Laptop, the Eon18 was half-way to five-digits thanks to its $5,952 cost, but that money gets you a an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 chip running at 2.53GHz, dual 160GB SSDs, a pair of GeForce GTX 280M graphics cards, a lovely airbrush job on the lid, and a power brick that on its own, at three pounds, weights more than some of the competition's machines (no concerns about inadequate juice here). That configuration delivers unbeatable I/O performance but, when it came to the all-important gaming benchmarks, was found to be comparable to Alienware's M17x, and thus not exactly worth the $1,000 premium -- unless you really dig flame jobs. [Thanks, Mark]
Rock delivers BD / Core i7-equipped Xtreme 790 and Xtreme 840 gaming laptops
Can you believe it? It's been practically a year to the day since we've seen any new fragging machines from the lads over at Rock, but thankfully things are still moving after being rescued by a rolling Stone. The latest duo to take Europe by storm involves the Xtreme 790 and Xtreme 840, both of which can be outfitted with NVIDIA's 1GB GeForce GTX 280M (or two of 'em, if you're feeling froggy), Blu-ray drives, 6GB of DDR3 RAM, WiFi, four USB 2.0 sockets, an HDMI port, Windows Vista (with a gratis upgrade to Win7 this October), a 7-in-1 card reader, 3TB of HDD space and a 3-year on-site warranty. Heck, you can even toss a Core i7 in there if you think your legs are calloused enough to handle it. Both machines can be ordered up right now, with the 790 range starting at £1,999 ($3,258) and the less extravagant 840 line picking up at £1,699 ($2,769).
Sager NP9280 with Core i7 and triple SSDs is world's most powerful laptop, anchor
This one slipped by us but the world's first Core i7 laptop to ship is probably worth a double-back don't you think? The Sager NP9280 is almost certainly the same Clevo D900F we spotted at CeBIT back in March. That means a Core i7 snuggled up with Intel's X58 chipset with triple channel DDR3 memory, 1GB of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M graphics, and a 17.1-inch 1920x1200 display. No telling how long the 12-cell Lithium-Ion battery will last but if it exceeds 30 minutes of usage then we'd be impressed. As a desktop replacement, it's fully loaded with up to a trio of SATA hard disks (or SSDs), 4x built-in speakers, eSATA, HDMI and DVI video outputs, integrated 3 megapixel webcam, and 4x USB 2.0 jacks plus a single Firewire port all riding an 11.55-pound slab requiring 15.5 x 11.75 x 2.35-inches of elbow room. Unfortunately, there's no option for running dual GTX 280M GPU in SLI, for that you'll have to look to Alienware's Core 2 Extreme--based M17x. The NP9280 starts at about $2,000 though we like ours maxed out with a Core i7 975 Extreme Edition desktop processor, 12GB of DDR3 memory, and 3x 160GB SSDs for more than $7,000. But hey, that's us and we think robots are scary. Check the hover-craft inspired bottom after the break.[Via ReviewStash]
Alienware's M17X gaming laptop with twin GTX 280M GPUs truly is all powerful
The announcement wasn't scheduled for a few more days -- four according to the teaser site -- but it looks like Alienware's All Powerful gaming laptop has been set free anyway. So, does it live up to the clues? Pretty much... how does a pair of 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs strike you? No Core i7 listed, instead we're looking at a Core 2 Extreme quad-core CPU at the top end with up to 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory, and 1TB of 7200-rpm disk or a 512GB SSD if you prefer. RAID 1 or RAID 0? Sure. Rounding things out is a nine-cell battery of unstated performance, FireWire, 4x USB, eSATA, ExpressCard, 802.11n WiFi, 8-in-1 media card reader, dual-layer Blu-ray, a 1920 x 1200 pixel edge-to-edge LCD, DisplayPort and HDMI-outs all wrapped up in a massive chassis weighing 11.68-pounds with a 15.98 x 12.65 x 2.11-inch footprint. It's also packing a GeForce 9400M G1 GPU with HybridPower technology that allows you to scale the graphics back to conserve battery power. Prices start at $1,799 for a lot less than we mentioned above.As a footnote to the details above, PCWorld also says that Alienware will use next week's E3 show to update us on its 42.8-inch curved monitor we went hands-on with back in January of 2008. [Thanks, Steve]
