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MSI makes AMD-laden GX60 gaming laptop official with A10 heart, Radeon HD 7970M graphics
We can't say that there's a huge cross-section of buyers who want a gaming laptop but refuse to touch Intel components. Whatever the size, MSI likely has that group sewn up with the official unveiling of the GX60 following a stealth appearance at Computex. The 15.6-inch portable is built as showcase for AMD's latest mobile technology: it revolves around a 2.3GHz, quad-core A10-4600M processor using the Piledriver architecture as well as a Radeon HD 7970M to feed its 1080p screen at full speed. Thankfully, the PC is more than just a marketing vehicle and carries some of the gamer-tuned parts that we've seen in other MSI rigs, such as dual SSDs in a RAID stripe, a low-lag Killer networking chipset and a heavy-duty SteelSeries keyboard. Buying a GX60 may prove to be the real obstacle -- in keeping with most MSI introductions, there's no mention of a price or ship date, and none of the usual suspects have it in stock as of this writing.
LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage
LaCie has been sprucing up its smaller drives to handle a new crop of Macs that support USB 3.0. It's now turn for the big boys to play. Updated versions of the 2big Quadra and 4big Quadra (not yet shown here) use the faster port to reach the potential of their high-capacity RAID arrays, peaking at either 210MB/s for the dual-drive 2big and 245MB/s for its quad-drive cousin. We're not seeing a fundamental shakeup of the design apart from the higher speeds, although that's not necessarily a problem given the FireWire 800 to catch legacy users and hot-swappable bays for future upgrades. Video editors and other storage mavens should just prepare themselves to pony up. The upgraded Quadra models will start at respective $499 (4TB) and $1,099 (8TB) prices when they ship in October, and they're only poised to get more expensive when LaCie sets the costs for the higher-end 6TB and 12TB models.
Acer Aspire S5 review: is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400?
With dozens and dozens of Ultrabooks on parade, you'd be forgiven if one skinny laptop with an ultra-low voltage processor started to look like the next. Even so, it's tough to forget the Acer Aspire S5: of all the ultraportables we've seen these last nine months, this is the only one with a motorized port cover. Yeah, that one. It's an intriguing product, to be sure, and the stakes are especially high given that $1,400 price: you'd have to really enjoy that form factor (and everything else) to choose it over some less expensive ultraportable. So is it worth it? Is that drop-down door anything more than a gimmick? Questions for the ages, and ones we'll tackle in our full review after the break.%Gallery-160173%
MSI GT70 gaming laptop review
MSI outs new GT60 / GT70 gaming laptops, we go hands-on (video) Everything old is new again: NVIDIA rebrands Fermi-based GPUs into 600-series Intel puts Ivy Bridge on the map: promises up to 20 percent faster CPU, doubled graphics, desktop quad-cores from $174 Now that Intel's let the cat out of the bag (and into the Ivy), it's high time we took a look at what manufacturers are going to do with those fancy new processors. Behold: The MSI GT70 gaming laptop, one of the first gaming beasts out of the door with Intel's next generation architecture. Living up to its next-gen CES promises, this 17.3-inch behemoth falls squarely in the desktop replacement category, at 8.6 pounds, and packs a new 2.3GHz Core i7-3610QM processor, NVIDIA's latest GeForce GTX 670M chip with 3GB of video memory, 16GB of DDR3 RAM and a fancy RAID 0 dual SSD setup -- all wrapped in one hefty, formidable package. So how powerful a combination do Ivy Bridge and NVIDIA make? Let's find out.
TRIM or RAID 0? SSD owners will no longer have to choose
Owners of multiple SSDs will be familiar with this dilemma: do you opt for RAID 0 to put all those precious GBs to use, or do you go for AHCI mode in order to gain TRIM support and maintain performance over time? Well, the next release of Intel's RST should support TRIM for RAID 0, so switching to solid state storage will become an even smarter decision than it is right now. [Thanks, Brian]
LaCie's Thunderbolt-equipped Little Big Disk sees apparent shipping delay (update: false)
Update: As it turns out, the site linked was for Australia and listed the region's Winter season 2011, which is summer in the US. LaCie has informed us that the drives are still set to ship on-time and has updated the Australian page -- which consequently looks identical to the US page -- to reflect "Australian Winter" rather than "Winter" as previously seen. Apologies for any confusion. Remember way back in February when Thunderbolt was unveiled? Shocking as it may be, a 10Gbps interconnect is useless without peripherals, and thankfully Promise and LaCie also announced compatible drives touting Q2 / summer availability. As promised, Promise's wares released as expected alongside Apple's T-bolt cable, but LaCie's Little Big Disk has been curiously absent. As it turns out, the company's website has been quietly updated and now reflects a winter 2011 release for these Intel 510 SSD-packable drives, which is just about enough to force a FOF onto even the happiest of faces. Still antsy to pick one up? Better plan to avoid Santa's naughty list -- at this point, waitin' and wishin' is about all you can do [Thanks, Mikhail]
MSI's GX680 laptop gets GeForce GT 555M graphics, up to 16GB of DDR3
Mobile gaming rigs don't tend to be particularly upgradeable, so it's important to get all the horsepower you can up front. With that in mind, MSI's latest is delivering a little more oomph than its last lap-warmer. It's the GX680 and it's rocking an Intel Core i7 2630QM processor paired with GeForce GT 555M graphics, NVIDIA's latest bid at laptop pixel-pushing supremacy. That card has 1GB of GDDR5 memory onboard, while the system itself can be configured with up to 16GB of DDR3 -- rather a lot for a laptop. A 15.6-inch, 1080p display is available, along with dual 750GB HDDs, which can be configured in RAID 0 if you like living dangerously. Blu-ray is also on offer, along with a THX certified Dynaudio sound system that is said to deliver audio "heretofore found only in cinemas." No price yet, but as always with MSI that kind of hyperbole comes for free.
PopDrive backs up your backup, gets your hard drive poppin'
A hard drive that backs up your hard drive isn't exactly a groundbreaking concept, but a mirror drive that goes pop? Now, that's something special. PopDrive, weighing in at just over a pound and measuring a touch larger than a wireless mouse, uses two stacked laptop hard drives, encased in an aluminum shell, to guarantee that your backed up data stays that way. So where does the pop come in? Well, if one of these little hard drives crashes, you just pop in a new one like you would a CD. It does RAID-0, RAID-1, JBOD, and connects via eSata. We still haven't seen a price on it, but the company's website suggests that it won't take too much to get this thing poppin'. PopDrive will announce pricing and availability at CES later this week.
RunCore's 1TB SATA III SSD is 3.5-inches and 1TB big, 500MB/s fast
Your average SSD fits in a laptop friendly 2.5-inch slot and does so meekly, not calling too much attention to itself. RunCore's next SSD powerhouse, however, is a little more bodacious. It takes up a desktop standard 3.5-inch slot and is said to rely on "substantial" sized PCBs on both sides of its cool, cerulean silicon. It's an SATA III drive offering a similarly substantial 1TB of storage, even fronting dual SandForce SF-1222 controllers for integrated RAID 0 performance. The result? 500MB/s speed, meaning this hippo does that tutu right. No pricing has been announced yet, but expect an appropriately large MSRP when it is fully announced at CeBIT in March.
Sony VAIO Z brings Quad SSD drive and dynamic graphics switching to Europe in March
Announced at CES with a "late Spring" availability, we just got word that the Core i7-620M pumpin' VAIO Z series from Sony will be hitting Europe in late March. The Z's biggest claim to fame is its ultra-fast Quad SSD, a rather unique Sony innovation that writes data in parallel to four SSDs (up to 256GB total capacity in RAID 0) at speeds up to 6.2x faster than typical 5400 rpm laptop hard disks. Sony also fits the Z with a hybrid graphics solution that combines 1GB of NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M with Intel HD graphics allowing you to automatically (or manually) switch between "speed" and "stamina" modes... presumably without requiring a logout if we're reading "dynamic" correctly. Rounding out the specs are 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM, 802.11n WiFi, integrated optical drive, and optional VAIO Everywair 3G mobile broadband module all stuffed into this 13.1-inch laptop with 1920 x 1080 pixel LED backlit display with 210 x 23.8-32.7 x 314mm and 1.43kg footprint. Power AND portability? Come give us a hug Sony.
Sony VAIO Z to offer ultra-fast "Quad SSD" in RAID 0 configuration, backlit keyboard?
We've already given you the leaked specs for the unannounced updates to Sony's VAIO Z series of laptops. Now here's what you haven't heard: that SSD on the feature list is rather special, a "Quad SSD" in Sony language. To quote from the materials we've peeped, the Quad SSD is delineated as "SSD RAID0:64GB/128GB x 4." What's unclear is whether that means 4x 128GB or 64GB modules for either 512GB or 256GB of RAID 0 storage, or simply 4x flash modules totaling 128GB or 64GB of RAID 0 capacity. Presumably, it's similar to devices like the PhotoFast GMonster Quad Drive (pictured, with four CF memory cards) that we've already seen. What we do know for sure, however, is that Sony's Quad SSD features incredible throughput compared to a traditional 5400rpm hard disk. We're talking about writing a 1GB file at about 4 seconds compared to 25 seconds on that same 5400rpm spinner. We're also told that the VAIO Z will be the first to feature a backlit keyboard, something we've been missing from Sony's previous generation of Zs. It's CES kids so the truth is only hours away. [Thanks, Anonymous]
PhotoFast G-Monster-Promise PCIe SSD does 1000MB/s read and writes
Just a month after dropping the 750MB/s G-Monster PCIe SSD RAID card on us, PhotoFast is back with the G-Monster Promise, which jacks read / write speeds to 1000MB/s. Not the fastest we've ever seen, but we'll take it. It'll be available sometime this month in Japan in sizes from 128GB to 1TB -- just make sure you've save a lot of pennies, cause it ain't gonna be cheap.Update: Our friends at Engadget Japan have chimed in to tell us they're on sale in the Akihabara district to the tune of USD $1,600 for 128GB, $2,000 for 512GB, and a whopping $4,500 for the 1TB model. [Via PCLaunches]
Intel SSDs RAIDed up for blinding speed
Intel's hot X25-M SSD is one of the faster drives out there, and while it's not surprising that a RAID 0 array of two of the $600 units is quick, it turns out it's actually one of the fastest RAID 0 arrays ever. At least that's the word from the crew at HotHardware, who say that two X25-Ms kicked out the fastest IOMeter numbers they've ever seen, and produced 396MB/s reads and 130MB/s writes. Yeah, damn. Anyone going to take the $1200 trip to Speedville?
LaCie brings Little Big Disk Quadra to 1TB
LaCie introduced the Little Big Disk Quadra back in January, but the diminutive four-interface dual-drive enclosure is getting a new 1TB sibling today. Nothing new here apart from the capacity bump, but if you're into the aluminum RAID 0 scene, $700 is all you need to ride.
Buffalo adds new 1TB and 2TB storage options to its lineup
Your good pals at Buffalo are injecting some new storage options into your life, so you might want to pay attention (especially if you're a Japanese citizen). The company is introducing a new line of RAID 0, four-drive models called the QSIBSU2 HD / R, featuring eSATA, USB, FireWire 400 / 800, and TurboUSB functionality. A 1TB version of the array will run you ¥74,300 (or around $695) and will be available in at the end of the month, while the 2TB model clocks in at ¥106,300 ($995) and will ship in late February.[Via Engadget Japanese]
