# Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 Days Away From Clinching Top Spot



## btarunr (Feb 18, 2009)

ASUS chose last month's CES event to announce its flagship gaming notebook, the W90. Usual high-end specifications aside, the most distinct component used in it is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2, AMD's flagship mobile graphics platform, which is on the brink of snatching the performance crown away from NVIDIA for the platform. A North American sales representative for ASUS tells GPU Café that the W90 will be available from February 23, which perhaps makes it the launch-date for the Mobility HD 4870 X2. It is also noted that the Mobility HD 4670 will be out around the same time, while Mobility HD 4850 will arrive a week or two later. 

XtremeSystems forum member Kinc posted some early performance numbers relating to the Mobility HD 4870 X2, featured on the ASUS W90 with an Intel Core 2 Quad T9400, which effortlessly overclocked to 4 GHz on the notebook's stock cooling system. The Mobility HD 4870 X2 carried clock speeds of 600/900 MHz (core/memory). The notebook used Intel's X38 core-logic. At the said parameters, it was put through 3DMark 06. The notebook secured a score of 20,284 3DMarks at default setting. When released, the Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 will replace NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX SLI as the fastest mGPU solution, replicating a similar feat by its desktop cousin. 



 

 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## AlienIsGOD (Feb 18, 2009)

NICE!!


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## human_error (Feb 18, 2009)

wow, nice - will be interesting to see the fan noise/temps from that laptop with the CPU oc and the gpu setup, my stock puma based 2.1ghz laptop gets way too hot and loud for my taste...

Shame they seem to have had to squash the numberpad keys on the lappy's keyboard when there is more than enough spare width to have a numberpad with proper sized keys, however it is a bit too difficult to see exactly what size they are due to the angle of the photo..


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## mlee49 (Feb 18, 2009)

KILLER!!!  Thats a real reason to drop $2000 on a laptop!  I might look into buying an Asus lappy for my next gaming laptop.
20000 3D marks!!!  Amazing!


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## jbunch07 (Feb 18, 2009)

Nice! Good job!


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## HolyCow02 (Feb 18, 2009)

wow... that is insane. I kinda want one... no need... but damn. Awsome.


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## Urbklr (Feb 18, 2009)

4GHz Quad in a notebook with stock cooling...Damn, desktop part plezz?


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## RevengE (Feb 18, 2009)

Wow they are putting a 4870x2 in a laptop? What's the heat going to be like in this beast?


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## Whilhelm (Feb 18, 2009)

wow that is stonking fast

I bet that thing chews through batteries in a matter of minutes


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## mlee49 (Feb 18, 2009)

Whilhelm said:


> wow that is stonking fast
> 
> I bet that thing chews through batteries in a matter of minutes



I wonder what they spec the battery life at, 1 hour?


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## Jakl (Feb 18, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> I wonder what they spec the battery life at, 1 hour?



Indead, lol how long is the battery gonna last

Aswell heat issue, I wonder how hot those things get...

20k 3Dmark ... amazing..


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## jbunch07 (Feb 18, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> I wonder what they spec the battery life at, 1 hour?



1hour??

Ha my lappy hardly gets one hour and its got nothing special on it at all...I would estimate max 30 minutes


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## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Feb 18, 2009)

Hmm.. ok.

This small piece of equiptment yielded a higher 3dmark06 than my desktop. wth. . In anycase, I'm guessing with its battery life, it would become a desktop anyways. hehehe


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## mlee49 (Feb 18, 2009)

Bjorn_Of_Iceland said:


> Hmm.. ok.
> 
> This small piece of equiptment yielded a higher 3dmark06 than my desktop. wth. . In anycase, I'm guessing with its battery life, it would become a desktop anyways. hehehe



Its definitely a "Desktop Replacement" laptop. Constant power supply a must and active cooling required for overclocking/gaming.


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## zithe (Feb 18, 2009)

Pretty awesome. I'd like to see this in action. 
Watch them give it a tiny resolution to reduce costs...


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## AltecV1 (Feb 18, 2009)

screw the 4870x2.WHERE did they get a quad core


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## Jakl (Feb 18, 2009)

AltecV1 said:


> screw the 4870x2.WHERE did they get a quad core



Quads fore notebook's have been out for a while now lol


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## Cheeseball (Feb 18, 2009)

Laptop = battery life > performance
Desktop replacement notebook = performance > battery life


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## iStink (Feb 18, 2009)

the heat! My GOD the HEAT!  I think you would have burn marks on your thighs LOL.


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## spearman914 (Feb 18, 2009)

4GHz stock = OMG!!!!


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## AltecV1 (Feb 18, 2009)

ups


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## spearman914 (Feb 18, 2009)

AltecV1 said:


> not STOCK you fool



I could read. 4GHz Stock cooling. Forgot to add the c word.


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## Polarman (Feb 18, 2009)

Can you bake a cake with it?


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## wolf (Feb 18, 2009)

over 99% of us wont buy mobility gear anyway, so meh, unimpressed.

as for ATi "snatching" the crown back off nvidia, hardly.


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## GPUCafe (Feb 18, 2009)

wolf said:


> over 99% of us wont buy mobility gear anyway, so meh, unimpressed.
> 
> as for ATi "snatching" the crown back off nvidia, hardly.


So I guess Matrox has the fastest gaming solution for notebooks?


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## wolf (Feb 18, 2009)

GPUCafe said:


> So I guess Matrox has the fastest gaming solution for notebooks?



dont count them out just yet


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## lemonadesoda (Feb 18, 2009)

Are there any *technical *specifications for this? How does the mobility version compare with the desktop version?

If this is an ultra low voltage device then how about some enterprising company sticks two of these in crossfire on a PCIe16 board with passive (or at least, silent active) cooling.


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## PCpraiser100 (Feb 18, 2009)

Next thing is that Alienware will practise using Nuclear Reactors as laptop batteres!!!


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## cdawall (Feb 18, 2009)

lol can you imagine the size of the power brick for this thing


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## kuroikenshi (Feb 18, 2009)

This comic strip came to mind. Replace Mac Air Book with this one.

Hot Laptop


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## DrPepper (Feb 18, 2009)

I want this NOW !!!


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## OnBoard (Feb 18, 2009)

Beaten by a laptop, this makes my system 

T9400 is a dual core?
http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupId=35562

edit: the only two Core 2 Quad mobiles listed on Intels page
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLGEJ
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLB5G

Guessing it's brand new Q9300 then with 9.5 multi (and so it says on CPU-Z shot too.. silly me).


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## mlee49 (Feb 18, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I want this NOW !!!



I want one too.  Too bad I dont have $2500 to drop on a new gaming setup. 

I just want to see a retailer/reseller that has it available.


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## Frizz (Feb 19, 2009)

I'm more interested to see how the laptop is going to survive! Its like putting a v16 engine on a bicycle rofllll. 

Hopefully their battery life and heat workarounds make us go wow too


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> I want one too.  Too bad I dont have $2500 to drop on a new gaming setup.
> 
> I just want to see a retailer/reseller that has it available.



Me neither and it better be available in the uk


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## LittleLizard (Feb 19, 2009)

it kick ass my current setup which is 89999 time bigger


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## Marineborn (Feb 19, 2009)

it probably uses a 12 cell battery which would probably power a system like that for about 3-5 hrs depending on what you were doing


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## Triprift (Feb 19, 2009)

And to think mine does if your lucky 3k in 06 that is amazing ofcourse overheating would be a killer but still mightily impressive for a lappy.


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## frankie827 (Feb 19, 2009)

asdglkjasd;ljgk
it's better than my desktop


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## Triprift (Feb 19, 2009)

Its better than most ppls desktops here. 

Couple that with nehalem mobile processor that intel will release later in the year and it will be king insane.


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## frankie827 (Feb 19, 2009)

Triprift said:


> Its better than most ppls desktops here.
> 
> Couple that with nehalem mobile processor that intel will release later in the year and it will be king insane.



please excuse me while i go cry in the corner.

i thought it would be much longer before i saw a laptop that was better than a desktop


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## btarunr (Feb 19, 2009)

wolf said:


> over 99% of us wont buy mobility gear anyway, so meh, unimpressed.
> 
> as for ATi "snatching" the crown back off nvidia, hardly.



Guess what, 99% of us don't buy the HD 4870 X2s and the GTX 295s either, so keep your impressions to cheaper cards, going by that logic. Yes, ATI snatches the performance crown. Pit two desktop 8800GTs in x8 x8 SLI against a HD 4870 X2, using a Yorkfield @ 4 GHz, and you will have an identical test-bed to prove the performance difference.



lemonadesoda said:


> Are there any *technical *specifications for this?



Two of those boards you see (1st pic) installed on a system with X38 chipset (providing x16 links to each board). There is no lane-arbiter (like the PLX chip on the desktop card). Each board holds a RV770 GPU with 512M/1G of GDDR5 memory. Speeds are 600/900 MHz (core/mem). With this it ends up as the fastest solution. I'm not 100% sure of these specs, so I didn't mention it in the news.


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 19, 2009)

just to put this out there, the Mobility parts i believe are put thru more stringent testing due to chassis constraints and coolin apparatus, and they are usually built upon the latest process, because for one my Inspiron XPS Machine had a 9800 256 and that was built using the R420 Core.


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## mlee49 (Feb 19, 2009)

The thing's gonna weigh 50 lbs and 40 of it will be the heatsink


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 19, 2009)

not much different than the SLI cards for Laptops.


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## tkpenalty (Feb 19, 2009)

Wonder why they've never thought of a desktop system only utilising laptop parts?... its cheaper and smaller...


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## eidairaman1 (Feb 19, 2009)

proprietary, they also have to account for power differences etc, atleast today, now back in the day with SKT A that was possible.


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## KainXS (Feb 19, 2009)

lemonadesoda said:


> Are there any *technical *specifications for this? How does the mobility version compare with the desktop version?
> 
> If this is an ultra low voltage device then how about some enterprising company sticks two of these in crossfire on a PCIe16 board with passive (or at least, silent active) cooling.



Unlike most of nvidia's mobile cards which are cut down, ATI almost never releases mobile GPU's that aren't the same as the desktop versions so I am guessing spec wise its the same as the desktop version but has a lower clocks and voltage on the memory and gpu.

It might also use DDR3 instead of DDR5 also.


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## Hayder_Master (Feb 19, 2009)

i gonna throw my desktop , OMG this is great gamer laptop ever


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## Triprift (Feb 19, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> The thing's gonna weigh 50 lbs and 40 of it will be the heatsink



it will be heavy alright great for weightlifting.


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## Baum (Feb 19, 2009)

hurray mxm in the mix!
i can't wait to get an 4650 mxm-3 in my hand for upgrade ;-P


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

xRevengEx said:


> Wow they are putting a 4870x2 in a laptop? What's the heat going to be like in this beast?



I think you'd find that this 'beast' is affectionately known as Mr. Inferno.......


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## Imsochobo (Feb 19, 2009)

snap, close to my pc! look specs, and jeez, if this keeps up i need something more beefy!


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## GPUCafe (Feb 19, 2009)

Update: I was told that the battery life is rated for .. 2.5 hours.


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## newtekie1 (Feb 19, 2009)

btarunr said:


> Two of those boards you see (1st pic) installed on a system with X38 chipset (providing x16 links to each board). There is no lane-arbiter (like the PLX chip on the desktop card). Each board holds a RV770 GPU with 512M/1G of GDDR5 memory. Speeds are 600/900 MHz (core/mem). With this it ends up as the fastest solution. I'm not 100% sure of these specs, so I didn't mention it in the news.



Ok, so it really isn't a 4870x2, but more of two 4870's in crossfire?  I know the outcome is the same, but to me it shouldn't be considered a 4870x2 unless both GPU's are on the same PCB.


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## GPUCafe (Feb 19, 2009)

newtekie1 said:


> Ok, so it really isn't a 4870x2, but more of two 4870's in crossfire?  I know the outcome is the same, but to me it shouldn't be considered a 4870x2 unless both GPU's are on the same PCB.


With the current MXM spec, its impossible to fit two GPUs on the same module. So AMD went with branding it as 4870X2 rather than 4870CF.


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

When do you think laptops with these will be available ?


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> When do you think laptops with these will be available ?



as soon as the average UK salary goes up.


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

FreedomEclipse said:


> as soon as the average UK salary goes up.



I don't have a salary I have a mother and father instead


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I don't have a salary I have a mother and father instead



I have those too but they charge me rent  Imagine how rich id be if i didnt have to contribute to any bills or anything??? trying to get money from my dad is like trying to make Arnold Schwarznegger cry - Its just not gonna happen....

I work part time anyway, my hours vary every week & even though a huge chunk of what i earn is always taxed, at least i still get a small amount out of it....


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

FreedomEclipse said:


> I have those too but they charge me rent  Imagine how rich id be if i didnt have to contribute to any bills or anything??? trying to get money from my dad is like trying to make Arnold Schwarznegger cry - Its just not gonna happen....
> 
> I work part time anyway, my hours vary every week & even though a huge chunk of what i earn is always taxed, at least i still get a small amount out of it....



I've not got anything from my parents since I left school lol. Although I start my tests for the navy soon so I'l eventualy be able to get one of these.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> I've not got anything from my parents since I left school lol. Although I start my tests for the navy soon so I'l eventualy be able to get one of these.



yeah but you'd only be able to play on it when your on leave....


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

FreedomEclipse said:


> yeah but you'd only be able to play on it when your on leave....



Your allowed to take a laptop with you to help with boredom.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

you checked that with them???


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

FreedomEclipse said:


> you checked that with them???



Its in the handbook they gave me and I'm going to confirm it with them when I have my interview.


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## 3870x2 (Feb 19, 2009)

there has never been a notebook that could score higher than my e8500+9800GX2, until now.  Hats off to Intel, ATI, and ASUS.  I might just end up getting a notebook after all.
Now, could we get this in a netbook?

Also, ive been to IRAQ, instead of bringing a laptop, I ordered parts from newegg and built a computer while I was there.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> Its in the handbook they gave me and I'm going to confirm it with them when I have my interview.



wow - Imagine having 16 other guys on the ship/base having good enough laptops to run classic Unreal Tournament......

that would be sick


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## 3870x2 (Feb 19, 2009)

we had a lan party while I was in Balad playing unreal 2k4, was a blast.
would have rather been playing quake 3.


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## FreedomEclipse (Feb 19, 2009)

LOL playing UT04 when you should be fighting wars..


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## DrPepper (Feb 19, 2009)

No wonder we've been in iraq so long  
I don't think I could order a computer since I will be on a boat although I'm not sure of the inner workings of the navy.


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## Imsochobo (Feb 19, 2009)

IT IS 4870X2 IF:

If it doesnt need an crossfire chipset.
If it sports an PCI-E controller like the 4870x2 desktop does for connecting the two.

May people speculate if they so are splitted, but they would operate if you dont have them as a pair.

It's just to wait and see, but im really anxious to see Multi gpu tech with shared memory, if guys doesnt know about it:

Current sli and crossfire methods use afr and alike, graphics memory is equal to the lowest amount on an gphx adapter.

for instance 4870-1GB+4870-512MB in crossfire would be: total 512 MB.

Would be much better with hd5870x2 for instance with 2gb memory on gpu1. 128 mb on gpu 2.
The gpu 2 needs an certant amount of memory as far as i know of, and 128 mb should satisfy needs.


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## GPUCafe (Feb 19, 2009)

DrPepper said:


> When do you think laptops with these will be available ?


How about ..... *NOW*? I updated the article.


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## mlee49 (Feb 19, 2009)

Holy cannoli just over $2000:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220503&Tpk=W90Vp-X1



I'm going to await the first price cut or if my wife lets me splurge on one!


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## GPUCafe (Feb 19, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> Holy cannoli just over $2000:
> 
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220503&Tpk=W90Vp-X1
> 
> ...


Its a great value for money considering 9800M GTXs in SLI is atleast a grand more ..


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## mlee49 (Feb 19, 2009)

GPUCafe said:


> Its a great value for money considering 9800M GTXs in SLI is atleast a grand more ..



It's an amazing deal as the respective Alienware crossfire 3870's and matching specs are $3000!  Dual SLI 9800m GT's with respective specs are $3500!  Thats the AW ripoff if you ask me.

GPUCafe whats your choice of laptops?


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## GPUCafe (Feb 19, 2009)

mlee49 said:


> It's an amazing deal as the respective Alienware crossfire 3870's and matching specs are $3000!  Dual SLI 9800m GT's with respective specs are $3500!  Thats the AW ripoff if you ask me.


Exactly.



mlee49 said:


> GPUCafe whats your choice of laptops?


DTR notebooks are not my kind of thing, I'd rather get a beefy desktop and a very light notebook.


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## yutzybrian (Feb 24, 2009)

Sooo... when can I buy these for my Alienware M17?


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## Megasty (Feb 24, 2009)

Bah, 2 g's for a lappy that get better 3dmks than a rig I put together for just under $2500 a year ago. I'm pwned


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## Frizz (Feb 25, 2009)

Why couldn't they just say its 4870 Crossfire instead of 4870x2 lol. That 3Dmark06 score is unreal, to think that a 1 - 3kg of portable power is almost "if not, better" than my 100000000kg antec 1200 sitting on my table.  Shame.


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