Asus announces quad-core gaming laptop (again)
This week it announced that the G71 "Republic of Gamers," a 17-inch gaming laptop, now offers Intel's new 2.53GHz Core 2 Extreme Quad QX9300. (Asus first announced the G71 back in August, around the time of the Intel Developer Forum, but Intel's first quad-core mobile chip is only now becoming available.) As with previous Extreme-class processors, Intel removed the "overspeed protection"--bus ratios that prevent you from damaging the chip or system--so that it can be freely overclocked. Other specs include:
- 17-inch WXGA+ or WUXGA display
- Up to 4GB DDR3-1066 memory
- Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT with 512MB GDDR3
- Up to 1TB of storage (dual 500GB hard drives
- DVD Super Multi
- 2MP Webcam
Asus still hasn't said much about availability or pricing, but a configuration (the G71V-A1) with a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 dual-core processor, WUXGA display, 4GB of memory, 400GB hard drive and Blu-ray costs a little more than $2,000. So far there has been surprisingly little coverage of this model--perhaps because it isn't an Eee PC--but I'll update with links to any hands-on reviews when they post.