MSI makes AMD-laden GX60 gaming laptop official with A10 heart, Radeon HD 7970M graphics

Posted on 26/09/2012 by Jon Fingas

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.

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

MSI makes AMD-laden GX60 gaming laptop official with A10 heart, Radeon HD 7970M graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage

Posted on 07/09/2012 by Jon Fingas

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.

Continue reading LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage

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LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer Aspire S5 review: is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400?

Posted on 20/07/2012 by Dana Wollman

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: Acer Aspire S5 review

Continue reading Acer Aspire S5 review: is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400?

Filed under: Laptops

Acer Aspire S5 review: is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI GT70 gaming laptop review

Posted on 23/04/2012 by Sean Buckley

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.

Gallery: MSI GT70 review