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also @ TechSpot: Building a Thin Mini-ITX PC: Small and Silent Performance
Coming in at just under 6-grand, the new contender features an 18.4” 1080p display, an Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300, 8GB of DDR3 1333MHz, dual 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 280m in SLI, an 80GB Intel X25-M SSD, dual 500GB Seagate Momentus HDDs in RAID 1 and a dual layer Blu-ray burner. The eX-L 18 also houses an Intel PRO/Wireless 5300AGN, a Bluetooth module, HD audio with surround sound, biometric security, a backlit keyboard with a numeric keypad, 7-in-1 card reader, as well as eSATA, HDMI, USB 2.0 and Firewire ports.
As sweet as the base configuration is, $6,000 is a bit steep. I managed to get the system down to $3,917 by dropping the second 500GB HDD and opting for a 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue, Core 2 Duo T9600, 4GB of RAM, and a Blu-ray reader instead of a burner. The extra $2k+ worth of components wouldn’t provide much if any noticeable performance to a game – so you’re only sacrificing a bit of data redundancy and/or storage.
User Comments: 8
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There is a laptop made by northwest falcon that has a quad core cpu in it, and two of everything else you could want to boost performance.
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Staff
@Guest: http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=36727
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Hmmm....does thing get up like 900 degrees or something? Sweet mother...
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Staff
With a chassis to match the 18.4" screen, I'm sure there's probably plenty of room for cooling apparatus.
I bet it does get pretty damn hot though. -
Battery life has got to be in the crapper....
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DarkCobra said:
Agree with the others . . . it better have some kind of liquid cooling because with a package so flat there's no way fans are going to suffice. Also, what does this thing weigh? Something like 20 pounds perhaps? I'm just not seeing why one would spend so much on a laptop anyway. Moving something this heavy and this expensive with any degree of regularity must cause beads of sweat to pour down your face out of sheer fear of dropping it. Nope, think I'd keep it anchored somewhere and therefore why not just get a desktop with more room to grow and easier to cool as well. Just doesn't make a lot of sense as a portable.
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For the people commenting, I thought the topic has been discussed of nvidia cards not being rebadged as they should when considering a laptop. Please remember that this isnt near the gtx280 you can put in your desktop, its more like a gtx250, with lower clock speeds to have lower power requirements.
The quad will draw 140watts max, I doubt you could max that thing out though. You can see vents in the front, probably a great idea, pulling air in from the front and running the cool air across the board and out the back. Overall, decent design, best hardware, expensive, but it would last you a while, if you're doing productive stuff.
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has it got floppy drive too?
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