The timing and price are up in the air, but Acer's next high-end gaming notebook will be the first using DirectX 11 graphics. It's also going to be insane.

Fudzilla's reporting that the Aspire 8942G-728G1280TWN is going to be a beast, shipping with a Core i7 processor at 1.6GHz, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and the all-important ATI Radeon HD5850 graphics card. The other specs are equally over the top—18.4" 1980x1080 LED display, two 640GB hard drives, 8-cell battery—but what we're most excited about are graphics like this:




























 Expect it on the market in early 2010 for a whole lot of cash. It also weighs over 10 pounds, so make sure to lift with your legs.

Dell's Precision M6500 refreshes their hardcore workstation with ass-beating guts: It's the first with Intel's Core i7-920XM Quad Core Extreme, Nvidia's new QuadroFX 3800M, and up to 16GB of RAM running at 1600MHz.
Besides all of those "firsts" (which will be exclusive only temporarily, undoubtedly, since Intel and Nvidia gots to play with everybody else too) it's got a 17-inch, 1920x1080 LED-backlit display that pops 100 percent of the Adobe color gamut. Plus, it now has user-selectable color profiles, so it's easy to switch 'em around.
The 8.4-pound monster is for "creative professionals" in animation, CAD work, oil & gas stuff, and federal/defense, so you know it's ungodly expensive for that much gear goodness, before you even ask how much.

Processors
Intel® CoreTMi7 Extreme Edition Quad Core, CoreTMi7Quad Core Processors
Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate 32-Bit Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate 64-Bit Genuine Windows Vista® Business 32-Bit Genuine Windows Vista® Business 64-Bit Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit Genuine Windows 7 Professional 32-bit Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Genuine Windows® XP Professional available via downgrade rights Genuine Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition available via downgrade rights Red Hat® Linux 5.3 64-Bit
Displays
17" WXGA+ UltraSharp LED Display (1440x900) Resolution 17" WUXGA UltraSharp LED Display (1920x1200) Resolution 17" WUXGA RGB LED Back-Lit Display (1920x1200) Resolution 17" WUXGA RGB LED Edge To Edge Back-Lit Display (1920x1200) Resolution (Covet only)
Memory
Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Available DIMM Slots: Four Memory slots offering up to 16GB4 Memory Bandwidth: 1066MHz, 1333MHz and 1600MHz
Primary Storage
Support for one, two, or 3 storages devices with optional RAID0, RAID1, or RAID5 Configuration 7200RPM Free Fall Sensor Hard Drive up to 500GB 5 7200RPM Encrypted FFS Hard Drive up to 160GB 5 Solid State Hard Drive up to 256GB 5
Optical Drives
DVD-ROM, DVD+/-RW slot load, Blu Ray
Graphics Cards
ATI® FirePro® M7740 Graphics with 1GB2 dedicated memory NVIDIA® Quadro FX 2800M Graphics with 1GB2 dedicated memory NVIDIA® Quadro FX 3800M Graphics with 1GB2 dedicated memory
Connectivity
WLAN
Wireless LAN, Bluetooth® 2.1 and Ultra-Wideband (UWB - selected countries only)
Next Generation Mobile Broadband6, GPS
Wireless: Dell Wireless 1397 802.11g Mini-Card
Dell Wireless 1510 802.11 a/g/n 2x3 Mini-Card Intel Wireless 5300 802.11a/g/n 3x3 Mini-Card WWAN Dell Wireless 5620 HSPA - EVDO Rev A (selected countries only)
Security
Physical Security: Steel-reinforced Cable Lock Slots, Media Module and Hard Drive Locks. User & System Security: Smart Card Reader and optional Contactless Smart Card Reader Fingerprint Reader (optional) FIPS Fingerprint Reader (optional) TPM 1.2 (where available) Wave Embassy Trust Suite Network Security: 802.11 WiFi® Protected Access (WPA), 802.11i (WPA2), Virtual Private Networks (VPN) 802.1x with EAP modes and compatible with CCX 4.0
Multimedia
2 speakers, optional dual array microphones Optional 2MP camera, 3MP camera option coming soon
Expandability
Slots: 8-in-1 card reader; ExpressCard 54; PC Card Docking: Advanced E-Port, E-Port, Legacy Port Replicator, Ergo Flat Panel Stand, Basic Monitor Stand, E-View Notebook Stand Modular Options: E-Family modular media dock: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-RW, Second Hard Drive
Chassis
Aluminum LCD back and base Dell PrecisionTM industrial design Weight & Dimensions: Preliminary weight starting at: 8.42lbs/3.xxkg7 with WXGA+ panel, DVD-ROM, 9-cell battery. Width: 15.4"/393mm Depth: 11.0"/280.5mm Height: 1.35"/34.5mm(F), 1.5"/38.5mm(B) Ports: 1394 Powered 6-pin, USB 2.0 (x4), VGA, Display Port, RJ-45, Audio, eSATA

The iMac review included a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo chip inside, but we received the top-of-the-line iMac housing the more promising 2.8GHz Core i7 processor. Do more cores make up for lower clock speeds? Yes. Often 2X to 3X.

The Basic Differences in Chips

  First, I will note you that Intel Core i7 were the fastest processor that can we call as "turbo mode".When it's not utilize all of its cores, it can dynamically overclock itself up to 3.4GHz On any single core is in use. It can, as shown in this video, work in steps. So you get the turbo benefit when using some of the four cores in this iMac's chip, but you also get it when all cores are being partially used. For example, if four cores are running but only at a fraction of their total capacity (about 95%), the cores can use that electrical overhead to overclock to various degrees. This should theoretically make up for the difference between the two-core 3.06GHz chip and the hyperthreaded quad core chip at a base of 2.8GHz.

The other thing to realize about these newer Core i7 chips are that they have no northbridge—or bus—between the memory and CPU. The memory controller is built right into the processor, and there's a new tech called QuickPath interconnect which connects the cores in a point-to-point architecture. Core i7 supports triple-channel memory (which would use three banks at once), but this iMac only came loaded with two banks of RAM filled. Like our other iMac, that's a 2GB + 2GB arrangement.

Performance with Multithreaded Apps

In short, any task we tried that expressly was written to either a) take advantage of multiple cores, or, b) take advantage of multiple cores through Snow Leopard's multicore middleware, Grand Central Dispatch, were 2 to 3 times faster.The result includes:


• 64-bit versions of Geekbench, which focus on CPU and memory tests.
• Adobe After Effects benchmarks
• Opening 20 images of Tokyo Tower that are 2000x2000 pixels and 35MB each.
Impressive stuff, but honestly, those tests were kind of uninteresting to me. I mean, those tests don't really have any correlation to my daily computing use. So on a whim, after benchmarking, I tested Handbrake, the DVD ripping software I love. It, too, was freaking fast.

I know the app is multithreaded, but I did not know what level of optimization it was written for. I was blown away by a 3x speed multiplier with the i7. On the Core i7 iMac, it took 43 minutes to rip a DVD, Storm Riders, a surfing film from the '70s featuring Gerry Lopez (my favorite) and others. On the Core 2 Duo machine, it took 147 minutes! I know this is basically a DVD read test coupled with decoding and video conversion, but the results have me excited because this is a real task that takes my computer a long time to do, performed by a program that hasn't been revised in a year.

Performance With Single-Core Optimized Apps (Otherwise Known as Reality)

Unfortunately, there are still very few applications that take advantage of multiple cores directly or via Snow Leopard's GCD, not even video-based, let alone general purpose computing.

Photoshop CS4 on the Mac, which is not set up to handle multicore processors, showed almost less than a 3% improvement using the Driver Heaven benchmark. Basic tasks, like booting and shutdown, saw virtually none. Playing the 1080p Quicktime trailer of Avatar consistently showed that the i7 was using 3% less of its total CPU than the Core2Duo, but I wonder if that's a result of the faster graphics card kicking in using CoreCL. Xbench, the old program that does a more comprehensive job of benchmarking a system from disks to processors, showed almost no difference.
I think Xbench, which hasn't been updated in years, is a solid benchmark for that old program that you depend on but has been long abandoned or at least ignored by its developer.
These scores, again, are in relation to the top line 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo iMac we tested. Some benchmarks have come in from the web comparing the i7 to the i5. Here's one that claims a 30% jump using Geekbench. Now we know Geekbench likes and does well with more cores and is a synthetic CPU test. But if the i5 is 30% slower, and the i7 pulls even with the 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo chip in single threaded activity—most day to day activity—does that mean the i5 is slower than the cheaper Core 2 Duo? Maybe. Probably not 30%, since Geekbench is strictly CPU/memory and likes more cores, and this stuff does not translate so literally in the real world. But we can assume the i5 will have 30% less jump from the top tier Core 2 Duos, translating into a mere 1.3X to 2X speed increase from last gen chips on programs that like cores.




Product of Core i7


Dell Studio XPS











MainGear Costum PC