First quad-core laptop hits U.S.
(Credit: Xtreme Notebooks)Never mind that there's little-to-no software that can take advantage of four processing cores, Xtreme Notebooks has released the first quad-core laptop in the U.S. With no mobile quad-core parts in existence, the Xtreme 917V Accelerator turns to desktop CPUs, giving you a choice between the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and the Q6700. Pricing starts at $3,359. Other niceties on this gaming laptop/mobile workstation include: a glossy widescreen 17-inch display (up to 1920x1200 resolution), one or two Nvidia GeForce Go 8700M GT or 7950 GTX graphics cards, and up to three hard drives in RAID 0, 1 or 5 configurations. It ships with 4.1 speakers (yes, this beast has a subwoofer), a Webcam, and a hefty 12-cell battery, while giving you the option to add a Blu-ray drive, a TV tuner, and 11n Wi-Fi. You can outfit it with XP or Vista or opt out of a preloaded OS entirely. Xtreme Notebooks quotes a system weight of 12.5 pounds.
It all adds up to an unquestionably powerful laptop, but I'd like to know what the Xtreme 917V Accelerator sounds like when it's cooling a desktop CPU, two video cards, and three hard drives. I retired an old Dell laptop last year that used a Pentium 4 desktop chip; the thing was not what you'd call quiet.
Hopefully, our request for a review unit will be met with a positive response. Ideally, the Xtreme 917V Accelerator will occupy a spot in our labs right next to the diametrically opposed Asus Eee PC.
(Via Laptoping.com)
four processing cores"
Perhaps if you think outside your little Windows box you might
come to realize that this is not an entirely true statement.
IMHO even someone on the go would be better off getting a well spec'd workstation and a nicely configured laptop/tablet, then when their out of the office just use the mobile machine to remote into the workstation.
Windows isn't the only operating system out there.
Some Linux variants will support up to 64-cores.
"...little-to-no software that can take
advantage of four processing cores"
needs an education.
The true story is Linux OS based GUI desktops
natively use multiple cpus / cores. And with
virtualization technologies such as VirtualBox
and others you can simultaneously run any other
OS is also missing from Matthew's comments.
Four cores could mean two for your pleasure, one
for a windows virtual machine and one for some
background process like audio conversions.
Everyone from the most capable engineer to the
most pedestrian home user needs to be advised
that because microsoft cannot produce a speedy
light-weight multi-core aware OS this does not
mean such a thing isn't extant.
It exists, and it's name is Linux.
Once you go quad core you won't go back.
Intel also just announced a quad core centrino to be released right away for laptops...
It's horribly inaccurate. I mean I can't believe you wrote it in the first place but come on and get with reality. You are reporting things that lots of people will read.
lol wut? Just about everything demanding will take advantage of multiple cores. Gaming and 3D rendering mainly, but the OS as well. Vista 64 for me, but just about any other OS that isnt from the stone age will do the same.