Just a few hours after the M11x specs first leaked, Dell has put its high-powered ultraportable gaming notebook on its website for pre-order. It starts at $US799, and will ship on March 1. More »
We were pretty excited to see Intel’s new monster quad-core chips inside the iMacs Apple unveiled today, but you may be a little confused by the options: Core 2 Duo or Core i7 or Core i5??? Can someone please explain? Why yes, Giz can.
If you’re looking into getting a new laptop, you should probably hold off until after the holidays for an extra boost in processing power. According to sources at AppleInsider, Intel’s planning a refresh of its Montevina Core 2 Duo processors for Spring 2009. The update will give notebooks two new variants of chips, a P88000 running at 2.66GHz and a T9900 with 3.06GHz. These next Montevina chips will be the last ones Intel produces before it turns to its Core i7 architecture – but that switch-up is at least a year down the line, and who’s going to put off laptop buying for that long? [Apple Insider]
If you’re somebody who thinks that your notebook computer should be able to run performance-hungry games like Crysis at 60fps with everything jacked up to 11, then you’ll probably be pleased to know that Intel will be producing at least one quad-core chip for notebooks by the third quarter of this year. The new chip, rumoured to be called the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, will be built using the latest 45nm technology, and it will come out some time after the Centrino 2 platform appears in Q2.
Of course, it was only a few weeks ago that Intel officially announced Atom, a very low-power processor that should be popular for sub-notebooks like the Eee PC and other devices in which battery life is at a premium. [IDG/Good Gear Guide]
The chaps over at Hot Hardware have put the Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 processor, which belongs to the (45nm) Wolfdale line, through its paces, and they sure were impressed. From their extensive testing, the processor, intended for desktop machines and ideal for gaming especially, did not seem to make any massive changes on an architectural level, however, small adjustments had a great overall effect on performance. The 6MB of L2 cache brought an impressive speed boost, while the power consumption and heat production levels both fell.
The fantastic Vaio Type T may have lost its thin crown to another laptop, but Sony has rejigged its slimline notebook, giving it a faster CPU, an ultra-low-voltage Core 2 Duo U7600 running at 1.2GHz and a fancy-pants artsy finish. No word on pricing or availability yet. [Akihabara News]
