Reviews / Xtreme 770 - What Laptop

Mobile News - Don·t play games, PLAY games – Has nVidia launched the best ever graphics card?

Mobile gaming is still seen as a niche area of laptop computing, but it·s quickly growing in popularity and the introduction of the nVidia GeForce 8800M GTX will only speed things up. This mobile variant of the desktop graphics card delivers over twice the performance of the previous generation of nVidia cards.

With 700 million transistors – almost double the number you·ll find on a dual-core CPU – this graphics processing unit manages to fit a 256-bit memory interface, 512MB of DDR3 dedicated memory and 500MHz core speed into the 65nm die size. With 96 stream processors on the 8800M GTX and 64 on the GS version, as opposed to 32 on the GeForce 8700M, you·ll see the difference as soon as you start to play.

This all adds up to the fastest GPU currently available in laptops and closes the gap between desktop and mobile performance. It is capable of handling the latest DirectX 10 games without the user needing to turn down the resolution or switch off the anti-aliasing.

A powerful gaming card needs a matching powerful machine and Rock, who specialise in gaming laptops, is the official launch partner and has opted to offer the 8800M GTX in its performance Xtreme 770 chassis. WL saw a pre-release sample running BioShock at full resolution without a hint of lag or jagging.

Alongside Rock·s standard three-year warranty, which could save you a lot of heartache if you·re using this machine for tournaments, you can now opt to upgrade the 17-inch screen to a WUXGA (1,920 x 1,200 pixel) panel. Pricing starts at £1799 (inc. VAT). Along with the nVidia GeForce 8800M GTX card is a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, 2GB of memory, 100GB (7200rpm) HDD, WSXGA Super-TFT panel and Windows Vista Home Premium.