GeForce

How big can an ultrabook be before it stops seeming like one? Back at CES, the Acer Timeline Ultra M3 looked like a lot of other Acer Timelines: thin and full-featured, but not particularly "ultrabooky."

A few months later, we got some in-depth hands-on time with the Acer Timeline Ultra M3-581TG, featuring impressive Nvidia graphics and last-gen Intel processors. It turns out that that M3 won't see the light of day in the U.S., but its successor -- the Timeline Ultra M5 -- will, and it'll be available to order by the end of June.

Read our first take of the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5.… Read more

Back at CES 2012, we got our first glimpse of Samsung's new gaming laptop, the Series 7 Gamer, tucked away at Samsung's booth with little fanfare. That laptop is finally available for purchase, and it features Intel's new Ivy Bridge processors and the latest Nvidia graphics in a package that's competitive with what other gaming PC makers are offering. … Read more

Graphics processor giant Nvidia has posted on Facebook a shadowy image of its "eye" logo on a graphics card processor (or other related chip) with the decree: "It's coming."

A stream of rumors began to flow after the cryptic Facebook posting by Nvidia, but PC enthusiast blog SweClockers wrote that several independent, reputable sources say the upcoming Nvidia announcement coincides with the anticipated launch of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 690, a dual-core graphics card that employs two very powerful GK104 graphics processing units.

The Swedish blog mentions that the GTX 690 release falls between April 30 and May 5, a period directly after the launch of Intel's Ivy Bridge chips that emphasize graphics and multimedia processing.

(Via Kotaku)… Read more

Are you ready for large-screen ultrabooks? Well, hopefully the answer's "yes," because they're coming to stores whether you like it or not. The differentiating factors on what constituted an ultrabook -- thin, portable, power efficient, SSD, no optical drive, lack of dedicated "high-end" graphics, longer battery life -- have started to go out the window. Witness the 15-inch Samsung Series 9 and HP Envy 14 Spectre, for starters.

As far as the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3-581TG is concerned, it may make you question your entire perception of the category. DVD drive? Check. Dedicated high-end Nvidia graphics? Check. Larger hard drive options? Check. Portable? Well, not exactly, compared to 13-inch ultrabooks. The Ultra M3 is 4.4 pounds, but it is .79 inches thick. Of all of these, the biggest novelty of this Timeline is that it's the first ultrabook (as defined by Intel) to feature Nvidia graphics. It won't be the last.… Read more

Is the new Acer ultrabook the writing on the wall for laptops this summer? If so, new, 15-inch class MacBooks could have Air-like thinness while offering bulked-up horsepower.

CNET Asia has gotten its hands on a powerful new ultrabook, the Aspire Timeline Ultra M3.

The M3 would easily stick out in a crowd of ultrabooks because of size alone: it has a 15-inch display (most ultrabooks to date are at most 14-inches and many of them smaller than that) though it's still slim, at just under 0.8 inches.

But where it really distinguishes itself is inside. There lies … Read more

The term "thin and light" has a flexible meaning in the laptop world. Currently, to be truly thin, a PC must be in the same range as the MacBook Air. Still, plenty of thicker 13-inch laptops still exist that would have been considered thin a few years ago, but seem merely normal today. The Asus U31SD-A1 is just that sort of laptop. Its thickness is more akin to a 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro, but Asus' laptop lacks an optical drive. We reviewed a nearly identical Asus U31JG laptop a few months ago, noting that it was a solid … Read more

A few years ago, the Acer TimelineX was one of the first of what we then called "thin and light" laptops, 13-inchers with sleeker, lighter frames, long battery life, and a more easily portable design than a standard notebook.

The TimelineX series still exists, and Acer's latest version features newer Intel second-gen Core i-series processors and impressive Nvidia graphics. Still, the landscape has expanded to include many thin laptops: the Sony Vaio S and Toshiba Portege R835, and the extremely thin Apple MacBook Air and Samsung Series 9. The $779 TimelineX 3830TG-6431 is thin, but not as … Read more

The high-end notebook graphics war is on for 2011. Nvidia was first to fire a shot a few weeks ago, unveiling the GeForce GTX 580M.

AMD has since counterpunched with the AMD Radeon HD 6990M, its new, most high-end laptop graphics card, which the company now claims, as Nvidia did weeks ago, is the "fastest notebook GPU." This time, the edge indeed seems to belong to AMD. The company boasts a 25 percent improvement over the next-fastest notebook GPU. According to slides from AMD showing head-to-head performance benchmarks versus the GeForce GTX 580M, that statement seems to hold … Read more

Today Nvidia unveiled its latest high-end laptop GPUs, the GTX 570M and 580M. That's not a huge surprise: the new GTX cards round out the "500 series" of GT and GTX graphics that have been available throughout the year. One feature Nvidia's particularly touting is the GTX 580's Optimus automatic switching, which should offer up "5 hours of battery life in Facebook," in case you measure your juice through social networking.

Nvidia promises that the GTX 580M is the fastest laptop graphics card anywhere, ever--the benchmark comparisons were leveled against the AMD Radeon … Read more