What Intel's Extreme Quad Core means for ThinkPad W700

Intel talked up its supercharged processor at the Montevina unveiling last month, but now the first notebooks with it are making their way to the public.

Some people have wondered if four processing cores inside a laptop is overkill, but Lenovo clearly doesn't think so.

Lenovo's ThinkPad W700 is the first to market with the Core 2 Extreme Quad Core processor. As you might imagine, this isn't one of those thin-and-light notebooks the industry is so high on. Nope, the W700 is a mobile workstation, but "mobile" isn't really the emphasis here.

"This isn't meant to be a mobile workstation--it's mean to be a workstation," said Wes Williams, Lenovo's chief ThinkPad marketing manager. "When you do need to be on the go, it means you can take it with you-- don't need two systems anymore."

Besides being a 17-inch notebook, it comes with the option of dual hard drives with RAID configurations, and an optional Blu-ray burner/player. Not only does that mean this beast is on the heavier side, you probably don't want all those cores churning away on your lap either.

The W700 is aimed at creative professionals and content producers, and has a built-in digitizer and a color calibrator to go along with its 17-inch screen. It comes with Nvidia's Quadro FX mobile graphics processor, which has 1GB of dedicated video memory.

Falcon Northwest has been using mobile quad-core processors before this, but Lenovo is first with Intel's offering. Keep an eye out for other vendors sure to follow soon.