A star-spangled laptop
Six weeks ago, we told you about the Xtreme Notebooks 917V, one of the very first laptops purporting to offer quad-core computing, featuring the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 and Q6700 CPUs. While this was an xtremely interesting development, as our colleague Matt Elliott sagely pondered: "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." Other vendors agreed, and even wrote in to let us know that these quad-core chips were not officially supported by Clevo, the manufacturer of the chassis used in the Xtreme Accelerator 917V.
We figured we'd wait until this 12-pound monster showed up in our Lab before passing judgment. It was certainly hard to miss when it did show up. As illustrated above, the entire system was decked out in a bizarre American flag pattern, complete with stars printed right on the wrist rest. We didn't see a flag option on the Xtreme Notebooks Web site, so we figure this is an example of the company's offer to paint the system and put any graphic you want on it for $389 (on top of a base price of $3,199).
That doesn't look right...
Checking out new hardware is always exciting, especially when it breaks new ground, like stuffing a desktop quad-core CPU into a laptop. Equally disappointing, however, is booting up a system like that and running into immediate problems. Our Xtreme 917V had an unusual quirk--it ran fine when plugged in, but the screen image broke up whenever we pulled the plug and attempted to run it off of the battery.
After some elementary troubleshooting, we decided to cut our losses and ship the system back to the vendor for repair before benchmarking it, so it'll be at least several more days before we can tell you about our first experience with a quad-core laptop. Doubtless, you're just as eager to find out as we are, so we certainly hope they'll be xtremely quick in getting it back to us.
Against the OEM's wishes, the Accelerator 917V features a quad-core CPU.
(Credit: Xtreme Notebooks)After last week's post about Xtreme Notebooks squeezing a quad-core processor inside a laptop, another small laptop vendor, ProStar Computer, contacted me to say such a feat is impossible. In his email, the ProStar rep claims that Clevo, the manufacturer of the chassis used in the Xtreme Accelerator 917V, has not approved any quad-core processors for use inside the Clevo D900C. To my eyes, it looks like the Accelerator 917V uses the gray D901C chassis. Either way, the product pages for both Clevo chassis list the supported CPUs as Core 2 Duo E6300/E6400, E6600/E6700, and the Core 2 Extreme X6800. No Core 2 Quad in sight.
I contacted Allen Hsieh, Clevo's Director of U.S. Sales, who told me that, indeed, it's true--the company has yet to approve quad-core chips for this platform. I can see why, as a quad-core desktop chip runs hotter than a more efficient laptop part with fewer cores and a lower clockspeed. Then again, the supported Core 2 Extreme chip is clocked at 2.93GHz, which is higher than the either of the Core 2 Quad chips, the 2.4GHz Q6600 or the 2.66GHz Q6700, Xtreme Notebooks offers on the Accelerator 917V. Plus, if Xtreme Notebooks is willing to assume the risk of selling (and supporting) such a system, what's stopping them?
When I contacted Xtreme Notebooks regarding this matter, the company's president, Steven Nichols, assured me that he is selling this quad-core laptop and has already, in fact, shipped a number out to customers. And he promised that CNET would have a review unit in its labs within a couple weeks.
While it appears the Accelerator 917V is for real (it's listed for sale here, after all), I would urge a little caution to those considering this system, since the OEM of the chassis hasn't approved anything more than a dual-core CPU. We'll know more once we're able to run the Accelerator 917V through our tests and get a feeling for its stability. It's not like you're running any software that's crying out for four processing cores anyway. Give it a couple of weeks and hopefully, we'll have a full rundown of its performance and thermal output.
(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)
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