Behold the Samsung MD23 Three Screen LCD Monitor, aka MD230X3. You’re about to see this beast showcased tethered with an ATI video card and in the three monitor configuration showcasing EyeFinity (not sure which version) format. What Eyefinity format is is a driver format through ATI Catalyst that allows your computer to work with a three-screen monitor setup. Wait, how big is that, you ask? 5760 x 1080 resolution. As Vince says – “monstrous.”
You can do a three-screen configuration OR a SIX-screen configuration if you wish, the six screen configuration giving you 5760 x 2160 resolution. That’s one big gigantic freaking monitor setup. And you can buy it in either three or six screen configurations. That’s absolute madness. What kind of person would be able to use such a gigantic setup? You? What would you do with it? Take a look at the video of Vince checking the situation out at PEPCOM.
Behold the Samsung MD23 Three Screen LCD Monitor, aka MD230X3. You’re about to see this beast showcased tethered with an ATI video card and in the three monitor configuration showcasing EyeFinity (not sure which version) format. What Eyefinity format is is a driver format through ATI Catalyst that allows your computer to work with a three-screen monitor setup. Wait, how big is that, you ask? 5760 x 1080 resolution. As Vince says – “monstrous.”
You can do a three-screen configuration OR a SIX-screen configuration if you wish, the six screen configuration giving you 5760 x 2160 resolution. That’s one big gigantic freaking monitor setup. And you can buy it in either three or six screen configurations. That’s absolute madness. What kind of person would be able to use such a gigantic setup? You? What would you do with it? Take a look at the video of Vince checking the situation out at PEPCOM.
New details on AMD’s Radeon HD 6900 series graphics cards have been squeezed out over the weekend, with live shots of the Radeon HD 6970 arriving at ZOL together with some early specifications at Fudzilla. According to the leaks, the Cayman-based video card will tote 1,536 stream processors, along with 32 ROPs, 96 texture units and a full 2GB of GDDR5 memory.
Connectivity, meanwhile, includes two DVI ports, two Mini DisplayPorts, and an HDMI port. That makes for more options than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, while TDP is also tipped to be lower than the NVIDIA card.
However, it seems we may have to wait a little longer for the Radeon HD 6970 to arrive. According to Expreview. AMD initially planned to release the new card on November 22, but delays in developing the new BIOS and drivers means the HD 6970 will likely miss that date.
For many years there were no factory overclocked video cards from ATI partners. If you wanted an ATI card with more performance, you had to do the overclocking yourself. Over the last, few years there have started to be a number of factory overclocked ATI cards on the market for the folks that don’t have the time or inclination to overclock themselves.
The latest overclocked card using ATI/AMD hardware inside has been unveiled from Club 3D. The card is a Radeon HD 6850 Overclocked edition (PDF). The card comes out of the box with better performance than the stock part. The notable changes for the overclocked card are a GPU clock of 820MHz and memory clock of 4400MHz.
Other than the overclocked RAM and GPU the card is the same as other 6850′s on the market. It has HDMI output, DisplayPort output, and two DVI-D outputs. The cooling solution has fans and the card is a two-slot unit. Pricing and availability are unknown.
Acer’s Aspire 8943G notebook is about as far from the company’s budget netbooks as you could get in a computer and yet still have a battery. A sizeable desktop replacement, with slick, minimalist design and high quality materials, the Aspire 8943G doesn’t stint on specifications, either, with an Intel Core i7 CPU and lashings of RAM. Can an Acer PC really compete, not just on performance but aesthetics too, with Apple’s well-esteemed MacBook Pro line? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.
Hardware & Design
You can’t accuse Acer of stinting on the core specifications. The Aspire 8943G packs Intel’s 1.73GHz quad-core Core i7-740QM, paired with 8GB of DDR3 memory and Radeon HD 5850 graphics with 2GB of dedicated memory. Storage is a single 500GB 5,400rpm hard-drive, and the display is an 18.4-inch LCD running at 1920 x 1080. Acer quote 220-nit brightness and 8ms contrast ratio, and the screen is certainly bright and clear, with sharpness that puts other notebooks to shame. A webcam is embedded in the bezel, and there’s a combo Blu-ray player and DVD burner.
Connectivity, meanwhile, includes WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR as standard, along with gigabit ethernet, HDMI, VGA, FireWire, eSATA, five USB 2.0 ports, audio in/out, S/PDIF and a 5-in-1 multiformat memory card reader. Acer has found space for five separate speakers and a subwoofer in the Aspire 8943G’s chassis, for surround sound, and there’s 5.1-channel output for those wanting to use an external speaker setup. The built-in set outperform the HP Beats Edition speakers found in some of HP’s high-end notebooks.
So far so good, but it’s the quality and design of Acer’s chassis that really impresses. Swathes of high-quality brushed aluminum cover help with a truly premium feel, and the full-size, 103-key keyboard (with separate numeric keypad) is one of the best we’ve used on a notebook. There’s no flex whatsoever in the keyboard tray, leading to a really solid typing experience.
Underneath is a decent sized, glossy trackpad supporting multitouch gestures like two-finger scrolling, pinch-zoom, rotate and flip. It’s crisp and responsive. However it also doubles as a media console panel, with backlit buttons for movie and music app shortcuts, play/pause, stop, previous and next. Considering the Aspire 8943G’s multimedia aspirations, it’s a useful addition and works surprisingly well.
Software
The Aspire 8943G runs Windows 7 Home Premium, but Acer seem intent on weighing the notebook down with as many add-ons, trials and general bloatware as possible. There are a full nine Acer apps – ranging from webcam tools, update managers and remote-support – then add-ons from Google, Adobe and Windows Live Essentials. Microsoft’s Works, Silverlight and a 60-day Office trial, a trial of McAfee Internet Security, North Online Backup, NTI Media Maker, Skype and eSobi round out the rest.
We’ve no doubt that the Core i7 processor and sizeable chunk of RAM can handle the bloat, but it adds up to a poor user experience and a machine that feels cluttered even on first boot. Acer obviously make some money from preloading the trials and other apps, which we can accept somewhat when it deals with the budget end of the company’s range, but on what’s meant to be a premium machine we’re less forgiving.
Performance
We began our benchmarking with Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance. The Acer Aspire 8943G scored 5850, with particularly strong processor scores. That’s around 500 points less than the mid-2010 2.66GHz Core i7 MacBook Pro we reviewed in April 2010, which had half the RAM of the Acer but a faster processor.
Benchmark Score – Acer Aspire 8943G
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Integer
Processor integer performance
5904
5850
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
6918
Memory
Memory performance
5029
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
3567
We then turned to PCMark Vantage, which looks at various categories of PC use and rates system performance in each. Overall, the Aspire 8943G scored 6053, with particularly strengths in gaming (6000), music (4831) and productivity (4752).
The Acer’s strength is in its multitasking abilities. Since it has a quad-core processor (unlike the dual-core MacBook Pro CPU) any multi-threaded tasks will run faster on the Aspire 8943G. That means it’s particularly adept when it comes to video processing, especially with the capable ATI GPU on board. Still, it can be a loud system: the Blu-ray drive itself is quiet, but the system fan kicked in periodically throughout movie playback, and it’s a noticeable hum. Similarly, the fan was running continuously – and loudly – during graphics-intensive gaming.
Battery Life
Acer’s eight-cell lithium-ion battery may add considerably to the Aspire 8943G’s 10.1 pound weight, but with the high-performance components the runtime estimates are modest. Acer suggest up to 3 hours from a full charge; in practice, we managed 2.5 hours consisting of an hour of Blu-ray playback, 30 minutes of gaming and the remainder browsing over WiFi.
The Core i7 MacBook Pro is rated by Apple for over twice the runtime as the Acer, though we found that with reasonable use it could manage around four hours. In short, if you’re looking to take advantage of the high-end specifications of the Aspire 8943G, you should probably find an AC socket first.
Verdict
With an RRP of $1,599 (and a street price roughly $100 less) you’re getting plenty of laptop for your money with the Acer Aspire 8943G. Yes, the Core i7 MacBook Pro edges ahead in raw benchmarks, but it’s also significantly more expensive; the review unit we tested in April cost $2,199. Video editing and gaming should make better use of the Acer’s quad-core processor, too.
There are a few disappointing omissions – the lack of USB 3.0 ports being one of them – and we wish Acer had used a 7,200rpm hard-drive rather than the 5,400rpm model that’s fitted as standard, but it’s hard to pick holes otherwise. Stylish, solidly-constructed and powerful, if you’re in the market for a Windows-based desktop replacement then the Acer Aspire 8943G should be near the top of your shortlist.
With the latest video cards from AMD hitting the market late last week, it’s natural that we see more and more makers offering up their own branded version of those new video cards. MSI has pulled the wraps off its own R6850 and R6870 video cars for gamers to peruse.
The new video cards both support stereoscopic 3D and Eyefinity multiple displays. The cards also use the exclusive MSI Afterburner software for adjusting the speed of the fans and setting saved profiles. All of the capacitors on the cards are solid state and the video cards are designed for performance and power.
MSI puts DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a ports on the cards and they both support 7.1 channel sound. The 6850 has a special 9cm fan and direct heat pipe tech for heat dissipation and better thermal performance. Pricing is unannounced at this time.
Today marks the launch of the new AMD Radeon video cards and XFX has pulled the wraps off new HD 6870 and 6850 video cards for gamers. The new cards have many nice features including support for 3D gaming with DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a ports on the cards. The cards support 120Hz frame rates for use with active 3D glasses.
Both of the cards are DirectX 11 compliant and has 1GB of GDDR5 RAM onboard. The core speed of the 6850 is 775MHz and the core of the 6870 runs at 900MHz. The shaders in the cards are clocked at 800MHz in the 6850 and 960MHz in the 6870 card for better performance.
Both of the new video cards support 3D Blu-ray movies and have AMD EyeSpeed video acceleration tech for better video quality and performance no matter the source. The new cards also support AMD CrossFireX technology and have AMD parallel processing technology.
We’ve had our fair share of beastly desktops on the SlashGear test bench, but the Acer Predator AG5900-U3092 probably has the most distinctive design. Etched with bright orange pinstripes, the new Predator is pretty striking for its internal components too: an Intel Core i7 chip, fast ATI graphics and more. Check out the full SlashGear review of this $1,350 gaming PC after the cut.
Acer’s Predator range has been through a few iterations now, each putting high-end hardware into an eye-catching case and promising a generally budget-friendly alternative to rival machines from Alienware and others. The AG5900-U3092 is a little less eye-searing in its color scheme – previous Predators have been all-orange, with shifting drive bay panels and odd mechanical flaps – but it’s still solidly made and has a little theater in its design. The DVD burner, for instance, opens up like a Predator’s mouth.
Inside, Acer has paired Intel’s 2.93GHz Core i7-870 processor with 8GB of DDR3 1333 memory, a 1.5TB 7,200rpm hard-drive and ATI Radeon HD 5850 video card with 1GB of its own memory. There’s also a 16x DVD burner, integrated audio and gigabit ethernet, and two spare PCI-E x1 slots and a single PCI slot. Connectivity includes four USB 2.0 ports on the front, eight on the back, two PS/2, three audio ports and a multi-format memory card reader. No integrated WiFi, but Acer do throw in a USB keyboard and optical mouse, while the OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.
Considering it’s a reasonably large chassis, there’s understandably a decent amount of upgrade potential in the Predator. Two hard-drives slot in at the front on simple tray-style bays, though while it’s easy to access the trays, they’re not hot-swappable. Open the left-hand panel, meanwhile, and there are another two 3.5-inch drive bays, this time facing out toward the side. The molded plastic top section of the chassis angles the USB and audio in/out ports up, useful considering the PC will mostly likely be sat on the floor under a desk, and also has a tray which can hold your iPod or other gadget while it charges.
Power on, and one thing is clear: Acer has sold a fair chunk of its soul to the bloatware devil. As well as the usual McAfee and Office 2010 trials, Netflix, eSobi and WildTangent have got their claws into the Predator, and then there’s Adobe and Acer’s own tools. Yes, some users might find them useful, but we’ve a feeling most will, like us, consider them pointless annoyances and have to spend a not-insignificant length of time uninstalling them.
When we’d done that, we turned to benchmarking. Our first step was Geekbench, a synthetic test of process and memory performance we run on all desktop and notebook systems. The Predator AG5900 scored 9,315, with particularly strong CPU performance as you’d expect.
That puts it certainly higher than most desktops, though it falls short of some of the more spec-heavy gaming models we’ve tested in recent times. iBUYPOWER’s beastly Paladin F Series – which we reviewed all the way back in March – scores more than 50-percent more, at 15,710, with its hexacore Core i7-980 Extreme CPU; it’s also more than twice the price of the Acer, however. It’s worth noting that the Predator’s fans are reasonably quiet, even when the system is under full load.
We then looked to PCMark Vantage for some more in-depth testing. Overall, the Acer scored 8,986 PCMarks, with unsurprisingly high scores in the gaming (9,766) category. Again, that’s well under half what the iBUYPOWER system managed, but it’s also worth noting that in the test games we looked at, we had no problems running the most recent titles at maximum resolution. Yes, the Predator isn’t the fastest machine out there, but right now it doesn’t have to be in order to make it comfortably equipped for what owners might be throwing at it.
In the end, it’s the balance between price and performance that makes the Acer Predator AG5900-U3092 a strong contender. There are undoubtedly more powerful gaming PCs on the market, but they generally can’t match Acer’s pricing; at $1,349.99, it’s a few hundred dollars cheaper than a similarly specified Alienware desktop. We’d liked to have seen USB 3.0 as standard, and hot-swappable drive bays, though the Predator isn’t a server and the latter probably isn’t something most owners would miss. Acer’s Predator-series chassis designs might be pretty crazy, but the AG5900 is actually a reasonably sensible buy.
It seems that the bigger you get in the gaming laptop market, the faster the beautiful aesthetics drop off. The new GSN801GAW gaming laptop from Lesance follows this trend, packing enough power in the features department for anyone looking for their next gaming laptop to give it a second look, but it certainly won’t be winning any beauty pageants any time soon.
Like most gaming rigs, the Lesance GSN801GAW is a powerhouse. Featuring an 18.4-inch display, with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, and Windows 7 Home Premium under the hood, you’ll get to enjoy your video games in glorious HD. Inside, you’ll be able to take advantage of the quad-core 1.73GHz Intel Core i7 940XM Extreme Edition CPU, as well as 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory. If you aren’t happy with the choice of NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 480M (2GB) for your graphics needs, then you can also choose to have two ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870s in CrossFire.
Lesance also went with 160GB of SSD, a multicard reader, HDMI and DVI output, integrated WiFi, a gigabit Ethernet port, and a webcam built-in. There’s even a Blu-ray burner, too. The battery won’t last you very long off the charger, though, as it’s clocked at 1.5 hours. It also weighs just over 12 pounds. It’s expected to land in Japan here shortly, with a price tag of 439,800 yen, or about $5,420.
HPs ENVY range of laptops have always been eye-catching, but their latest ENVY 17 3D takes that up a step by packing 3D support too. We caught up with the 17.3-inch Full HD notebook this week, and it’s certainly a beast of a machine: plenty of metal in the chassis, a quadcore Intel Core i7-720QM processor, 2TB of storage and a slot-loading Blu-ray drive.
The 3D system uses HP’s active shutter glasses, which – like with some 3D HDTVs – rapidly cycle the transparency of the lenses according to an emitter in the bezel of the notebook. Graphics are courtesy of an ATI Mobility Radeon 5850 GPU, and there’s Beats Audio for sound with power to match.
It’s not a machine we’d like to carry around with us daily – it’s 7.15lbs of desktop replacement, after all – but the 3D effect works well and the various apps we loaded all opened instantly. The backlit chiclet keyboard feels solid and, despite the relative slenderness of the chassis, the whole thing is flex-free. We’re waiting to hear back on official pricing (“from £1,599″ is the HP line, but this particular machine is spec’d up considerably) but it should drop around the end of this month.
We then turned to PCMark Vantage, which looks at various categories of PC use and rates system performance in each. Overall, the Aspire 8943G scored 6053, with particularly strengths in gaming (6000), music (4831) and productivity (4752).
We then looked to PCMark Vantage for some more in-depth testing. Overall, the Acer scored 8,986 PCMarks, with unsurprisingly high scores in the gaming (9,766) category. Again, that’s well under half what the iBUYPOWER system managed, but it’s also worth noting that in the test games we looked at, we had no problems running the most recent titles at maximum resolution. Yes, the Predator isn’t the fastest machine out there, but right now it doesn’t have to be in order to make it comfortably equipped for what owners might be throwing at it.
