Back in the days, portable computer systems were only good at providing the very basic in computing experience, allowing users to connect to the Internet, listen to music, and do some office tasks. However, in the case of more powerful configurations, notebooks were even capable of providing some gaming support. Nowadays, the basic computing experience is provided by those small-sized, low-power and low-cost netbook systems that have taken the PC market by storm, while fully-fledged notebook systems have actually evolved towards becoming a high-performance desktop replacement.

 

Netbooks come with their pros and cons, but a certain technology that has been implemented in two distinct products from two different PC makers could actually improve the netbook's popularity among those PC users who, up to this moment, haven't been impressed by the new form factor.

Earlier this year, ASUS and Fujitsu-Siemens Computers launched the ROG XG Station and the GraphicBooster, respectively. These two products basically have the same functionality, namely that of providing a graphics upgrade to a portable computer system. However, Fujitsu-Siemens' solution has only been designed to work with the company's own AMILO Sa 3650 notebook, which doesn't seem like the best marketing decision, but then again, if you want a portable that is also good for gaming, this AMILO is probably the way to go.

 

A recent video surfaced on the Internet showcases just how much more FSC's GraphicBooster improves the graphics performance of the portable computer system. Connected to the afore-mentioned notebook system via a PCI Express 2.0 connection, the device enables users to enjoy one of the hottest games on the market, namely Crysis. As such, the performance of the netbook is improved by a whopping 470%, compared with the integrated Radeon HD 3200 graphics solution inside the AMILO notebook.

 

FSC's AMILO GraphicBooster is built on ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 3870 Premium Graphics with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. It provides 1 DVI-I and 1 HDMI graphics output, as well as two USB 2.0 ports. The external graphics solution is capable of powering up to 3 external displays simultaneously.