14 DAY TRIAL // Recently, MSI tried to build hype around its future Sandy Bridge packing notebooks by touting their solutions as the fastest gaming laptops around, but the company failed to mention one of these offerings, the GX680 to be more specific, will be built using the yet-unreleased mobile version of AMD's HD 6870 graphics card.
According to Fudzilla, the GPU will be accompanied by 1GB of GDDR5 memory as well as a quad-core Core i7 2630QM Sandy Bridge processor that runs at 2.2GHz, its operating frequency being further increased by Intel's proprietary Turbo Boost technology that adjusts clock speed depending on the task being run.
Furthermore, the 15.6-inch notebook will use a 1920x1080 Full HD panel as well as 8GB of DDR3 memory and a 750GB hard drive.
According to the same website, the specs list will also include an Intel Condor Peak 1000 wireless card with 802.11 b/g/n support and a multi-touch trackpad, the operating system of choice being Windows 7 Home Premium.
However, its most impressive feature is the still-unannounced HD 6870 graphics card, as AMD has not disclosed any details about this GPU until now.
If we were to judge by the desktop HD 6800 graphics card series, these new chips should be built on top of the Barts architecture and feature 1120 stream processors.
However, this is highly unlikely to happen, as AMD's previous HD 5800 mobile graphics were actually based on the Juniper architecture and not Cypress as their name implied.
As a result, these came with a lower stream processor count as well as with fewer ROP and texturing units, so I expect something similar to happen with the mobile version of the HD 6800 series chips.
The MSI GX680 gaming notebook ships with a notebook bag, mouse and Assassin's Creed II game.
The laptop should become available sometime in the February/March timeframe, pricing being allegedly set at €1,799.