Intel's Penryns, IT industry's new black

Feb 6, 2008 09:19 GMT  ·  By

Intel rolled out its first batch of mobile Penryn processors back in January, but laptop vendors did not haste in implementing them into their existing models. Well, since patience usually pays off, more and more laptops hit the market with the new Penryn heart pumping harder.

Toshiba today has announced that its flagship gaming notebook series - the Satellite X205 - will be available in a much powerful configuration, including the new Intel 45nm processors and Nvidia SLI technology. The Satellite X205-SLI notebook comes with more than the faster, more powerful and more energy-efficient processor. It also includes Nvidia's SLI graphics with dual Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics processing units.

The Nvidia technology allows two or more graphics cards to work in tandem, thus improving the graphics computing speed, a time-critical objective in high-end and professional gaming. SLI-enabled gaming computers are able to render life-like visual effects with state-of-the-art image quality. It also allows users enjoy constant frame rates at extremely high resolutions.

The gaming laptop has undergone further improvements. The Satellite X205 series comes with two hard drives instead of a single unit for a total of 320GB of storage. Of course the two disks can be used as stand-alone or linked in a RAID configuration, for either improved speeds or data redundancy. The disks spin at 7200 rotations per minute to improve gaming speed and accurate rendering of high definition content.

Multimedia fans will enjoy the built-in a next-generation HD DVD drive to meet their high-definition dreams. In case you were wondering why did Toshiba include a HD-DVD player, and not a Blu-Ray unit, the answer is simple: Toshiba is one of the backers of the HD-DVD format.

Both the 17-inch X205-SLI2 and the SLI4 models are powered by a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T8100 processor , but while the former sells for $1,999.99, the latter

The 17-inch X205-SLi2 is powered by a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T8100 processor and sells for $1,999.99, while the Sli4 model ups the ante for a $2,499.99 price tag, but offers 1GB of extra RAM memory and a USB HDTV tuner.