High Powered Gaming Moves to Notebook PCs

PC games that are resource intensive have been restricted to desktop systems until recently as portable devices were still not powerful enough to allow the games to run smoothly. Usually, these are 3D games that require a lot of CPU and graphics processing power. Even high-end laptop have been unable to meet such demands the same way as their desktop counterparts. Hence, consumers have found it difficult to bring their favorite 3D games along when on the move.

However, with the release of Intel's Core i7 processors, all that is about to change. The Intel Core i7 is a whole new generation of processors that runs on the X58 chipset.

The Core i7 platform offers support for triple-channel DDR3 memory. The way memory works on the new systems is also different. Traditionally, memory controller have been located outside the CPU. For improved performance, each core of the i7 processor now has an in-built memory controller. This allows communication of the CPU and the memory to operate at maximum efficiency.

When considering any computer system, the CPU, memory and graphics are the most important components for many gamers. For 3D games to run at optimal level, the system has to be equipped with adequate graphics processing power as well.

The first few generations of computer systems used the CPU to process graphics. After a few short years, the evolution of applications demanded more processing power. As a result, motherboard manufacturers started to offload all graphics processing activities to a dedicated piece of hardware - the graphics card. This allows graphics and video to be processed in a more specialized manner, thus greatly enhancing video capabilities.

With the surge of 3D and video applications, the demand for even more graphics processing power is increasing. To scale processing power, there are only two ways to go. The first option is to increase the speed values of the processor. For example, a 1.5 MHz CPU can be upgraded to a 2.0 MHz CPU. The second option is have more CPUs, sharing the workload. That is why we have dual core and quad core CPUs.

For the video card, the scaling process is similar. NVIDIA came up with a way to offer multi-GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) capabilities. They call this technology SLI. Unfortunately, not all motherboards offer SLI support automatically. Only higher-end models offer support for SLI.

The Toshiba Qosmio X305 notebook, aimed at gamers who require high-end graphics resources, comes with support for Triple-SLI. Triple-SLI means that there are three GPUs configured in the notebook. This is the first notebook that uses this configuration.

With such powerful configurations, gamers no longer have to worry about not being able to bring their favorite 3D games along with them while they travel.

About the Author: Gen Wright

For more information on the Toshiba Qosmio X305 Triple-SLI Gaming Notebook , please visit the Gadget Advisor blog.


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