Product Reviews

NVidia's 7800 graphics processor took the desktop world by storm when it was released and allowed nVidia to take a healthy lead over the competition. Fortunately for notebook gamers it was quick to release a mobile version of the card. Previously we've seen a 7800 GTX in a large chassis with a desktop processor. Rock has combined it with a Pentium M processor in a more portable form.

It is still a large notebook, mainly due to its 17" display, but it is far less chunky than AJP's D900T-X, which we reviewed in What's New, January 2006. It's very well made, although we're not keen on the bright silver plastic. There's a full keyboard with number pad, and the keys themselves are firm and springy. The touch pad is large and accurate, but most people will plug in a mouse anyway.

The Xtreme CT 2.0GHz has all the usual ports, including four USB2 ports, and there's also DVI output for a projector or HDTV should the notebook's screen size prove

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inadequate. This isn't very likely, though, as the 17" widescreen display is perfectly suited to most tasks. The display walked through our standard image tests, and it was bright, clear and accurate. Testing with games software showed no appreciable motion blur from the panel, either. It's one of the best notebook displays we've seen and a worthy match for the 7800 GTX.

To test visual quality we used Call of Duty 2 (CoD2), as it has good widescreen support. We were impressed with the screen's ability to scale our selected resolution to its huge native one of 1,680x1,050. Running CoD2 at that resolution is possible, but you have to sacrifice effects such as anti-aliasing for a smooth experience.

The CT managed a blistering 85.2fps in our standard Doom 3 test at 1,024x768 in high quality with 4xAA. This puts it on a par with the desktop 7800 GTX systems in our recent test of gaming PCs. Cranking the settings up to 1,280x1,024 in Ultra detail still produced a super-smooth 61.9fps. These results show that this notebook will play any game in gorgeous detail for some time to come.

Application performance was less impressive. A score of 92 in our Shopper benchmarks was lower than expected, but still more than enough for day-to-day tasks. The smallish 60GB hard disk will force you to uninstall unused games from time to time.

It isn't a great all-rounder, but this notebook has performance where it counts and a great display. If you want a notebook to play all the latest games, the Xtreme CT is highly recommended.