Eurocom releases a gaming notebook

NOTEBOOK MAKER Eurocom has released a fairly heavy duty "mobile workstation" that uses either ATI HD5870 Crossfirex or Nvidia GTX480M discrete graphics.

The X8100 Leopard mobile workstation claims to provide workstation-caliber performance with powerful graphics capabilities and high performance storage on the move.

It features an Intel Core i7 Extreme processor and four SATA hard drives that can be set up in RAID 0/1/5/10 configurations.

It offers 64-bit workstation-class performance and functionality in a notebook PC package.

It seems that Eurocom is banking on a business trend where traditional PCs are scrapped in favour of more portable desktop replacement notebooks. But one of the differences with this is that Eurocom apparently thinks there are good prospects for really high end business portables.

The X8100 Leopard notebook has two ATI Radeon mobile HD5870 cards running in Crossfirex, a single Nvidia GTX480M card or an assortment of other Nvidia GeForce or Quadro cards running in single or SLI configurations. Eurocom claims the X8100 Leopard can offer the perfect graphics configuration for any task.

There are five different Nvidia graphics cards supported. These are the GeForce GTX285M or GTS360M both with 1GB of GDDR3 memory, the GTX480M with 2GB of GDDR5 for high-performance PC gaming, and the Quadro FX2800 or FX3800M both with 1GB of GDDR3.

Because users can select either a single graphics card or two in Nvidia SLI or ATI Crossfirex pairings, Eurocom says the X8100 Leopard offers huge gaming performance and image quality.

The X8100 Leopard uses the MXM-IIIb (Mobile PCI Express Module) technology for easy upgradeability to new generations of graphics technology and it can use a wide range PCI Express system graphics solutions as quickly as desktop PCs.

According to Eurocom the X8100 Leopard supports a variety of 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems including Microsoft Windows 7 and XP [what, no Vista? Ed], Microsoft Server 2008, as well as Red Hat, Ubuntu, and other Linux distributions.

The notebook also has an unusual LED lighting system. This system enables users to customise the colour illumination of hotkeys, front and rear cooling vents, touchpad surround, and the back cover logo. Colour options include blue, green, red, white and yellow.

There are four USB ports available, one of which is a combined eSATA/USB interface. In addition you'll find a DVI-port and two HDMI ports - HDMI-in and HDMI-out.

The left side houses the DVI port, 2x USB 2.0, HDMI, Card Reader, LAN-port, a Firewire port, the optical drive, and an ExpressCard slot.

The right side provides an antenna port for an optional TV-card, 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB2.0/eSATA, Kensington security and the audio ports.

The X8100 is equipped with an 18.4-inch LCD screen with 'Full HD' resolution of 1920x1080 pixels with maximum brightness of 220cd/m2 and maximum contrast of 595:1.

There's no word on pricing or a release date in the UK as yet. µ