You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
One of the strongest gaming laptops of 2012 had to be the MSI GT70. Like all machines of its type, it was huge, oversized and ridiculously heavy — but it trumped many of the category’s biggest faults by being superbly crafted, surprisingly long-lasting and by boasting the bleeding edge of tech: an Ivy Bridge CPU. It was a darn good machine, so it’s no surprise that MSI is hoping for a repeat performance. Meet the GT70 Dragon Edition: a Haswell-toting, 17-inch gaming laptop with all the trappings of its predecessor. It’s actually the second GT70 to adopt the Dragon moniker, but the first to pack Intel’s fourth-generation Core processors. NVIDIA’s latest mobile GPU is here too, not to mention notable OS upgrades, port tweaks and a mystical new motif. Let’s dive in and see if MSI’s encore deserves a standing ovation.
Gallery: MSI GT70 Dragon Edition review
With Computex just around the corner, MSI has taken the wraps off what can truly be described as a next-gen gaming laptop. According to CNET, the 17.3-inch GT70 Dragon Edition 2 will pack a yet-to-be-announced Haswell chip alongside an equally mysterious NVIDIA GTX780M GPU that is claimed to deliver a 3DMark Vantage score of 36,000 — in other words, roughly equivalent to the benchmark stat you’d get from a desktop rig containing an Ivy Bridge Core-i5 and a full-size GTX670, if the boast happens to be true. A SteelSeries-branded keyboard is in attendance, alongside multiple SSDs in Raid 0 config and three video outputs, all contained within a 21.8mm-thick package that weighs 2.9kg (6.4 pounds). Lesser variations will bring the weight down to 2kg (4.4 pounds) by reducing screen size to 14 inches and switching to a less frenetic GTX760M. Expect pricing and availability details once the big Taiwanese expo gets underway.
Filed under: Gaming, Laptops, Intel
Source: CNET
MSI introduced the GT60 and GT70 notebooks in March, and the latter has already received an upgrade to NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 675M GPU. Now both laptops are taking another step up, this time to the GeForce GTX 680M, NVIDIA’s latest GPU, with 4GB of dedicated memory. The refreshed 16-inch GT60 and 17-inch GT70 are available in the US today for $1,899 and $2,599, respectively. Specs remain the same aside from the revved-up GPU; both models come standard with an Intel Core i7-3610QM CPU, a 1,920 x 1,080 display, HDMI output, a Killer E2200 LAN card and three USB 3.0 ports. For more info, head to the press release below the break.
MSI GT60 and GT70 gaming laptops get NVIDIA GTX 680M graphics, available now from $1,899 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 18:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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