Dual Core Laptops: This Isn’t Your Last Year’s Laptop!

The laptop world is seeing double. The next evolution in

laptops is dual-core technology. Dual-core processors are

quickly raising the laptop experience to the next level

and laptop users are benefiting from the extra boost in

performance.

Dual-core means exactly what you think it means, you have

two processors or CPUs in your laptop instead of one.

Theoretically this should mean twice the performance level

for all those multi-tasking chores we call upon our laptops

to do. However, you must have ways or technology (the

platform) to utilize and handle all this extra power. There

is some catching up to do but to keep things simple,

Hyper-Threading, PCI-Express and SLI are all ways of

harnessing or using this extra power.

With the recent introduction of the new Centrino Duo Mobile

Technology, Intel has entered the multi-core arena. All this

extra dual power and Hyper-Threading will finally put some

punch into laptops and especially gaming laptops. Now almost

on par with desktop PCs, laptops and notebooks can finally

hold their heads high when it comes to performance. This isn’t

your last year’s laptop!

How quickly things change, Intel expects the Core Duo chip

will be in 230 different laptop designs in the first months

of 2006. Intel also claims this Duo chip will deliver 68%

more performance over the current Sonoma processor (many

manufacturers say this will be around 30%) and reduce

battery consumption by another 28% (Giving 5 hours for

a standard battery and 10 hours for an extended cell battery).

Still, dual-core processors coupled with Hyper-Threading

technology, will and does greatly improve the multi-tasking

functions of your next laptop. The only minor hurdle, many

of today’s current video games can’t use all these multi-

applications features. But as more games come on stream

which can take full advantage of all this new technology,

expect your gaming enjoyment to increase. As with any new

technology there will probably be a lag time before all the

multi-applications can be applied to the majority of new

games hitting the market.

Some major laptop makers now sporting the Intel Core Duo

include Dell with its new “entertainment” Dell Inspiron e1705

line of high end laptops. HP with its Pavilion dv1000 line of

laptops, which comes with a remote and you can play CDs and

DVDs without booting up.

Nor is Intel the only player in town with a lot of chips on

the gaming table. Intel’s main rival AMD has introduced

dual-core into its mobile Turion 64 X2 processors. Also keep

in mind, in recent head-to-head CNET Labs testing, AMD’s Athlon

64 X2 chip performed better than Intel’s desktop Dual-Core chip.

http://www.cnet.com/4520-6022_1-6410042.html

You’re probably wondering, how will all this new laptop

technology be applied? And what does it mean for the average

laptop owner? What does it mean for gaming laptops?

Well, lets examine one sample notebook to see what all this next

generation technology will do for laptops. Take for example,

the Xtreme SL, a new gaming laptop designed by Rockdirect.

Rockdirect, formerly known as Rock computers, is a leading UK

laptop manufacturer who introduced some of the world’s first

dual core laptops last summer (2005).

Rockdirect’s latest gaming offering, the Xtreme SL has specs

or features which are rather awe-inspiring, even for the non-gamer.

It comes with an AMD Turion 64 ML-44 2.4GHz processor, sporting

1MB L2 Cache and 2 Gigs of DDR 400MHz RAM. More importantly, it

has twin NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 GTX 256MB graphics cards with

PCI-Express and SLI (Scalable Link Interface).

SLI lets you have two graphics cards on your laptop, working in

tangent to increase or double your graphics performance and

visual quality. Throw in a 19 inch WSXGA+ X-Glass TFT Screen

and you have a perfect example of where gaming laptops are

headed with all this new technology.

For those involved in gaming, this means the ultimate gaming

experience can be best captured on a laptop with Dual-core

processors and dual graphics cards using all the latest SLI or

Hyper-Threading technology. And it is just not for gamers.

The new mobile multi-core chips are turning heads for ordinary

laptop users who want the best performance possible in their

sleek shinny new laptops or notebooks.

Besides, why should gamers have all the fun, these new

technologies will greatly benefit all laptop users. It

means a sleeker, faster, and more powerful laptop for

everyone. It also means longer lasting battery life for

your laptop, a much needed improvement. For the demanding

laptop user working in multi-media authoring, multi-tasking

with video editing, spread sheets, large graphics… these

dual core laptops offers a very capable alternative to the

bulky and oh-so stationary desktop PC.

This new multi-core technology offers ultimate performance

in a sleek, quiet package that buyers will find hard to resist.

It will draw even more potential customers into the laptop market,

looking for the ultimate in style, portability, and performance.

Dual-core laptops may just deliver the goods.

This surely is not your last year’s laptop.

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