Asus U36 with nvidia optimus @ www.engadget.com

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Gateway laptops with nvidia optimus and AMD Fusion configurations @ www.engadget.com

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Sentey GS-6000 Optimus Mid Tower Case Review

Legit Case Reviews

Sentey Optimus GS-6000 PC Case

Sentey is an up and coming company from the USA. Sentey would like to be an internationally known company with the idea of enhancing the PC builders experience in an ever growing world of technology. Sentey has a base philosophy of four words, performance, quality, innovation, and sustainability. We will take a look at the new Sentey Optimus GS-6000 to see if this affordable PC mid-tower case meets Sentey's own philosophy.

The Sentey GS-6000 Optimus chassis takes a dive into the under $50 range of mid-tower cases as it is currently priced at $49.99 with free shipping at Newegg .  We will see how much technology is in this Sentey case for the price. At first glance the case looks sharp and offers some nice features for the price. After the first glance let's see what this PC case has to offer that may help us build and transform our opinion of Sentey and the Optimus GS-6000.

The sub $50 price range should appease to the most any PC builder. Entry and novice builders should have an easy time building with this case and the fours fans that come installed on it. There is support for water cooling if an experienced builder wants an affordable case in which they can build their machines.

The Sentey Optimus GS-6000 comes only in black. There appears to be a modified version, GS-6000R that is also black but has a red outlining in the photograph on the Sentey site. Sentey classifies these cases in the subset of their extreme category. There are LED lights on some of the case fans for a gamers' delight

We never like to see a new item break down but sometimes it happens to the best of us. Sentey has a one year warranty that seems to be the norm with this category of PC case. The case seems to have a simple layout on the inside so one would think that this peace of mind won't need to be used no matter who the builder is.

This case is clearly for the budget friendly gamer. One who is looking to experiment with water cooling may want to take a look at this series. An entry level builder may also be happy with this case as a flashy first build. An advanced build may also take a long look at this case with the features that comes with it for the price. Below we will take a look at what Sentey's Optimus GS-6000 features are, which might just pursue a PC builder it's way.

The Sentey Optimus GS-6000 now has a web page up on the web site here. But we also have listed the highlights of this page below.

Sentey GS-6000 Optimus Features:

• Black chassis


• 120mm top led fan


• 120mm frontal led fan


• 180mm side led fan


• 120mm rear fan


• Fan control


• Dminesions: 19.09" (L) x 7.48" (W) x 18.31" (H)


• Frontal ports E/S: Usb 2.0 x 2 + Aud. and Mic.


• Card Reader: MMC/SD


• Motherboard: ATX, Micro ATX


• Gross Weight: 5.8 Kg


• Net Weight: 4.9 kg

Next Page - Retail Packaging and Bundle

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Blingtastic Toshiba Qosmio X770 with nvidia optimus @ www.engadget.com

Now that acpi_call, byo-switcheroo and bumblebee are making life a bit easier for hybrid-graphics linux users, we can afford to have a look at what other laptops are popping up out there. Here is the blingtastic Toshiba Qosmio X770 model:

Toshiba outs blingtastic Qosmio X770 for the US market, new P, C, and L series laptops

By Dana Wollman posted Jun 14th 2011 3:00AM

See that refined beast? You're looking at the Toshiba Qosmio X770 -- that European gaming behemoth we ogled from afar last month -- and in a matter of weeks, it'll continue its world tour to land on US shores. To recap, the company shrunk the screen from 18.4 inches to a more manageable 17.3, gave it a paint job that ever-so-subtly fades from red to gunmetal gray, and added a matching red backlit keyboard. This beefy guy comes in $1,199 and $1,899 configurations, with the higher-end model packing a 3D display, quad-core Core i7 CPU, and a 1.25TB hybrid hard drive, and the lower end offering a dual-core Core i5 CPU and a 750GB HDD. Either way, though, you'll get NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics, 1.5GB of video memory, and MaxxAudio3 sound enhancement software. Meanwhile, Toshiba streamlined its consumer laptops for those non-gamers in the back-to-school crowd, axing the A and M lines, and leaving just the P series, for "premium." It'll include 14-, 15.6-, and 17.3-inch models, all decked out in a textured, two-tone Fuxion X2 finish and featuring USB sleep-and-charge ports, HDMI-out, Harman Kardon speakers, and that same MaxxAudio 3 utility. Depending on the configuration, you can also score NVIDIA GeForce GT540M graphics, Intel Wireless Display, a 4G radio, a Blu-ray drive, and a 3D screen (only on the 15-incher). On the inside, you've got your choice of Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs or a spankin' new A6-3400M accelerated processing unit from AMD. Look for the 14-inch P745 with a starting price of $699, and 15-inch P755 and the 17-inch P775 for $629 and up. And, rounding out its portfolio, Toshiba refreshed its budget Satellite L700 series with Core 2011 processors and new AMD A4 and A6 APUs, while the entry-level Satellite C800 gets AMD Fusion C-50 and E-350 APU options. None of these laptops go on sale until later this month, so for now you can content yourself with those up-close-and-personal hands-on shots below.

Toshiba Qosmio X770

Toshiba Satellite P700 Series

Show full PR text

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Fujitsu LifeBook T901 with nvidia optimus @ akihabaranews.com

For those into tablet PCs, here is a new model with nvidia optimus from Fujitsu:

Fujitsu’s LifeBook T901 tablet PC available now

If you loved the Fujitsu LifeBook T900 convertible tablet PC, then you’ll love the newest tablet PC available from Fujitsu, the LifeBook T901, which is now available to the US market.

This follow-up to the T900 features a 13.3-inch 1280 x 768 resolution LCD that supports NVIDIA Optimus graphics, Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, has five-finger gesture support for $100 extra, and other upgrades include a 2nd gen Intel Core processor with options up to the i7-2620M (2.70 GHz, 4 MB L3 cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz, HDMI, an integrated fingerprint sensor, the onboard drive is now SATA II, formerly SATA, with storage up to 500GB 7200 rpm HDD or 256GB SSD and a modular bay allows a Blu-Ray writer option or you can use it for a second battery or hard drive.

The T900 comes with Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics as the base option, but an upgrade to NVIDIA NVS 4200M GPU (1 GB Video RAM) with Optimus technology is also available, although the added graphics adds a wait until June for this tablet PC.

Sound like a great deal? Get it now starting at $1,899.

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Powerful Asus U41JF with nvidia optimus in a thin and light design @ www.asus.com

Here are the specs for the Asus U41JF model, another powerful hybrid-graphics laptop from ASUS:

U41JF

Intel® Core™ i5 Processor

ASUS U41 Series brings power in a thin and light design

 

• Powered by a Super Hybrid Engine-boosted standard voltage Intel® Core™ i3 or i5 processor
• Super Hybrid Engine extends battery life to 10 hours for all-day, on-the-go computing
• Elegant design that comes in under an inch thick for maximum portability.

 Add To Compare List Print

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M: High-End Mobile Graphics with Optimus

Our collective wishes have been granted by the fine folks at NVIDIA: you can now buy a notebook with high-end graphics that supports Optimus and thus is capable of offering excellent battery life. NVIDIA is refreshing their GeForce GTX 460M with the 560M. This will be a faster GPU, naturally, using the updated GF116 instead of the 460M's older GF106.

The impending ASUS G74Sx will be powered by the GeForce GTX 560M.

Notebooks using the new chip should be available in the near future, though keep in mind that not all notebooks will support all features. Read on for more details.

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Linux Optimus PRIME and GPU hot-switching -- David Airlie -- 20110319

The Google Summer of Code 2011 is upon us, and it's time again to bring back those open-source projects under the Xorg umbrella that will benefit from the keen attention of bright students sll over the world. And everything is good news so far for the linux hybrid graphics project. There is interest in working on improving the Linux support, and David Airlie has given an update about the current status:

[GSOC] greetings

wrt to these two projects,

the PRIME work is currently being redone, I was able to play openarena on an nv50 displaying on an ironlake yesterday afternoon. I'm also hoping Ben can get the nvidia PCOPY engine going. I'm hoping to push the various bits upstream on this effort and at try and figure out how to configure things for users. I'll hopefully write up a design document so people can review the design before I push the code out.

The hot-switch work is a lot more work, we really need to implement ARB_robustness extension in the GL drivers we care about, and then port compositors to use the GLX_create_context API so the composting can handle the GPU switch happening. I've got most of the X server side duplication working but there is a lot of validation of a lot of corner cases to be done before I'd be happy pushing it (in my dynerama branch of my Xserver).

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New ASUS U31SD with Nvidia Optimus @ www.engadget.com

ASUS works Sandy Bridge magic on thin-and-light U31E, U31SD, and U36SD -- Engadget

It appears that ASUS is finally ready to show its line of thin-and-light machines some Sandy Bridge love. Swedish site Technytt claims to have the exclusive scoop on a trio of laptops -- the U31SD, U31E, and U36SD -- that will find their way to retail channels in late May. The U31SD is already showing up on the ASUS site, with the option of either a Core i5 2410M or Core i3 2310M , and a choice of Intel integrated graphics or a 1GB GeForce GT 520M card. All three 13.3-inch machines will reportedly have similar specs, though the U31E will supposedly lack a discrete graphics option. The U31SD tips the scales at a perfectly portable 3.9 pounds and it's safe to assume the U36SD will match up size-wise with the svelte U36JG, which is just 0.75-inches thick and weighs 3.5 pounds. There's no official word from ASUS regarding price or availability but, while you wait to get your paws on one, feast your eyes on the U31SD in the gallery below.

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Samsung SF310 with nvidia optimus @ www.pcmag.com

Samsung SF310 Review & Rating | PCMag.com

product 0.3

May 10, 2011

Samsung SF310

• editor rating good

• Write a
  Review

• 
• 
• 

VIEW SLIDESHOW 

• Pros

  Intel Core i5-480M processor. Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics with automatic switching. Lots of extra features, like Bluetooth 3.0, Sleep-and-Charge, and quick restarts. Good battery life.

• Cons

  Covered ports are less accessible. Wimpy speakers. Middling performance. Internal battery can't be accessed or replaced by buyer. Small hard drive.

• Bottom Line

  Some buyers will be intrigued by features like Bluetooth 3.0, Sleep-and-Charge funcationality, and quick restarts, but more discerning buyers may shun the Samsung SF310 for its underutilized components and small hard drive.

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Optimus Fun Merged For Linux 2.6.40 Kernel @ www.phoronix.com

[Phoronix] Optimus Fun Merged For Linux 2.6.40 Kernel

MXM is a laptop graphics card form-factor + interface specification, and David Airlie added an initial stub driver to talk to the MXM WMI interface.

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NVIDIA announces Optimus for Desktops @ www.anandtech.com

NVIDIA Synergy to Bring Optimus to Desktops

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Dell XPS 15z with nvidia optimus @ www.engadget.com

Dell XPS 15z review

By Sean Hollister posted May 23rd 2011 9:09PM

Review

For years, Dell's been teasing supermodel-thin laptops, each one flawed out of the gate: too pricey, too underpowered, and with underwhelming battery life. This time, Dell told us we'd get something different -- a laptop without compromise. Recently, Round Rock killed off the Adamo and nixed the XPS 14, and then rumors started to spin -- a spiritual successor would be the slimmest 15.6-inch notebook we'd ever seen, be crafted from "special materials" and yet cost less than $1,000. Dell even stated that it would have an "innovative new form factor" of some sort.

The company neglected to mention it would look like a MacBook Pro.

This is the Dell XPS 15z, and we're sorry to say it's not a thin-and-light -- it's actually a few hairs thicker than a 15-inch MacBook Pro, wider, and at 5.54 pounds, it weighs practically the same. It is, however, constructed of aluminum and magnesium alloy and carries some pretty peppy silicon inside, and the base model really does ring up at $999. That's a pretty low price to garner comparisons to Apple's flagship, and yet here we are. Has Dell set a new bar for the notebook PC market? Find out after the break.

Dell XPS 15z unboxing and hands-on

Design

Clean lines, smooth curves, and vast expanses of beautifully textured metal, cool to the touch -- the MacBook Pro has captivated Apple fans for years, and there's no doubt Dell's trying to capture much of the same charm. From the aluminum chassis to the placement of the speakers, DVD drives and majority of ports... heck, even the tiny arrow key bars on the backlit keyboard and feet on the bottom of the chassis are cribbed from Apple's product.


It's honestly difficult to find anything on the entire notebook that feels wholly original, though there are a few Dell tweaks -- the speakers and vents have the same pattern as those on the Inspiron Duo, and last year's XPS lineup contributed its distinctive hinged screen, which lies flat on top of the notebook rather than forming a traditional clamshell case. You'll also find plenty of chrome trim, ringing both the chassis and the oversized touchpad.

But let's get this out of the way right now: though the XPS 15z most definitely looks like a MacBook Pro and sports similar materials, you'll wind up disappointed if you're expecting the same exacting attention to detail. You're looking at an aluminum and magnesium alloy sandwich here, not a unibody frame, and much of that metal is thin enough to flex under a little bit of pressure. While typing, we noticed that if we put a little weight on the keyboard, we'd oh-so-slightly squish the whole frame, not enough to make a lasting impression, but enough to audibly restrict airflow to the system fan. And -- at least in our pre-production model -- that aforementioned chrome trim had rough edges that slightly chafed our wrists. We also have to laugh at Dell's decision to place all the I/O ports in a row on the left-hand side, just like Apple's rig, as we've often felt Cupertino sacrificed function for form in so doing.

Dell XPS 15z vs. 15-inch MacBook Pro (2011)

Still, it's a very attractive machine...

Display / Speakers / Keyboard / Trackpad

...and it looks even better when you lift the lid to find this optional 300-nit 1920 x 1080 screen. Yes, while Apple fans still have to settle for a 1680 x 1050 pixel picture in a 15-inch chassis, an extra $150 buys the XPS 15z a full 1080p display, allowing for high-res movies, games, and wonderfully roomy split-screen multitasking. It's a pretty bright, beautiful picture on this particular screen, too, and though the contrast isn't quite as high as we'd like, Dell's software will automatically adjust the backlight to give you the best out of your blacks and whites. It's also quite glossy, unfortunately, and viewing angles are pretty terrible here, as the picture becomes far less vibrant if you shift your head even slightly to the left or right.

That's a shame, considering that the XPS 15z's speakers sound like they're designed to be shared. We're not sure what kind of drivers lie beneath those patterned grilles, but they sure are loud, and create a wide soundstage perfect for movies and games even though they have little bass to speak of. They're also a little shrill at maximum volume, but they're still a cut above most laptop speakers we've used.

Dell's been on a chiclet keyboard bent as of late -- following the global trend -- and while opinions differ regarding whether floating islands or distinct grids make for better typing, we can't complain about the sea of squares on the XPS 15z. As we've already alluded to, Mac users will find themselves completely at home with the layout, and the keys themselves are fairly friendly, too -- rounded, comfortable, slightly convex little squares and rectangles with a smooth, rubbery action and nice big tactile guides on the home row. There's no dedicated numpad here, a bit of a shame considering that there's definitely space, but we suppose some things have to be sacrificed for symmetry and a pair of speakers loud enough to fill the room.

Speaking of symmetry, you'll find the XPS 15z trackpad front and center in the experience, and we're happy to say it's a fairly pleasant one -- the oversized Cypress pad is quick, responsive and accurate for single-finger input, and comes with a pair of large, clicky and satisfying mouse buttons. What's more, it does two, three and four-finger multitouch gestures, though you'll note we didn't include them in the "quick, responsive and accurate" part. Some work amazingly well (swipe four fingers sideways to engage Windows Flip 3D, then drag one to flip through your open apps) and some fail miserably (far too often, the trackpad detected a pinch-to-zoom motion when we intended to do two-finger scrolling). You can tailor gestures at whim in the Cypress settings page, but we were surprised to find that our changes didn't stick. The next time we rebooted the machine, those problematic default settings were back again.

Did we mention that the entire palmrest is made of magnesium alloy, including those speaker grilles? The whole surface you interact with is smooth, durable, and dirt-resistant too, as the only way we were able to leave a visible fingerprint was by touching the glossy screen itself. We should note, however, that the metallic surface is a double-edged sword here. We noticed that our fingers were getting mighty toasty during a benchmark, as if the computer was venting hot air right right onto our skin, and during an intensive session of Bulletstorm, we found the magnesium spacers between the crucial WASD keys was burning hot to the touch. It seems that Dell may have put some important silicon right underneath those keys, so you may want an external keyboard at your next LAN party.

Performance and battery life

Yes, you heard us right, a LAN -- the XPS 15z may not be a gaming rig per se, but for $999 there's more than enough power under the hood for a few frag sessions. Even the base model is loaded with a dual-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M processor, switchable NVIDIA GeForce GT525M graphics with 1GB of memory, and 6GB of DDR3 RAM, a 7200RPM hard drive and loads of high-end connectivity. You'll find a gigabit Ethernet jack keeping the power socket company around back, two USB 3.0 ports on the left-hand side, along with one eSATA / USB 2.0 combo port, one Mini DisplayPort, and an HDMI 1.4 jack, a pair of 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks on the right, and a dual-band Intel 802.11a/g/n WiFi radio inside.

What can all that do in practice? Well, we're actually not quite sure about those particular specs, since we actually received the 2.7GHz Core i7-2620M version with 2GB of dedicated graphics memory and 8GB of RAM. That kind of rig will run you $1,534, but it'll also do some potent processing.

Case in point: We launched our Chrome browser with a dozen Engadget tabs, started playing a DVD copy of Hitch, fired up a 720p windowed version of Batman: Arkham Asylum, and started opening windowed 1080p movie trailers for The Dark Knight all at the same time... and it was only after the third concurrent trailer on top of our perfectly playable game session and DVD movie that we started noticing a little slowdown. In other words, multitasking is a go, and in case you're wondering, Windows told us that particular load still only used 80 percent of our available CPU cycles.

The XPS 15z also pulled its weight in a dedicated gaming scenario, playing that same Batman: Arkham Asylum at 1080p with all settings maxed save AA, and managed to deliver 30FPS on average. Similarly, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare gave us around 40FPS with 4xAA and all settings maxed. Bulletstorm proved pretty taxing, though: we had to drop resolution to 1366 x 768 and reduce details to medium to make that game playable. If you're aching for some more theoretical benchmarks, our XPS 15z pulled scores of E1511, P894 and X282 in 3DMark11, and earned 8023 PCMarks in PCMark Vantage and 7,317 in 3DMark06. By the by, boot times weren't amazing, but they're certainly not bad, as we clocked 40 seconds for the machine to load into Windows, or about a minute for the machine to finish loading startup programs and be completely ready for use.

	PCMarkVantage	3DMark06	Battery Life
Dell XPS M15z (Core i7-2620M, GeForce GT525M 2GB)	8,023	7,317	3:41 / 4:26
MacBook Pro (Core i7-2720QM, Radeon 6750M)	8,041	10,262	7:27
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 (Core i5-2410M)	7,787	3,726	3:31 / 6:57
Samsung Series 9 (Core i5-2537M)	7,582	2,240	4:20
Lenovo ThinkPad X220	7,635	3,517	7:19
ASUS U36Jc (Core i5 / NVIDIA GeForce 310M)	5,981	2,048 / 3,524	5:30
ASUS U33Jc-A1 (Core i3-370M, GeForce 310M)	5,574	1,860 / 3,403	5:10
Toshiba Portege R705 (Core i3-350M)	5,024	1,739 / 3,686	4:25
Notes: the higher the score the better. For 3DMark06, the first number reflects score with GPU off, the second with it on.

We'd mentioned that Dell's previous attempts at premium systems failed price, power and battery life tests. With the XPS 15z, well... two out of three ain't bad. Despite the fact that the NVIDIA Optimus GPU turns off when not fully taxed (powering the laptop's display with integrated Intel HD 3000 Graphics instead), we weren't able to get much more than three and a half hours of regular use out of our review unit. Turning to our standard battery drain test (where we loop a standard-definition video with the screen at roughly 65 percent brightness, and with WiFi on), we saw much the same thing -- 3 hours, 41 minutes of use from the sealed 8-cell, 2.6Ah battery. It occurred to us that perhaps Optimus wasn't actually switching off the discrete GPU at the most appropriate intervals, and sure enough, we were able to eke out a little more runtime by completely disabling it, but you're still looking at 4 hours, 26 minutes of use. That's not bad, all things considered, but it's a good sight worse than the 8.5 hours of life that Dell's advertising here, and if the company wants to make a dent in the MacBook Pro's armor, it'll have to do better than that.

Software and Stage UI

The XPS 15z comes with the usual array of mostly unobtrusive bloatware, including a trial subscription to Norton Antivirus, the token copies of Microsoft Office Starter and Roxio for your disc burning needs -- but there is one thing out of the ordinary, and that's Dell's Stage UI. That's right -- the company's divorced its custom touchscreen interface from the Inspiron Duo and Streak, and turned it into a launcher bar that sits at the bottom of your desktop. There's no need to fear for your Windows 7 taskbar, though, as Stage buttons are just shortcuts to quickly launch your favorite multimedia, and the gallery, audio, video and podcast players are actually rather good-looking in our honest opinion. If you don't care for the bloat, it's all quickly uninstalled. Everybody wins.

Dell XPS 15z Stage UI and benchmarks

Wrap-up

These two laptops are not equals, but they never had to be -- for hundreds upon hundreds of dollars less than the Mac competition, Dell's unleashed an attractive, powerful and definitely desirable Windows PC -- perhaps desirable enough to woo buyers who prefer Windows but love the Mac aesthetic. We suspect that's Dell's plan here, because while we really appreciate the XPS 15z's metal construction and choice parts, it hasn't really changed the game.

It's no lighter, thinner or particularly better armed than the competition, and when it tried to borrow the MacBook Pro's flair it picked up some of Apple's failings along the way. We're not just talking about the inability to having chunky USB peripherals plugged in at the same time, but rather the ability to configure and upgrade the machine at will. While that dual-core Core i7 processor, NVIDIA GT525M GPU, 8-cell battery and DVD drive are nice to have, that's the best you'll get here -- even though Dell's slightly chunkier XPS 15 is configurable with quad-core processors, faster video options and a Blu-ray drive to deliver extra value to that 1080p screen.

When Dell tells you that the XPS 15z has no compromises, that's not quite the case -- it's a solid choice at this price point, but corners were cut to get there. 

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