Samsung’s entry into the gaming laptop segment, the Series 7 Gamer, was showcased during CES with a relatively impressive feature set and a promise that it will ship to the U.S.

The hardware specifications have already been updated and for some reason Samsung has dropped the option for a 3D display on the Series 7. However, the previously mentioned Radeon HD 6970M is still present, as well as a next-gen Nvidia GTX 670M alternative.

The latter is still at least a couple of months away and should arrive at roughly the same time as Intel’s new Ivy Bridge platform, which will also be included in the Samsung laptop.

It was something of a surprise that Samsung of all companies would be launching a gaming laptop, but the Series 7 Gamer looks more and more interesting and might just be able to compete with the likes of Alienware.
At the very least it will do so in the pricing department. In spite of the high-end hardware, the base model will go for $1,799–not cheap but actually very competitive for what you get.

The design also looks solid. It is a lot more low-key than MSI or Alienware for example, but still plays the part of a gaming machine with a few different colors to choose from, a backlit keyboard and a dedicated volume dial similar to the ones on the latest HP Envy 15 and Envy 17. It also comes with a JBL sound system including a small subwoofer.

Not only is Nvidia’s latest 28nm “Kepler” GPU parts shipping to laptop manufacturers, the latest news is that it will end up in ultrabooks.

The prospect of having a 28nm Nvidia GPU in a laptop with a really convenient form factor certainly sounds appealing. Although the chips that will find their way into Intel’s high-end netbook replacements are most likely low-end parts, they should at the very least outperform Intel’s own integrated HD Graphics 4000 (Ivy Bridge) when it ships in April. Seeing as Intel’s next-gen graphics solution looks to be fairly powerful in itself, this should bode well for gaming on small laptops.

Another likely–and considerably more powerful–candidate for Kepler is the upcoming Alienware refresh, where the M17x is rumored to have options for a GTX 660M, GTX 675M, or AMD’s HD 7970M. All of these parts are still unannounced and there are no details on actual performance or specifications, but it’s a probably a safe bet that the GTX 660M replaces the ubiquitous GTX 560M.

AMD is currently making a killing on the desktop front with its latest 28nm part, and considering that the folks at Nvidia are “positively surprised” with its performance it will be very interesting to see how the two rivals measure up in the laptop department.

The fact that Kepler parts have started shipping to manufacturers does unfortunately not mean that they will appear in laptops immediately. Both AMD and Nvidia’s 28nm laptop GPUs are expected to launch in about the same time frame as Ivy Bridge, around April.

Source: Fudzilla

Microsoft is working to bring its Kinect motion-sensing gadget to laptops. This applies to Windows 8 laptops, so it is still relatively far into the future.

The Daily, which is the source of this story, has apparently had a look at a pair of prototype netbooks from Asus with the gadget integrated. If anyone is actually going to buy them though, they should try moving the Kinect into something a little bit more powerful than the practically dead netbook format.

Kinect was initially launched for the Xbox 360 as an act of desperation to counter Nintendo’s inventive Wii controllers. Sony did the same thing with its PlayStation Move. Both were launched with much fanfare and were reasonably well received.

Microsoft has also widened the scope to include the PC, but building the technology into laptops is an entirely new idea that might be an interesting feature in future Windows 8 gaming laptops.

The Kinect  consists of two cameras and a microphone that sense the surroundings and let you control games and other software with gestures and voice commands.  Thanks to the dual cameras it also has “depth perception” to more accurately pinpoint the users input.

Other than gaming, the gadgetry can of course also be used for controlling parts of an operating system, which might be one of the reasons that Microsoft is holding off the launch until the next version of Windows arrives.

Source: The Daily

A Dell rumor site that has been pretty accurate in the past has just released some alleged specs for the expected update to the current Alienware lineup. The details are sparse, but some interesting info about the potential GPUs is available.

That Dell is planning to release a number of updates to its Alienware lineup in time for Intel’s next-gen Ivy Bridge 22nm CPU launch shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Most manufacturers will probably hop on the Ivy Bridge bandwagon early on, as not to be left behind by the competition. The new CPUs from Intel should be slightly faster and more energy efficient than their predecessors, and the new integrated graphics core will allegedly be the biggest improvement.

As usual, it still won’t be sufficiently fast for high-end gaming, though, which is why the other details are more interesting. The rumor is that the 4th revision of the Alienware M17x will be available with either an AMD Radeon HD 7970M, Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M, or GTX 675M. All of these model names are entirely new and previously unannounced, and should be from the upcoming batch of 28nm laptop GPUs.

The other rumored details are not quite as interesting; there is talk of red or black options for the M14x R2 as well as the M18x R2, and the GPU in the new M14x will be soldered to the motherboard (no changes whatsoever in other words). No release date is mentioned, but it’s not a wild guess that they will show up in April or May, when all the next-gen components are expected to be available.

Via TechPowerup

In an entertaining statement to Scandinavian hardware site Nordic Hardware, Nvidia said that the company “expected more from [AMD's] new architecture”.  There is no question that Nvidia is currently behind AMD on the desktop GPU market, where AMD already has a next-gen product on the market–the 28nm Southern Island/GCN-based HD 7970. For the time being it runs circles around Nvidia’s fastest single-GPU options. In addition, there’s yet another graphics card on the way, the 7950, which is also rumored to beat Nvidia’s GTX 580.

Meanwhile, Nvidia itself is keeping the lid on regarding new releases built in the latest 28nm process at TSMC. During CES, they could apparently be no more specific than to point to a launch during the first half of 2012. According to Nordic Hardware, there were indications that Nvidia’s next-gen Kepler architecture could be arriving by the end of March, but also slip into Q2, giving AMD a considerable head start on the competitor.

Nevertheless, the most astounding statements from Nvidia representatives were that they were “positively surprised” that AMD’s architecture isn’t performing better, and that they “expected more” from it. Either this is just sore loser talk or Nvidia has something truly revolutionizing up its sleeves.

At any rate, AMD can continue not to care, all while taking an increasing share of the market from Nvidia with its new chips. AMD’s Bulldozer platform has been a minor catastrophe on the desktop market, so the company’s acquisition of ATI some years ago looks like a life saver in retrospect.

Unfortunately, the ‘real’  7000M series for laptops (28nm) is still several months away, with April/May being the latest bid.

Nordic Hardware

GPU-Z is a handy tool for looking up information on your graphics card, verify your overclocking efforts or even export the BIOS (in those rare cases when it isn’t locked, particularly in a laptop).

The latest version brings some additional features to the table, including support for the latest (sort of) mobile GPUs from Nvidia (GeForce GT 640M) and AMD (Radeon HD 7690M).

Another practical feature is a simple render test that puts the card under load, which makes it easier to identify capabilities that might be ‘hidden’ due to power saving measures–in this case with a particular focus on the PCI-e bus configuration.

One of the most interesting additions, however, is an ability to display ‘ASIC quality’ for Nvidia Fermi and AMD Southern Islands (i.e. only Nvidia support for laptops for now, since there are no mobile Southern Island chips yet).

This quality score, displayed as a percentage, supposedly indicates how the manufacturers have sorted the GPUs according to electrical leakages. The developers have allegedly “found ways in which ASIC quality can be quantified and displayed.”

You access the feature by clicking once on the PCB icon in the title bar. This GTX 580M’s ASIC quality is apparently 73.7%, but for some people the number seems to exceed 100%, so there are definitely some good reasons to take these figures with a pinch of salt. In this case, the GPU works perfectly in spite of its paltry ASIC quality score, even at slightly-above-standard clocks.

All new features in GPU-Z 0.5.8:

• Added explanation about PCI-Express power savings and 3D render test to accurately measure bus config under load
• Added function to display ASIC quality for Fermi and Southern Islands. (Located in the GPU-Z system menu; click the icon in the top left of the window)
• Fixed crash on older ATI cards
• Added voltage monitoring for HD 7970
• Improved real-time clock monitoring for HD 7970
• Fixed OpenCL detection for AMD Antilles, Whistler, Seymour, Blackcomb
• Improved default clock reading for AMD HD 7970 and Fusion
• Added support for AMD FirePro V7900, HD 6930, HD 7690M, HD 6410D
• Fixed Intel Sandy Bridge IGP to be DirectX 10.1, 32 nm
• Added support for NVIDIA Tesla C2075, GeForce GT 630M

Download GPU-Z here, and feel free to share your ASIC quality score in the comments.

There was ample disappointment when we figured out AMD was resorting to the old “trick” of renaming old GPUs instead of transitioning from the 40nm process to 28nm, along with the new Southern Islands architecture or Graphics Core Next (GCN).

Nvidia is doing the same thing, and it probably has something to do with an inability for their mutual manufacturer TSMC to produce enough 28nm parts. As a result, the current entry-level and mid-range HD 7000M-series mobile GPUs are more or less identical to their 6000M-series counterparts, with some minor adjustments. For example, the Radeon HD 7690M in the Envy 17, dv6t Quad and dv7t Quad is a HD 6770M with a 100MHz higher memory clock.

Some clarifications have nevertheless emerged after CES and according to AnandTech there may be some additional improvements in the “new” 40nm parts after all, although certainly nothing groundbreaking. The HD 7690M (or HD 6770M) remains a solid option in the mid-range segment, with enough gaming performance to run Battlefield 3 at good frame rates, and by extension all less demanding titles (i.e. most of them).

Another new piece of interesting information is that AMD intends to keep all of the HD 7000M-series cards up to the HD 7600M series at 40nm, while the new graphics core will be reserved for the high end–the 7700M, 7800M and 7900M cards. The old 40nm core will apparently also remain in AMD’s upcoming Trinity APUs that will eventually replace Llano. This does not mean that the performance improvements will be insignificant, however. According to recent claims from AMD, the performance increase for the GPU part in Trinity is as much as 50%, and 25% for x86 performance.

Hooking up an external graphics card to your laptop is not a new idea. What’s new with the MSI GUS II (Graphics Update System II) is that it connects over the Thunderbolt interface. No wait, that isn’t new either, this was actually done with the latest Sony VAIO Z. Sony calls that one a “Power Media Dock” and it houses not only a GPU but also an optical drive. The word “power” in the title is also a relative term, since the included GPU is a mobile Radeon HD 6650M.

The whole concept of external graphics dates back to the AMD XGP box, which shipped with a couple of Fujitsu laptops and was a monumental failure in every respect. A much better option has been offered for quite some time in the form of the ViDock from Village Instruments.

In any event, the MSI GUS II allows you to attach a decent desktop graphics card via the Thunderbolt port that probably doesn’t exist on your laptop unless it’s a Mac (and to make matters worse it doesn’t support OS X for the time being). On the downside, it won’t be able to house the fastest graphics cards as it’s limited to the 75 Watts provided by the built-in PCI-Express slot (high-end cards requires at least one more 75 W connector if not two).

So far the concept of attaching an external GPU box to your laptop hasn’t been overly successful, but some users may find the idea appealing. Most of all, though, certain tech journalists seem to find the concept sensational. The problem (or one of the problems at least) with an external graphics solution is the glaringly obvious fact that it isn’t portable. So unless you want to carry this box around along with your slim-and-light laptop, it still doesn’t transform your low-end ultraportable into a gaming laptop.

That said, there are clearly some users that don’t mind having parts of the hardware on the outside of their laptops, so it’s not entirely useless. But according to my crystal ball it won’t be a smashing success this time around either.

Your humble correspondent it unfortunately not a CES correspondent this year, but the least we can do here is to round up the biggest gaming laptop news to comes out of the #1 consumer electronics trade show.

Considering that Intel’s next-gen Ivy Bridge platform is still months away, and that the 28nm GPUs have yet to materialize from either AMD or Nvidia, there are no major news to report in terms of new hardware. One exception though, regarding Intel’s Ivy Bridge, is that the rumor about the new and improved integrated graphics part appears to be well founded. After a bit of a brouhaha where Intel was caught “simulating” the graphics capabilities of an Ivy Bridge ultrabook, Anand Lal Shimpi managed to get a actual demonstration of a tiny laptop running F1 2011 in DX11 mode:

While F1 2011 isn’t the most demanding game around, being able to run it on a tiny laptop with a mere IGP is really quite impressive.

Another somewhat newsworthy item is the one pictured above the header; it’s the revised version of Origin PC’s EON 17-s. This laptop, as well as the 15.6-inch EON 15-s have both received a facelift (at least on the lid, there are no big hardware changes from any manufacturer). The new look is decidedly different than the generic Clevo appearance, although that understated design was also appealing. Once Clevo launches the next version of the laptops that Origin and several other custom PC builders use, it will most likely ship with a long-awaited backlit keyboard, which is an item that you’ve sort of come to expect when paying $2,000 or more for a custom laptop.

Another new arrival is the Series 7 gaming laptop from none other than Samsung that we mentioned a while back. The folks from Engadget have taken a close look at the machine and it looks promising. An important bit of information gathered is that Samsung plans to release it in the US for a comparatively modest $1,799.

For this you get a powerful Radeon HD 6970M (second best in AMD’s current lineup), a Core i7 CPU, a very bright Full HD display and JBL speakers. With the lid closed, it looks very much like Samsung device–besides the interesting color options–but when you open it up you are greeted by a backlit keyboard and a prominently featured “Turbo” button that clearly states that it’s a gaming laptop (although what it actually does is still a mystery).

On a side note, Razer has also been showing off its elusive Blade (again), with no news in particular to report. A more interesting concept device from Razer is a gaming tablet called Project Fiona that may or may not be released in Q3 or Q4 2012.

Toshiba has just announced that its autostereoscopic 3D laptop, the Qosmio F755 3D, is now ready for actual gaming. While glasses-free 3D in any shape or form is mostly a novelty so far, Toshiba has been bold enough to launch a Nintendo 3DS size XL–a laptop with a parallax barrier display that produces 3D imagery without the need for glasses. All of the 3D gaming laptops to date come with the usual active shutter glasses and a 120Hz display.

In theory this sounds like the ultimate solution, but it hasn’t worked out as well as everyone had hoped for. In Toshiba’s case, the main problem with the F755 3D laptop has no doubt been its complete inability to run games in 3D mode. However, the latest news is that 3D gaming should now be possible on the F755 thanks to an update distributed via Toshiba’s Service Station utility. This could definitely widen the scope of potential buyers if it’s well implemented.

Toshiba has previously stated that the company has been working with Nvidia to ensure that games are brought into the picture, but it’s been a while since the F755 was launched so there have been some doubt as to whether those plans would be coming to fruition. We’ll believe it when we see it, but allegedly “hundreds of PC games” are now playable in 3D without putting on those annoying glasses.

The 3D solution in the F755 is rather innovative: it employs facial tracking with the built-in webcam to locate your eyes and display the two different images accordingly to create the effect. It also has two native resolutions; when it runs in regular 2D mode, a separate panel with full HD 1920×1080 resolution is used, but when it switches to 3D mode it switches to a native 1366×768. This should come in handy since the GPU is rather weak. For some reason, Toshiba has opted for a GT 540M graphics card from Nvidia instead of the much more powerful GTX 560M that comes standard with the bigger models in the Qosmio lineup.