Refreshed HDX avail. by Jan 23rd

In the new CNET review of the refreshed HDX 'dragon' notebook, it mentions:

"Note that neither the GeForce 8800 nor the Penryn Core 2 Duo processors are available as options on HP's online configurator yet, but they should appear by January 23."

You can find the full review here:
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/hp-pavilion-hdx-intel/4505-3121_7-32817938.html

Also of minor interest, the HDX with it's nVidia 8800M GTS is compared against the new Alienware m15x using the 8800M GTX. Unfortunately only limited gaming tests were run (Quake 4 and F.E.A.R), but the GTS seems to fair well enough.

Another matchup of some interest in the article is that the HDX is the only notebook with a Penryn processor (2.5GHz), while the Alienware has the T7800 (2.6GHz) and the Dell M1730 has the T7900 (2.8GHz). The Penryn processor seems significantly slower in the multimedia test, however the HDX has a 5400rpm HD compared to the 7200rpm HDs of the other notebooks (unfortunately I do not know if the multimedia tests hit the HD at all, or were all RAM based).

In anycase a fairly interesting read for any interested in the new HDX, the nVidia 8800M GTS, or the new Penryn processors.

 

Thanks man, I've been waiting on that release date. I'll order mine this week.

 

I see in the review that they say there is no dual format drive. I'm going to email the editor with the info i received from HP about it and see if they can find out if i was fed a bunch of bull**** or if they just weren't told about it.

 

That would be great if you could find out more about the dual-format drive. Let us know what you find!

I too am hoping to purchase one this week.

 

Are the Dual harddrives RAID 0? If so, can that be switched off?

 

I do not know for sure, but from the way the HD information is presented on the website I believe it is not RAID at all (2 separately addressable hard drives). Usually when a RAID configuration is listed, the hard drive space is not cumulative (i.e. 2x120GB HD is not presented as 240GB, since you can only use 120GB of it)

I could of course be wrong.

Edit: Of course after re-reading, you did say RAID 0 which just splits the data, so it would be cumulative. In that case I remove my argument but still think it's not a RAID configuration as they do not mention RAID in the text. And don't a lot of sites usually double the RPM when they list a RAID 0 config? (i.e. 14000rpm instead of 7200rpm?)

 

Thanks. I haven't seen any HP text that states that it's RAID. There are some things that might suggest it but nothing conclusive.

I'm looking forward to the next iteration of the HDX. The version with Intel's Montevina chipset due out this summer. Hopefully they will keep it at the $2000 price point. And who knows, they may even spring for the 8800 GTX in addition to the 8800GTS.

It's really a sweet rig, IMO.