News Bits: Toshiba X305 with Three GPUs, SanDisk Improves SSDs, Belkin TSA Laptop Bag

MSI notebook comes with ATI HD 4850 graphics

The MSI GT725 is the first notebook available with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850. The GT725 is based on the Intel Centrino 2 platform and has unique features including a five-speaker sound system and a gaming keyboard. The full specifications are as follows:

• 17" display
• Intel Core 2 Duo processors
• ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 with 512MB memory
• Up to 4GB DDR2-800 RAM
• 160GB - 320GB hard drives
• DVD burner or Blu-ray drive
• Dimensions: 15.6 in. (L) x 10.95 in. (W) x 1.05 - 1.38 in. (H)
• Weight: 3.2kg/7.06 lbs
• 6/9 cell batteries

Pricing is not available at this time.

MSI Product Page
Special thanks to forum member SomeFormOFhuman for submitting this bit

Toshiba introduces X305 notebook with three GPUs

The Toshiba Qosmio X305 features two Nvidia GeForce 9800M-GTS graphics cards in SLI in addition to an integrated 9400M GPU. Through Hybrid SLI, the dual 9800M-GTS cards can power off and let the integrated 9400M take over. The 9800s will only take over when needed. Prices for the three-GPU equipped Qosmio X305 range from $2,000 to $4,200.

Toshiba Product Page
Via (HEXUS.net)
NotebookReview.com review for the Toshiba X305

Dell develops new design printing technology for notebooks

Dell has developed a new technology for printing designs on notebooks during production. The technology, called Picaso, prints designs digitally on empty film, which are then put onto the notebook chassis with heat. Digital printing allows for clearer and brighter colors. The downside of Picaso is that it is expensive to use.

Full Story (DigiTimes.com)

SanDisk introduces ExtremeFFS filesystem for SSDs

SanDisk has introduced a new file system for SSDs called ExtremeFFS, or Extreme Flash File System. SanDisk claims ExtremeFFS can improve SSD random write speeds up to 100x compared to traditional systems. ExtrmeFFS is also claimed to increase endurance of SSDs.

SanDisk Press Release
Via (Engadget.com)

Belkin FlyThru cases are airport checkpoint-friendly

Belkin's FlyThru notebook cases are designed for airport travelers. Users will no longer have to take their notebook out of the bag to show airport security; the laptop can be easily seen through a clear window on one side of the bag. The bag meets guidelines set forth by the TSA. The Belkin FlyThru case has an MSRP of $59.99.

Belkin Press Release

 

The MSI GT725 is lookin solid ...

 

But DDR2-800 RAM though? Come on it's a high-end Centreno 2 notebook, it should have DDR3-1066 RAM.

Still pretty sweet though--and thin for a 17 inch.

 

Dang it, i wish either of those had LED backlights! Dang dang dang. Both sound mighty cool otherwise

 

There's not much performance gain from DDR3 1066 vs. DDR2 800 (remember DDR3 800 is slower than DDR2 800 - DDR3 1066 isn't a whole lot better than just being enough to even the score). And the 0.3W per DIMM power savings isn't that significant on a 17-inch notebook. Sure it would be nice to have DDR3, but I think that on all except the most extreme performance machines and the most power-efficient machines, using DDR2 instead of DDR3 to keep costs lower is a reasonable tradeoff right now. DDR2-800 is still faster than the maximum of DDR2-667 that could be used (except for a couple AMD platforms) six months ago.

I like that notebook though - good to see the HD 4 serie already coming out. Hopefully more manufacturers, and more mainstream ones, will pick it up soon.

Interesting Hybrid SLI choice on the Toshiba. I suppose it makes sense - it will significantly improve battery life. Although unless there was some way to control it in the BIOS I wouldn't pay anything for it since it requires Vista.

'Course what I was really expecting when I read "three-GPU" was that somehow they'd fit three high-power GPU's in one notebook in Tri-SLI. Which would've been much more awesome than what they actually did. Perhaps Acer or HP can do this with one of their 20-inch models. Or put in two physical CPU's. Either would be quite a mean notebook, and a much better justification for a 20-inch frame than their current offerings.

 

It's a sweet notebook, I agree. I like the looks and the specs.

DDR3 essentially makes no performance difference . . . so it does not matter that it has DDR2-800. 800MHz RAM is very fast. The only notebooks that actually benefit from DDR3 right now are ultraportables and other notebooks that are designed for good battery life, because DDR3 consumes less power than DDR2.

Edit: Apollo beat me by one minute.

 

Good God... 3 GPUs in the X305??

 

The Toshiba is lookin hideous ...

 

Agree, a major reason why I don't buy Toshiba gaming notebooks because they are all big and clunky.

 

Compared to the 4K+ model its a bargain , you have to be color blind though .

 

compared to traditional hard drives, or traditional SSD's?
I wonder if the extreme performance demands an extreme price.

 

i think the 3-gpu tag is a bit misleading and makes people think of Tri-SLI; id say its more like "2 GPUs and a desktop/browsing video adapter"

 

So the X305 is going to have on the fly SLI switching?

 

Doubting it, considering the MacBook Pros, which have a similar graphics configuration, require a restart to switch GPU's.

 

That MSI notebook looks badass, a shame that it's 17". Any idea whether it will be possible to fit the Mobility Radeon 4850 into a 15.4" notebook?

Oh well, here's hoping the 4670/4650 come with decent performance relative to their desktop counterparts. A new Thinkpad with a new Radeon 4000 series GPU would be .

 

Possible, if the case was pretty thick. I'd also like the card in a 15" notebook and wouldn't mind if the thickness had to be increased to fit it in. I think we may have to wait a bit for this to happen.

 

What do you do with 3 NVidia GPUs in a laptop? Heat your house during winter?

 

It's really just two GPUs, and they're not THAT hot (particularly when they're idle).

And you use them to run games or programs...

 

Yes, the 9400M GS does nothing to improve gameplay. If it does, then its called a 3-Way SLI system, which - generally - requires 3 of the same 9800M GTS cards connected together (9800M GTS 3-way SLI), which is of course, very unlikely.

The 9400M GS is soldered/integrated on mobo though. You'll switch over to 9400M GS for lower power consumption, not playing any games or for graphically light applications.

 

You use the dual 9800M GS cards in SLI mostly for playing games at high framerates and settings.

And when you wish to conserve power, you switch to the 9400M to give you lower power consumption, less heat, more battery life.

Its a good option to have when you aren't playing games and don't want the more powerful cards in use.

 

Toshiba is just making use of SLI and HybridSLI (the HybridPower part only) in the same laptop.

 

Still, it is fun to say the system has 4 CPUs and 3 GPUs :-D

Actually has 208 processors on the GPUs

 

Introducing the GT627:
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=135&cat2_no=271&prod_no=1670

Judging from your post I'm assuming you're ATI exclusive? The 9800GS w/ 1GB DDR3 RAM definitely isn't as fast (I'd say 10% slower), but it's still the fastest GPU I've seen on a 15.4" laptop.

 

uhhhhh the design

 

4850 + sager = ...

 

10% slow comparing with HD4850? Not really. 9800m GS is a tad slower than 9800m GTS. From lowest to highest performing: 9800m GS>9800m GTS>9800m GT>9800m GTX

According to notebookcheck, the HD4850 is nearly on par with a 9800M GTX, so it cannot be 10% slower if you're comparing 9800 GS with HD4850.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...nth=&or=&professional=0&search=&sort=3dmark06

Nevertheless, HD4850 is a beast. This MSI notebook is definately price : performance ratio worth due to ATI's card.

 

You kinda missed this in your News Bits didn't you Chaz?

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/06/microsoft-disses-hybrid-sli-and-crossfire-wont-support-them-in/

Come on. Windows 7 not supporting Hybird xfire or SLI is pretty big news.

 

Umm, 8800M GTX on m15x anyone?

EDIT: And 9800MGS aint that great anyways, its more 9700M GTS level. Oh, and Notebookcheck is so full of BS.

 

It depends on how it's implemented. SLIing the 9400M with dual 9800M isn't going to improve performance. However, the dual 9800M could be used for the graphics rendering while the 9400M can be used for GPU acceleration in games that support hardware PhysX like UT3. A 9400M might not be much, but should still be better than a general purpose CPU. It'll probably depend on drivers whether it supports this configuration though.

 

All the Toshiba haters spoke to soon about the x305 and it's looks and bulkiness. But they now have the most powerful gaming notebook out at a very affordable price for mainstream users.

Toshiba is definitley a leader and many other companies will imitate aspects of Toshiba's affordable well thought out design and build. It was designed bulky for the reason to accomadate the latest tech and still be able to function without complications. It does have LED backlights that look awesome and comparing it to the pic of the MSI even with the lights of it looks way more slick. The competition is copying the leader now by implementing 5 speakers to their flagship gaming notebook, and even Alienware can't make a less bulky 17" gaming notebook and I'll bet it weighs even more than the Toshiba model.

Still people want to speak negative about the x305 because they dare not eat their words to keep their "expert" rep. Come on, let's humble ourselves and give credit where credit is due. Toshiba makes great break through products that would benefit us as consumers, but some people smear their good name and products and the consumers lose in the end.

Remember HD DVD? well that's a whole nother story but if it won it would've been cheaper and you could make back up copies and other goodies that would have benefitted consumers more than Blu ray. Stop hating.

 

No doubt that the X305 is a well oiled running machine. The X205 when it came out with HD-DVD was a great NB at a great price. I won't be tossing my X205 away anytime soon. And it still games quite well for me since I'm a major RTS fan.

The HW inside the X305 is pretty impressive and would make any intelligent consumer give them some serious consideration. But what would give them a major pause (it does with me) is that flaming red cover. If TOSHIBA would give a us a option or drop all together and go with the X205 cover or just jet black, no doubt they will sell more of these.

 

Good grief, is this marketing copy?

-The x305 does *NOT* have LED backlighting, or I'd buy one.
-What does HD DVD have to do with anything? It's long gone, so where is Blu Ray on Toshiba's notebooks?
-Yeah, I think we're all impressed by Toshiba making pretty high end systems for pretty reasonable prices-they've now outdone Dell even, which is cool.
-The x305 is the ugliest system I've ever seen, but that wouldn't stop me from buying one (and from what I've heard, they're actually designed to handle cooling well enough to actually USE the hardware). What stops me is:

• Lack of LED backlighting-this is the biggest one
• Lack of Blu Ray-not quite as big since technically I guess I can add an external drive
• Lack of a clean OS install disc like Dell and Gateway provide (I'll have to spend $100 on a copy of Windows for it)

 

WolfPup, I think what he meant by the X305's LED backlights are the buttons above the keyboard being LED backlit, not the screen. So far, I haven't seen any high-end gaming notebooks (eg. Geforce 9800M+) with LED back-lit screens, if someone can point any out to me....

In my opinion, the X305 looks attractive on the keyboard area. I like the glossy black keyboard with the glowing red buttons and accents around it. Its the lid I find very garish and it needs to be toned down.

Toshiba is the one that pretty much created HD-DVD and they've been devastated having to discontinue it. I don't think they will ever adopt their sworn-enemy Blu-Ray and probably wait for the next optical standard to come out instead. I'd still like it to have the option and a 1920x1200 screen option.

 

Yeah, that's what I was thinking he meant...which is certainly not what I was talking about

Me too! What's annoyed me for six months is if Dell had just let you slap the LED backlit Studio 17 screen on the XPS 1730...

They're getting more guady each generation. I actually hope they go even crazier next time, just because the last TWO generations I haven't been able to believe they got worse than the one before, and I want to see how much crazier/uglier they can get

I think they're going to have to at some point here. Not sure if they're having trouble ramping up their Blu Ray manufacturing stuff or what (and just want to use their own drives). They're making a mistake not having it by now though, for the holiday season. Even bigger mistake if they don't have it sometime next year.

 

We want EXTREME! FFS! That's where it's at!

 

Okay.... big fan?

No offense, but have you seen the X305-Q708? That's one of very overpriced machine. The X305-Q706 on the other hand, is very decently priced and provides very decent capability for its price tag.

The X305 is big, that's reasonably acceptable and unavoidable. What is unacceptable is the amount of flex in the machine. Out of curiosity, who are you talking about when you mention

?

Toshiba has generally given its laptops with the Harmon Kardon speakers a very decent set of speakers, something that most companies have failed to do.

Let's see for Toshiba's 4199, I can get a Sager 9262 with Q9550, 9800M GTX SLI, 3 x 320 GB 7200 RPM in a Raid 0 Array, in a sturdier, better built, albeit heavier machine. And it would actually cost me less than what Toshiba is asking. I can then use the money I saved to grab me an excellent set of headphones, or perhaps a set of speakers?

 

The sager thing you mention show me proof.

At $4000 for the q708 state of the art tech not even found on other gaming notebooks yet like 3 nvidia gpus, ssd, hybrid sli etc. is priced below what even Alienwares highest end Area 51 m17x humungous 11 pounder which is priced at $6000, and I don't think that the Area 51 innards would even justify a $2000 increase.

I'm sure the extra cash is going into sturdy firm Chassis in Sager and Alienware. The flex again is a trade off not just for weight reduction but also price reduction, yet it still manages to serve it's purpose. How many times do you expect or want to drop your notebook, or purposely mash down with excessive force on the flex areas which even the competiton has. If you want to abuse the hightech then theirs a rugged notebook line that cost as much but doesn't have computing power, again trade off, toughness to performance. And Toshiba knew just were to cut expenses without making crucial sacrafices.

Oh and the mention of competion following Toshiba's lead with quality speakers well look at the MSI Gt725 and I also read about an HP model that's now packing 6 speakers for true multimedia experience.

Nobody's giving Toshiba a chance for the effort they're putting into trying to bring affordable high tech to the mainstream which would benefit us as consumers. If you don't believe me then read up on the history of HD DVD and Blu Ray and how HD DVD wouldve benefitted consumers more and Blu Ray would benefit Corporate entities more and the consumers don't even know they got the bad end of the bargain with Bluray. So this is why I'm try to be a voice for Toshiba I don't want to see Toshiba fail because of unfair opinions leveled at their efforts and then we as consumers lose again.

 

MSI has been packing multiple speakers for a long, long time. Back in the Turion days. That's Turion without the X2. As in Socket 754.

(At least, I remember that's one of the features I liked about it back when I wanted one. Memory may be fuzzy).

 

Gaming DESKTOP >>> Gaming Notebook

Why?

Look at my desktop in my sig. With Dual 24" LCDs = Gaming Heaven.

 

I'll believe that one when I see it. I also doubt MS is going to support in Windows anyway.

 

hmm,even I wasn't "defending" "another-well-known-company" like this in past

 

Like who? I think we all here think they've got some nicely priced high-end notebooks.

That's pretty much bogus. Blu Ray allowed publishers to add one extra DRM method, but it's equally worthless as far as that goes. And that "copy" thing never actually happened. I'm just glad that format war is over so I can start enjoying HD movies and shows.

 

I agree with Jacob cats are just hating Toshiba is an amazing company these guys are brainwashed by other companies and are just trying to think that toshiba is grabage that's fine, but i think i'll be the one in line when they are havng discounts because no one is buying. Heh dont drink that kool-aid guys it's time to open your eyes this is an amazing notebook i would pass up my 7811fx in a heartbeat for this.

 

What the heck are you talking about? Are you and this other guy for real, or some misguided marketing attempt? I'm honestly not sure.

Not one person in this thread has called Toshiba "garbage". Not one person has said they don't like that they're making high end notebooks at fairly reasonable prices. I for one am thrilled they started doing that a few years back.

 

Why would i market for toshiba when i have a Vaio AR, a Vaio FW and a gateway FX? Maybe you are the misguided one? You are the one who seems to hate this notebook because it doesn't offer what YOU want. Also its true read this forum people are always saying bad things about Toshiba for whatever the hell reason.

 

If that's the case, that's too bad, but NO ONE in this thread has said ANYTHING that approaches hating Toshiba or this notebook. I certainly haven't.

No, this doesn't offer what I need or I'd consider it. That's not "hating" it, it's wishing it fit my needs as otherwise it would be a good choice.