When Alienware announced the Ivy Bridge refresh for its gaming notebook lineup, one model was conspicuously absent. Word filtered out that the smallest member of the range, the 11.6” M11x, would not be refreshed and that Dell was preparing to discontinue the line. For ultramobile gamers, the loss of the M11x is a huge blow, because it was one of the more unique notebooks out there—a near ultraportable with legitimate gaming aspirations, backed up by gaming performance that lit the class standards on fire. It was a truly standout notebook, and it will be sorely missed.

But now, a spiritual successor emerges in the form of Clevo’s W110ER. We have this unit courtesy of Eurocom, who are calling it the Monster 1.0, but other boutiques selling the W110ER include AVADirect, OriginPC, Sager, and XoticPC amongst others. We typically see this with larger notebooks from Clevo and Compal, but it hasn’t been as prominent with smaller notebooks until now, with the exception of some ASUS models from years past.

The W110ER spec sheet actually reads like a pipe dream, something that you would come up with if things like thermal limits didn’t exist. The performance-class GPU is present and accounted for—Clevo ships every W110ER whitebook with a Kepler-based GT 650M (2GB DDR3, 384 CUDA cores, Optimus). But the most impressive thing here is that the W110ER has support for Intel’s new IVB 35W quad-core CPUs. Yeah seriously, a quad-core 11.6” notebook. Just to refresh your memory, the M11x made use of Intel’s low voltage dual-core parts, so this is a significant step up in CPU performance. It’s a ridiculous amount of performance stuffed into a tiny notebook. Interested? Read on.

The past year has seen the vast majority of mainstream notebooks with discrete graphics shift to NVIDIA's Optimus, and with the W150HR Clevo makes the move as well. Equipped with GT 555M DDR3 graphics and sporting an i7-2720QM and Intel 510 SSD, MYTHLOGIC's Pollux 1400 variant packs in a lot of performance. What's more, it has one of the best LCD's we've tested: a matte 1080p LCD with high color gamut and great viewing angles. If you've been looking for a laptop that can handle just about anything, this could be it.

Of course, there's more to a laptop than the raw specs, and build quality and keyboard layout have been issues on Clevo designs for as long as I've been testing them. They're not the worst in the business, but considering the cost and target market there are certainly other alternatives. So how does MYTHLOGIC's offering stack up to the competition? Let's find out.

A little over seven months ago, we took at look at a Clevo X7200 courtesy of AVADirect that featured a desktop hex-core processor and a pair of NVIDIA's then-fastest mobile graphics cards, the GeForce GTX 480M. Since then NVIDIA has refreshed their mobile top end, and while we hope to review the GTX 485M in SLI soon, in the meantime we have another pair of mobile parts that have been making waves: the AMD Radeon HD 6970M.

This is still the same chassis, of course, so if you didn't like the X7200 concept the first time around the updated GPUs aren't going to radically alter the equation. But assuming you're after the most powerful notebook currently on the market, let's see if we can set a few more performance records.

Choosing a laptop can be a pretty confusing experience, because even if you have a good idea of what features and components you’d like, finding a laptop with them isn’t always easy. Once you do find the right features, you have to decide if you like the way the notebook looks, and in the mobile gaming world that often means living with a lot of gloss and bling, or going for the polar opposite with a dull black plastic shell. We have two gaming notebooks that happen to fall squarely into those categories, but there’s a lot more to the packages than that simple description.

Can MSI or CyberPower (Clevo) put together a midrange notebook that will wow us and walk away with your gaming dollar? If not, where do they come up short? Read on to find out.

When Eurocom offered to send us their latest Racer notebook, we were mildly intrigued. Then they upped the ante by giving us the chance to put AMD’s latest and greatest HD 6970M to the test and we jumped at the opportunity. The Racer is the “little brother” of the Clevo P170HM we reviewed a few weeks ago, sporting many similarities all wrapped up in a smaller package. This puppy doesn’t come cheap, but with a matte 1080p LCD sporting a good contrast ratio, awesome performance, and a better build quality than the previous Clevo models we’re quite happy with the result.

So, just what does an HD 6790M do for performance, and how much will it set you back? What else might Eurocom have to offer to sweeten the deal? Eurocom also likes to label their notebooks as mobile workstations, and while the system we have doesn’t necessarily cater to that audience, we’ll have some thoughts on that segment as well. Read on for our full analysis.

When we reviewed the Clevo W880CU and, by extension, NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 480M, we were perplexed. Certainly NVIDIA had reclaimed the mobile graphics crown and no one could dispute that, but at what cost? The 480M was a cut-down mobile version of the already dire desktop GeForce GTX 465M. We even begged the question: "Wouldn't the prudent thing to do have been to let ATI have their cake for the time being and try and push GF104 into laptops?" Today we have a better answer. AVADirect has been kind enough to send us a Clevo P170HM notebook outfitted with NVIDIA's latest and greatest, the GF104-based GeForce GTX 485M.

The march of progress is inevitable, with faster computers constantly replacing last year's top performing parts. Clevo is a company with a heavy focus on Desktop Replacement (DTR) notebooks, often at the forefront of the latest performance enhancing parts. AVADirect is one of a few vendors that sells Clevo notebooks, letting customers choose the various components. In the past, Clevo has had notebooks with desktop CPUs and a reasonably fast mobile GPU, or mobile CPUs with two GPUs; the X7200 combines the two and offers up to hex-core i7-980X CPU support with GTX 480M SLI graphics to provide what is easily the fastest notebook we've ever tested--with a "UPS battery" to match.

Given the high-end nature of the CPU and GPU options, we asked AVADirect to send us a no-holds-barred system for testing, and that's exactly what we got. Take Intel's fastest i7-980X CPU and add in 480M SLI with a couple of SSDs in RAID 0, and watch the mobile benchmark records topple one by one. If you want the (currently) fastest notebook on the block and are willing to pay the piper, meet the latest heavyweight champion of the world. We’ve got one of the very first review units to hit the streets, and we’re going to see what this bad boy can do. Ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready to rummmmble!

Ever wonder what a $3,000 notebook looks like? NVIDIA's first DirectX 11-capable GPU makes its way into notebooks to reclaim the fastest mobile graphics crown from AMD, starting with the Clevo W880CU. In this familiar shell beats the heart of a monster, but is the severely cut-down Fermi enough to gain a healthy lead past the Mobility Radeon HD 5870, and is the W880CU worth your gaming dollar?

The back-to-school season is coming and refreshed product lines are already starting to appear on store shelves. Intel's dual-core Arrandale processors continue to dominate in terms of raw performance, but AMD K10.5-based notebooks are now available from every major vendor. Intel has also refreshed its mobile line and added some low-voltage kit. It's an interesting market full of options, and sifting the wheat from the chaff requires some research. We've decided to do just that and put together a mobile guide with options for everything from multimedia enthusiasts to mobile gaming powerhouses. We're splitting the guide into two installments, with this first part specifically focusing on the larger laptops and desktop replacement (DTR) options. If you're in the market for a new notebook, this article is for you.

Who makes the fastest mobile GPUs right now? That question can be a bit tricky to answer, since getting identical laptops other than the GPU is difficult at best. Thankfully, AVADirect was good enough to send us a couple Clevo W860CU notebooks that are indeed identical, outside of the GPU. One sports AMD's top-of-the-line Mobility Radeon HD 5870 while the other is graced with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 285M. Which one is the better option? That's what we aim to determine with this head-to-head duel.

Unlike desktops, it's not currently possible to get a notebook that wins every benchmark, but we have three of the fastest currently available notebooks and we'll show you where each excels. Leave your wallet at the door….