Finding a mainstream notebook with a high resolution screen can be harder than pulling teeth. Outside of the new Dell XPS 15 and the odd business-class machine, a resolution higher than the dismal 1366x768 on a 15.6" screen can be extremely difficult to locate and may even force you to compromise and buy a bigger machine than you'd intended. Fortunately there are options and we've tracked one down in the form of the Clevo B5130M. Sporting NVIDIA's new GeForce GT 425M and a 1080p high-resolution screen, is this notebook enough to steal the crown from the Dell XPS 15?

Back when ASUS released the UL80Vt last year, we gave it a glowing review, praising its balance of performance and battery life without breaking the bank. The UL80Vt had an overclocked Core 2 Duo SU7300, an NVIDIA G 210M with a manually switchable option, and ASUS’ now standard 84Wh battery. This gave it pretty solid performance, on par with larger mainstream notebooks, and close to 13 hours of ideal-case battery life, even with turbo mode enabled. Today, we’ve got the UL80Jt, an updated version running the new Core i3-330UM processor and NVIDIA’s Optimus-enabled G 310M graphics. Does it measure up to the reputation its predecessor had, or will it ultimately be overshadowed by newer and equally well rounded notebooks? Read on to find out.

Picking up immediately from where we left off yesterday with our review of NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTX 580, we have a second GTX 580 in house courtesy of Asus, who sent over their ENGTX580. With our second GTX 580 in hand we’re taking a look at GTX 580 SLI performance and more; we’ll also be taking a look at voltage/power consumption relationship on the GTX 580, and clock-normalized benchmarking to see just how much of GTX 580’s improved performance is due to architecture and additional SMs, and how much is due to the clockspeed advantage.

As we discussed a couple weeks back, Dell has relaunched their XPS brand for laptops, with a focus on quality and "mainstream performance". The latter means that unlike previous XPS laptops, you won't find the highest performing GPUs in the new models—Dell will continue to serve the needs of mobile gamers with the Alienware brand. The former is the more interesting aspect, as Dell's XPS laptops will have better build quality and improved LCD panels. Dell sent us their new L501x, the 15.6" chassis with NVIDIA's Optimus Technology and a new GeForce 420M GPU (our first look at the mainstream 400M parts!), and they included the upgraded 1080p B+GR LCD panel. Read on to find out just how good the new XPS is, and whether it's worth the price of admission.

There's little doubt in our minds that the GF100/GTX 480 launch wasn't quite what NVIDIA was hoping for. It did end up being the fastest single GPU card on the market, but when it came to heat and noise it didn't fare so well. What could have been an amazing card became a reasonable card, but a card with caveats.

But they say time heals all wounds. With GF100 out the door NVIDIA has had a chance to examine their design, and TSMC the chance to work the last kinks out of their 40nm process. GF100 was the first Fermi chip, and it would not be the last. With a lesson in hand and a plan in mind, NVIDIA went back to the drawing board to fix and enhance GF100. The end result: GF110, the next iteration of Fermi. Hot out of the oven, it is launching first in the consumer space and is forming the backbone of the first card in NVIDIA’s next GeForce series: GeForce 500. Launching today is the first such card, the GF110-powered GeForce GTX 580.

The original ASUS G73Jh was an instant classic: a great performer with a good screen, build quality and cooling at an amazing price. Six months later, ASUS is coming out with a “new and improved” version with a few updates to make things interesting. Most of the upgrades are straightforward but sensible: the i7-720QM has been replaced with the new i7-740QM and USB 3.0 support is now part of the package. The far more controversial changes come courtesy of the GPU: AMD’s HD 5870 is out and NVIDIA’s GTX 460M is in, which also means HDMI 1.4 is now included. While the HDMI update is nice (but mostly useful if you want 120Hz 3D output), the GPU performance is a tougher call. Is this a better overall notebook or mostly a lateral move? That’s what we’re here to find out.

Apple fans, please forgive me, and feel free to skip this post. I have been testing out a MacBook Pro 13 running Windows 7 and have put it through our entire PC notebook benchmark suite. We were pretty interested to see how the NVIDIA 320M IGP in the MacBook and MacBook Pro 13 fared compared to low end dedicated cards like the G 310M and the HD 4330, and also to see how much the old Core 2 Duo processor hamstrung the MacBook Pro compared to newer and faster PC notebooks. And on a more subjective level, we wanted to see how the latest MacBooks were as BootCamped systems running mostly in Windows. For those willing to fathom the idea of running Windows 7 as the primary operating system on a Mac portable, keep reading to see how the latest MacBook Pro 13 fares as a Windows 7 laptop.

It’s been 7 months since the launch of the first Fermi cards, and at long last we’re here: we’ve reached the end of the road on the Fermi launch. Today NVIDIA is launching the final GPU in the first-generation Fermi stack into the add-in card market, launching the GeForce GT 430 and the GF108 GPU that powers it. After months of launches and quite a bit of anticipation we have the complete picture of Fermi, from the massive GTX 480 to today’s tiny GT 430.

For the GT 430, NVIDIA is taking an interesting position. AMD and NVIDIA like to talk up their cheaper cards’ capabilities in HTPC environments but this is normally in the guise of an added feature. Rarely do we see a card launched on one or two features and today is one of those launches. NVIDIA believes that they’ve made the ultimate HTPC card, and that’s the line they’re going to be using to sell it; gamers need not apply. So just what is NVIDIA up to, and do they really have the new king of the HTPC cards? Let’s find out.

Today we’re wrapping up our coverage of last month’s NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference, including the show’s exhibit hall.  We came to GTC to get a better grasp on just where things are for NVIDIA's still-fledging GPU compute efforts along with the wider industry as a whole, and we didn’t leave disappointed. Besides seeing some interesting demos – including the closest thing you’ll see to a holodeck in 2010 – we had a chance to talk to Adobe, Microsoft, Cyberlink, and others about where they see GPU computing going in the next couple of years. The GPU-centric future as NVIDIA envisioned it may be taking a bit longer than we hoped, but it looks like we may finally be turning the corner on when GPU computing breaks in to more than just the High Performance Computing space.

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!

Last month we had our first look at AMD's latest Danube platform with a quad-core P920 processor in the Toshiba A660D. After we posted that review, Toshiba asked us if we'd be interested in reviewing their Intel version of the notebook, with the upgrade to NVIDIA's 3D Vision coming along for the ride. Never one to turn down a review opportunity, particularly for a technological curiosity like mobile 3D Vision, we readily agreed. So today, we have a faster, significantly more expensive version of the A66x chassis, with 3D Blu-ray support and a 120Hz LCD.

There's plenty to look at, but before we get to the review and benchmarks let's make it clear: Toshiba is billing this as a 3D multimedia laptop as opposed to a 3D gaming laptop. We'll see exactly why later in the review, but it's probably no surprise to state right now that the GTS 350M GPU driving the graphics isn't intended to do the heavy lifting involved in 3D Vision. It's still plenty fast for regular gaming, however, and with the marketing push behind 3D—3D movies, 3D HDTVs, 3D cameras, and 3D laptops—we're certainly interested to see how compelling the A665-3DV is when it comes to providing visual depth. Is this the next frontier or another gimmick? Let's find out.

ASRock is one of the companies held in high esteem by everyone here at AnandTech. We have been reviewing their HTPC offerings since they first came out their Ion based HTPC last year. After starting out at the low end, they soon moved up to place mid-range products aimed at the mainstream consumer with the Core 100 series. The Core 100 HT-BD received a very good review from us, and when ASRock informed us about their high-end offering in the Vision 3D, we were quite excited.

When a company is confident enough to send across an engineering sample prior to sending across the production review unit, it is quite clear that they are extremely proud of their product and its features. We have been playing with the Vision 3D for close to a month now (first with the engineering sample, and then with the review unit). Read on to find out more about the Vision 3D and how it performs.

Less than six months ago, the ASUS U30Jc ultraportable walked away with a Bronze Editor's Choice award. The combination of portability, performance, and price made the U30Jc a favorite around here. A couple months back, we looked at the bamboo covered U33Jc, with USB 3.0 and Intel WiDi; Vivek loved the bamboo finish, but he's a sucker for fashion statements. Now ASUS is back with a slimmer, lighter version of the U30Jc and no bamboo. Is the U35Jc a worthy upgrade, or did ASUS misfire with their new ultraportable?

Less than six months ago, the ASUS U30Jc ultraportable walked away with a Bronze Editor's Choice award. The combination of portability, performance, and price made the U30Jc a favorite around here. A couple months back, we looked at the bamboo covered U33Jc, with USB 3.0 and Intel WiDi; Vivek loved the bamboo finish, but he's a sucker for fashion statements. Now ASUS is back with a slimmer, lighter version of the U30Jc and no bamboo. Is the U35Jc a worthy upgrade, or did ASUS misfire with their new ultraportable?

Gateway certainly isn't the first brand you think of when you're looking for a stylish, classy, well-rounded notebook, but that's just what they aim to bring to the table with the ID49C series. Does a dash of aluminum and backlighting blended with a svelte build and mainstream hardware elevate the ID49C beyond the usual consumer fare, or are the engineers at Gateway solving the wrong problems? We take a look inside the ID49C and see if it deserves to be on your shortlist.