Gaming Notebooks - Compare Laptops

Gaming notebooks offer the ultimate in performance and style for those with deep pockets. They are the kings of the laptop world. They're the biggest, heaviest, fastest rigs on the planet, and also the most expensive. Gaming notebooks are too heavy to carry around and usually too hot to place on your lap.

Many of these power-thirsty speed demons can't last longer than an hour unplugged, but who cares? Any notebook gamer looking for maximum CPU and graphics performance should be willing to exchange traditional notebook portability for the raw processing power these systems deliver. Best suited for playing 3D titles like FEAR, Battlefield 2, or Quake IV, these 17-inch monsters have no equal.

Alienware has built its reputation on selling systems that cater specifiicolly to gamers, and the Area-51 m7700 proudly carries that torch as the company's flagship gaming notebook.

The most striking physical feature of this system is the eponymous sci-fi design. Rubber-like accents adorn the back of the LCD panel along with a glowing alien logo. The 17-inch WSXGA display looks sharp and is part of the reason why this behemoth weighs a whopping 13 pounds.

The raw computing power of the m7700 makes encounters of any kind fast, especially with the powerful 2.93-GHz Intel Pentium 4 CPU and the top-of-the-line Nvidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX graphics engine. It all comes with Alienware's efficient customer support apparatus, which is rivaled in scope and ability only by Dell. Alienware's excellent standing as an elite gaming brand is well-deserved, and the m7700 only enhances that reputation. It's out of this world. $2,509; www.alienware.com

With almost all 17-inch gaming notebooks relying on the same chassis, it takes a certain amount of pizzazz and attention to detail to stand out. Falcon Northwest's FragBook DR 6800 does that by outfitting this 13-pound notebook with a glossy, ten-layer painting process usually reserved for automobiles. That lustrous finish is all part of the Frog Book's attitude, which is about speed, speed, and more speed.

Stuffed with desktop-caliber components, the FragBook's top-performing 3-GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor is actually designed for desktops. Nvidia's best-in-class GeForce Go 7800 GTX provides the graphics on the WUXGA display that can support a maximum resolution of 1920x 1200, more than many high-end desktop monitors.

This version of the FragBook uses two dual-layered DVD drives, includes a 6-in-l memory card reader, and has a host of built-in ports, from USB to FireWire to S-Video. Falcon Northwest throws in a free "Perfect Pixel" guarantee for one year, where they will replace your LCD at no cost if the panel develops any dead or stuck active pixels. That's the kind of service you should expect from a premiere system like this. It's big, fast, and costs a bundle, but if you want to one-up your neighbors you're going to have to pay for it. $3,745; www.falcon-nw.com pezbetta.top

A style-conscious gaming rig, the Voodoo Envy's magic is in the details. The over-the-top colors of the a:717 come with one of 13 different tattoos: or pre-determined painted patterns from the factory to decorate the case. It's an ideal way to personalize your system.

Voodoo is unique in that it forgoes Intel in favor of AMD's 2.2-GHz Athlon 64 Mobile processor, which in most cases is equal in terms of performance and often translates into a price discount. The a:717 also uses ATI's Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics chipset. It's two generations behind ATI's latest GPUs, but powerful enough to run the latest titles.

Voodoo throws in extras to make the experience more gratifying. The company's proprietary PlatinumCare and GameDoctor services can diagnose many common problems you experience, which saves you the trouble of paying for official customer support to rectify conflicts. Its Disaster Recovery software protects against hard drive and mishaps, which tend to occur more frequently on high-performance systems. The Voodoo a:717 has all of the gaming mojo you need. $2,800; www.voodoopc.com

Hypersonic's top goming rig may not be faster than the speed of sound, but its dream components put it on any list of the top gaming notebooks. Enormously heavy at 13 pounds, this 17-inch desktop replacement uses one of 13 different luxury finishes that you can select when configuring your system; ranging from color-shifting green/purple to heat-sensitive chameleon.

If the exotic color schemes don't grab your attention, the hardware should: using 3-GHz Intel Pentium 4 and Nvidia's GeForce Go 7800 GTX, these first-rate components can handle not only the latest games with ease, but multimedia tasks like editing video. The 17-inch Wide-WUXGA VividView Glossy display (1920 x 1200) makes the Aviator equally well-suited for watching widescreen DVDs in rich detail.

The price on this system is reasonable, but you will probobly want to configure it for extras like a DVD burner and Windows XP Media Center to take full advantage of the Aviator's capabilities. Gamers will fly high on this box. $2,535; www.hypersonic-pc.com