We recently covered the mobile GPU landscape, with a discussion of the various performance levels and price segments. The price/performance ratio is actually pretty similar between AMD and NVIDIA mobile GPUs (at least until we hit the top-tier models), and both have a decent number of design wins with notebook ODMs. The current mobile performance crown goes to NVIDIA’s recently launched GTX 580M, but along with the performance crown comes a hefty price and performance bill that needs to be paid. AMD’s top mobile part prior to today’s announcement is the 6970M, which is basically a lower clocked version of the desktop Barts core with some of the Stream processors disabled (essentially a mobile HD 6850). Our testing has shown the 6970M to offer just slightly less performance on average compared to the GTX 485M, but interestingly enough NVIDIA managed to use less power in low/idle loads than AMD. Of course, even the HD 6970M is a trimmed Barts core, and there’s still the desktop 6950/6970 Cayman core that has yet to see a mobile variant, which brings us to today’s announcement.

If you were hoping to see a truly crazy mobile GPU running off the Cayman architecture, we’re unfortunately not getting that. Unlike the desktop 6990, we’re also not talking about a dual-GPU in a single card solution. Instead, the HD 6990M will be a full Barts core, with all 1120 shaders enabled. (The closest desktop equivalent is the HD 6870, which comes clocked at 900MHz, 25% higher than the 6990M.) Besides the now-standard DX11 support that AMD has been shipping since the first HD 5000 parts, 6990M also includes with HD3D (stereoscopic 3D) and OpenCL 4.1 support.

Looking at the mobile parts, the shader count gives the 6990M an immediate 17% boost in performance relative to the 6970M, and with a slightly higher cores clock as well (715MHz on the 6990M vs. 680MHz on the 6970M), we’re looking at up to 23% higher performance than the 6970M. Both the 6970M and 6990M continue to feature 3600MHz GDDR5 memory, although the 6990M comes with 2GB instead of 1GB. AMD also enabled OverDrive up to 740MHz for the 6990M if you want to try some quick overclocking. Here’s how performance between the AMD parts stacks up, according to AMD’s internal testing (using a desktop 3.4GHz Phenom II CPU):

On the other side of the fence, NVIDIA’s GTX 580M has the same number of CUDA cores as the GTX 485M (384 cores), but with an 8% increase in clock speed. (The closets desktop equivalent is the GTX 560 Ti, which comes clocked 37% higher than the 580M.) Our earlier testing of the 485M and 6970M resulted in nearly identical average gaming performance across eight tested games, with both sides winning a few titles. In theory, then, HD 6990M should retake the mobile performance crown given the greater increase in compute and clock speeds relative to the second-tier parts. The following slide uses simulated performance (e.g. a downclocked desktop GTX 560 Ti GPU running at mobile speeds and with only 1GB GDDR5, again with a 3.4GHz Phenom II CPU), so take these results with a grain of salt:

Both the AMD and NVIDIA parts should be plenty fast for 1080p mobile gaming, so the real question is more likely to be who offers the best overall value. Sure, value in a gaming notebook is something of an oxymoron, but unless you absolutely need CUDA/PhysX support on the NVIDIA side or are looking at Bitcoin mining on the AMD side, performance is going to be close enough that pricing will sway the vote. Availability of the 6990M starts today, with the Alienware M18x coming in both single and CrossFire configurations. Clevo will also support the HD 6990M in their P170HM, P150HM, and X7200 notebooks, which means we’ll see whitebooks from the usual suspects like Eurocom, AVADirect, and others. Here's AMD's complete high-end mobile GPU lineup:

As we've noted in the past, the 6000M consists of parts from both the Evergreen and Northern Islands series of graphics chips. For many users, the difference between the two isn't all that important, but Northern Islands does upgrade the video engine to UVD3 where Evergreen is UVD2.2. Also worth remembering is that the 6800M parts are really just renamed 5800M parts with slightly altered clocks in some cases, so they're not as attractive as the 6900M parts. Finally, the 6800M parts can come with either GDDR5 or DDR3, the latter being significantly slower and thus less desirable. Our table only uses the specs from GDDR5 variants, so if you're shopping for a 6800M make sure you get a GDDR5 model.

Outside of their newest mobile GPU, we also asked AMD about the current state of their switchable graphics on Intel platforms. AMD says they should have some partners releasing laptops with application based switching (e.g. similar to NVIDIA’s Optimus), but that will likely be with lower performance GPUs. In contrast, NVIDIA is touting Optimus support on certain GTX 580M configurations, though as always it’s up to the notebook vendors to utilize the feature. We haven’t had a chance to get hands on time with any form of AMD switchable graphics for some time, so the jury is still out. We hope to have an appropriate laptop for testing in the not-too-distant future, at which time we’ll be able to provide a better answer on which solution is the overall winner.

As for the question of who actually takes home the mobile gaming performance crown, we hope to have both GTX 580M and HD 6990M notebooks for testing in the coming weeks. On paper and using our previous 6970M and GTX 485M results, it looks like the 6990M should come out on top, but with various driver updates in the past several months we’re not ready to declare an official winner. If you’re looking for more than a few slides and potentially biased game selections, stay tuned: we’ll provide our usual in-depth look at real-world performance as soon as we can get hardware into our labs. Our money is still going to be on whoever can come in at a lower price point, and if recent history is any indication, that will likely be AMD with the 6990M.

The new Vaio Z is significantly thinner and lighter than the old Vaio Z: It weighs in just 2.6lbs and has height of 0.66” compared to its 3.04lbs and 1.3” predecessor. It’s actually slightly thinner than the MacBook Air (0.66” vs 0.68”). MacBook Air’s design is slanted though so at its thinnest point, it’s much thinner than the new Vaio Z. Vaio Z is also quite noticeably lighter than 13” MacBook Air or Samsung 9 Series, which weigh 2.9lbs and 2.88lbs respectively. 

The main reason why the new Vaio Z is so much lighter and thinner than its predecessor is the lack of a discrete GPU. It comes with Intel HD 3000 which is integrated into the CPU die, whereas the old Vaio Z came with a discrete NVIDIA GT 330M. However, Sony has provided an interesting solution to this. They have announced a Power Media Dock (PMD) which is basically a souped up external optical drive. The external dock has an AMD Radeon HD 6650M with 1GB of DDR3 in it as well. The AMD 6650M allows you to connect up to two displays to the PMD so you can have a total four displays: two attached to the PMD, one attached to the laptop’s HDMI port and obviously the laptop’s integrated LCD. 

To make this worthwhile, Sony uses Intel’s Light Peak technology (yes, Sony calls it Light Peak, not Thunderbolt) which provides up to 10Gb/s of bandwidth in each direction. A GPU requires lots of bandwidth which is why USB, especially 2.0, is not suitable for powerful external GPUs. There are plenty of USB video adapters which are fundamentally external GPUs but they are not suitable for gaming or other GPU heavy tasks by any means. What makes Sony’s implementation different from Apple’s is the fact that Sony uses a combo-port that combines USB and Light Peak into one, instead of Mini DisplayPort connector like Apple. Sony actually calls the port a docking station/USB port. It can function as a regular USB 3.0 port as well. 

The Power Media Dock comes in three flavors. The cheapest one is a normal DVD drive. The second option is a Blu-Ray player. The most expensive option is a Blu-Ray writer as you might have guessed. PMDs with Blu-Ray are only available from Sony’s online store whereas the DVD PMD will be available through resellers as well. The PMD supports up to two external monitors: one via HDMI and one via VGA. There is also a Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports and one USB 3.0 port. 

One issue with the PMD is its price. The cheapest one is £400 which translates to $640. Take away UK’s VAT which is 20% and we get $512, so the cheapest PMD will most likely retail for $500. That sounds pretty expensive, considering that AMD 6650M is an underclocked AMD 6570 (our review) which goes for around $70. Combine that with $20 DVD drive and you get what Sony calls Power Media Dock. 

Then there's the concern about performance. Sony must be running PCIe over Light Peak, but you only get a maximum of 1.25GB/s of bandwidth to/from the GPU - assuming no additional overhead. While the 6650M is likely much faster than Sandy Bridge's intergrated GPU, it's potentially slower than an on-board 6650M would have been because of the Light Peak bottleneck.

Conclusions

Vaio Z is definitely the most portable of the current 13" ultraportables and it packs in a nice amount of power. However, its pricing makes it too expensive compared to most of its competitiors. 13" MacBook Air starts at $1199 so the cheapest Vaio Z will be at least $700 more expensive if UK's pricing is comparable to US's. Even the Lenovo X1 starts at $1199 nowadays and it features exactly the same CPUs. The biggest market for Vaio Z seems to be in the high-end ultraportable market. No other brand offers 512GB SSD or 1080p screen at the moment for example. 

Power Media Dock sounds interesting but the price tag is everything else but attractive. For the same amount of money, you could grab for instance NVIDIA GTX 580, which is the fastest single chip GPU as of today. With PMD, you will be limited to AMD 6650M which isn't exactly a great GPU for gaming in the first place. At $500, you would hope for something much, much better than a DVD+GPU combo that struggles to play games at decent quality. We have seen external GPUs before but they have always failed miserably. Sony's attempt doesn't seem too promising either but at least we now have a port that is capable of external GPUs: Thunderbolt/Light Peak. There is hope that third parties will release cheaper and faster solutions, the most promising being Sonnet's Echo Express, which supports full size PCIe cards (though no word on GPU support). 

As the world becomes increasingly more mobile, external GPUs may be a solution to the problem of balancing portability with performance. Light Peak is a great way to get data out of a system however we may need to see a next-generation version of the interface, with higher bandwidth to really make sense for high performance external GPU solutions.

Their TimelineX line of thin-and-light notebooks is being released in 13.1″, 14″, and 15.6″ models. Acer’s press release is a bit cagey on details for the specific models (except to cite model numbers and weight), but there’s some impressive engineering at work here. The 13.1″ 3830T tips the scales at 4.12 pounds, while the 14″ 4830T weighs in at 4.88 pounds and the “big daddy” 5830T remains a relatively svelte 5.6 pounds. Each of the notebooks comes equipped with an HD webcam with a 1280×1024 resolution, Intel 2nd Gen Core i3 or i5 processors, gigabit Ethernet, and 802.11b/g/n wireless networking. The 14″ and 15.6″ models also include integrated optical drives.

What’s most appreciated (at least to me) is the change to a chiclet-style keyboard instead of the dire floating island keyboards that have plagued older Acer notebooks, but what may be most interesting to the rest of you is the inclusion of NVIDIA dedicated graphics. While we wouldn’t expect the 13.1″ model to sport anything other than the IGP, Acer has announced that the GeForce GT 520M and GT 540M would both be available in the new TimelineX notebooks.

Acer expects the notebooks to be available in retailers starting today with an MSRP starting at just $599.

You get a standard Windows 8 desktop as well as the new tiled start screen. USB devices will work and MS even did a demo of copying files off of a USB thumb drive.

NVIDIA had a Kal-El based notebook and tablet on display. Microsoft showed task manager displaying all four threads during H.264 decode acceleration.

We’ll start with a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad X1, which we saw leaks of recently. Leaks or no leaks, this ultraportable notebook turns out to pack some suprises in its svelte frame. Measuring 16.5mm at its thinnest (the front edge) and 21.5mm at its thickest (the back edge) the X1 will not compete for thinnest laptop on the market, but it may just be the thinnest with a full voltage Sandy Bridge mobile processor. The 13.3″ screen is optimized for travelers with a pane of Corning’s Gorilla Glass covering its TN-panel (we confirmed this with Lenovo Product Manager Jason Parrish) and peaking at a reported 350 nits at a resolution of 1366×768. We’ll reserve judgment on the panel till we get our hands on it; truth is, in a market bereft of IPS displays, even a 768p TN-panel can land near the top of our display charts. In a move that many of you have been asking for on Apple’s MacBook Pro line, Lenovo provides both mini-DisplayPort and HDMI for connectivity along with Intel’s Wireless Display technology.

The X1 adopts the chiclet keyboard we first saw in the ThinkPad Edge 13; while the previous ThinkPad keyboards have been lauded since before the line was acquired by Lenovo from IBM, it’s refreshing to see that Lenovo has been able to drasticaly altered its keyboards form factor without diminishing its effectiveness. We are excited to note also that Lenovo has brought a backlight to the keyboard while keeping it spill resistant. Carried over from the rest of the line is the Trackpoint “nubbin” with mouse buttons featured just below the space bar, and just above an otherwise buttonless trackpad.

Though not a unibody design, the laptop is built around an interior roll cage with a magnesium body, contributing to a rigidity that meets a variety of military specifications. The layer of Gorilla Glass contributes to the device’s overal rigidity, particularly to the display portion–an area where ultraportables have often been a bit flimsy. Enclosed within this rigid frame is the battery technology that makes it possible to power a standard voltage i5 without obliterating battery life. The new lithium-ion chemistry Lenovo is using provides higher power density, faster charging, and excellent durability. Lenovo is quoting 80% charge in just 30 minutes and 5.5 hours of life on a full charge. For all-day on-the-go computing, Lenovo will provide an external slice battery that doubles battery life to over 10 hours.

When it goes on sale today the X1 will pack an i5-2520m processor (dual-core 2.5 GHz, 3MB L3) and up to 8GB of DDR3. We’ll have to confirm this, but based on materials provided it appears RAM will appear in a single DIMM slot, so the 8GB configuration will likely carry a hefty premium; how this affects performance will also be interesting to see. Before the end of summer we will be seeing i7 quad-core CPUs inside the X1′s chassis, easily making it the thinnest quad-core computer we’ve encountered.

When we first laid hands on Lenovo’s Edge 13, we weren’t wowed by the aesthetic; hopefully the design will grow on us, as Lenovo intends to bring the Edge aesthetic to more than just a subnotebook. This begins with the ThinkCentre Edge 91z. Slotting in between the entry-level ThinkCentre A-series and the workstation-class M-series AIOs, the 91z brings a curious blend of desktop and mobile components to provide a midrange specification. From the press pictures provided, it seems the key characteristics brought over from the Edge 13 are the large screen bezel and matte black finish to everything aside from the screen. And that screen? It’s a 21.5″ 1920×1200 LED backlit TN-panel. We will once again reserve judgment on the screen quality till we get our hands on it, but it will be hard to compete with a certain IPS packing AIO that also comes in a 21.5″ size.

Quad-core processors will be a fixture on these models with the options list peaking at the i7-2600S (2.8GHz, 8MB L3, 3.8GHz Max Turbo). Dual-core i3 options will start at $699; the pricing of the quad-core models could play a key role in their competitiveness. The VESA mountable chassis is designed to provide some user serviceabilty, so we expect to be able to access the RAM and hard drive without much difficulty.

An optional 80GB mSATA SSD is available, though we were not able to confirm the source of the drive. Lenovo is optimizing its boot times and hopes to hit a sub-10 second target when paired with the SSD. Graphics are driven by either Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 3000, or the optional AMD Radeon HD 6650A, a desktop Turks variant sporting 1GB of DDR3. HDMI out is provided for external monitor support along with a treat for those worried about what happens when you want to upgrade from an AIO: video in is provided in the form of a VGA input, giving the 91z an afterlife when the pace of technology leaves the processor and graphics behind. (Some form of digital input would have been preferrable, but at least it’s something.)

Contrary to its name, the ThinkCentre Edge 91z is not quite on the bleeding edge of computer technology. So what makes this more than just a product reveal? Lenovo will bring several Edge-branded devices to the ThinkCentre line. Small-form factor and mini-tower computers will be released carrying the Edge design language, most likely targeting the enterprise space. The 91z will be joined by other all-in-one devices, though the previously mentioned A- and M-series computers will maintain their own style. Lenovo sees 21.5″ as the sweet spot for AIOs, but we can expect up to a 23″ device to join the line at some point, and Lenovo is actively working on bringing touch to its Edge AIOs. HP has had some success with its TouchSmart line using a touch friendly skin, with its focus traditionally on enterprise clients it will be interesting to see what Lenovo does to make touch a more welcome feature in a desktop computer.