ASUS chose last month's CES event to announce its flagship gaming notebook, the W90. Usual high-end specifications aside, the most distinct component used in it is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2, AMD's flagship mobile graphics platform, which is on the brink of snatching the performance crown away from NVIDIA for the platform. A North American sales representative for ASUS tells GPU Café that the W90 will be available from February 23, which perhaps makes it the launch-date for the Mobility HD 4870 X2. It is also noted that the Mobility HD 4670 will be out around the same time, while Mobility HD 4850 will arrive a week or two later.

XtremeSystems forum member Kinc posted some early performance numbers relating to the Mobility HD 4870 X2, featured on the ASUS W90 with an Intel Core 2 Quad T9400, which effortlessly overclocked to 4 GHz on the notebook's stock cooling system. The Mobility HD 4870 X2 carried clock speeds of 600/900 MHz (core/memory). The notebook used Intel's X38 core-logic. At the said parameters, it was put through 3DMark 06. The notebook secured a score of 20,284 3DMarks at default setting. When released, the Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2 will replace NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX SLI as the fastest mGPU solution, replicating a similar feat by its desktop cousin.


Sources: GPU Café, XtremeSystems