PC MicroWorks Corporation Releases Quad Core Black-Hawk XR5 Dual 8800GTX Notebook

[malware]

PC MicroWorks Corporation – a leading professional grade computer manufacturer – released today its most powerful portable workstation to date, the 17-inch Black-Hawk XR5 Quad Core Super Notebook. The new XR5 is the first portable worldwide announced with the ability to house two of NVIDIA’s flagship mobile PCI express graphics units – the brand new Geforce Go 8800GTX cards in SLI mode. The new Black-Hawk also utilizes the breakthrough Intel quad core architecture previously available only in desktops and allows for more efficient multitasking, quicker encoding/rendering times, and faster overall system performance on the go. In addition to the quad CPU and dual video cards, the XR5 can house up to 3 SATA II hard drives in a RAID array and 4GB of 800 MHz DDR2 system memory. The new notebook will feature a custom carbon fiber top accented by piano black gloss finishes across the notebook to enhance the appearance and add to the exclusivity of the unit. The XR5 will be the most powerful consumer notebook for the 2007 holiday season, and will begin shipping in December with pre-orders being taken now.



Source: Business Wire

[Cold Storm]

Now this is a great looking laptop. One that I would buy, but I'm not on the go. So i'm not spending 5 grand for it... I don't know the price but looking at C2d laptops that are a step or two down from that is around 4500.

[jocksteeluk]

id have to say it is pretty much overkill for a laptop but a very nice spec indeed!

[Demos_sav]

nice specs indeed....but how about weight and battery life?

[nflesher87]

Originally Posted by Demos_sav

nice specs indeed....but how about weight and battery life?

exactly! if this is in fact true, which I'm doubting
put 2 GTXs a quad and 3 HDs in raid and you're talking 20 mins battery life on the largest capacity battery and a 30+ pound notebook

what a joke

[pb1285n]

Originally Posted by nflesher87

exactly! if this is in fact true, which I'm doubting
put 2 GTXs a quad and 3 HDs in raid and you're talking 20 mins battery life on the largest capacity battery and a 30+ pound notebook

what a joke

I don't know about the battery life, but it weighs about 11lbs which isn't too bad.

http://www.pcmicroworks.com/blackhawk.htm

[nflesher87]

Originally Posted by pb1285n

I don't know about the battery life, but it weighs about 11lbs which isn't too bad.

http://www.pcmicroworks.com/blackhawk.htm

I'm sorry but it can't weigh 11lbs with 3 hds and 2GTXs even without the huge 8800 heastinks
that said, even still this thing would get hot enough to heat your home in the winter!

[Cold Storm]

Originally Posted by nflesher87

I'm sorry but it can't weigh 11lbs with 3 hds and 2GTXs even without the huge 8800 heastinks
that said, even still this thing would get hot enough to heat your home in the winter!

home? I bet with the weight and speeds that it would produce, if you lived in an apartment with other apartments around you in every direction (8) that you could see a heat spike in their apartments also!

[pb1285n]

Originally Posted by nflesher87

I'm sorry but it can't weigh 11lbs with 3 hds and 2GTXs even without the huge 8800 heastinks
that said, even still this thing would get hot enough to heat your home in the winter!

Yes because all together that would add an additonal 2lbs to the unit.

Don't get me wrong, I never said it wouldn't run hot and the battery life would probably leave much to be desired.

[kwchang007]

Originally Posted by nflesher87

I'm sorry but it can't weigh 11lbs with 3 hds and 2GTXs even without the huge 8800 heastinks
that said, even still this thing would get hot enough to heat your home in the winter!

Dude it's a laptop. So it uses 1.5" hdd (they don't even weight like a pound each), and the 8800s are significantly less powerful than their desktop counterparts. That's why it's 11 lbs...but that's still heavy for a laptop. And battery life has got to suck unless it uses integrated graphics when not on ac power.

[nflesher87]

I wasn't under the impression there was a mobile 8800GTX yet

[Wile E]

Originally Posted by nflesher87

I wasn't under the impression there was a mobile 8800GTX yet

Apparently there is now. I don't think you could squeeze 2 PCIe cards in a chassis that size.

[Cold Storm]

Originally Posted by Wile E

Apparently there is now. I don't think you could squeeze 2 PCIe cards in a chassis that size.

If there is a will, there is a way. I didn't even think that a quad core laptop would be out for another year or so. I have a feeling that the PCIe ports aren't close together. But then again I don't know how it would be sli'ed if not together...

[Random Murderer]

must... steal... one...

[FreedomEclipse]

that looks awesome - its a fat as a camel, obviously designed for desktop replacement. so yeah the battry will probably give you a good 30mins at the most but then this laptop wasnt designed to be 'off mains'

coolness = through the roof
Price = TBA - yeah like we are all made of money
Enjoyment = COD4 @ Max settings

Overall = Id rather get something a lot cheaper with a little more portability but not losing much gaming power - this laptop here is overkill. id be happy with a santa rosa platform, C2D 2.2Ghz, Nvidia 8700m GT, 2Gb ram & XP Pro

also possibly for that price that this laptop is sold at you could build a stupidly OTT pc rig with money to spare for a 22"+ widescreen TFT personally Id rather rather have an OTT pc at home & walk around with a pen & notepad for the rest of my life.

[WhiteLotus]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

also possibly for that price that this laptop is sold at you could build a stupidly OTT pc rig with money to spare for a 22"+ widescreen TFT personally Id rather rather have an OTT pc at home & walk around with a pen & notepad for the rest of my life.

thats a very good point but the people with the money will buy one simply to say they have a very powerfull laptop.
plus if its not meant to be off the mains thenyou can take out the battery - that will free up some wieght to be spent on other parts, but would then call it a desktop so all very

[Cold Storm]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

also possibly for that price that this laptop is sold at you could build a stupidly OTT pc rig with money to spare for a 22"+ widescreen TFT personally Id rather rather have an OTT pc at home & walk around with a pen & notepad for the rest of my life.

I'm with you 100%, but a lot of the "big" wigs that are living on this pretty thing we call "the world" want to have something that they can work with and then when they are in that motel room be that "kid again". I'd rather spend, myself, the money to build a desktop rig and have more money in my wallet.

[Xaser04]

Originally Posted by nflesher87

I wasn't under the impression there was a mobile 8800GTX yet

They are called the 8800GTX in name only.

IIRC the mobile version is based on the G92 8800GT but only has 96 stream processors enabled.

[Ripper3]

Yeah, the 8800 pre-G92 would be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy too hot running a core for a laptop. Either way, the G92 would be awesome, in a laptop, and it should run pretty cool, if underclocked, with 96 stream procs, without damaging performance much. I'd love to have one in my main PC, lt alone my laptop (though this m1330 of mine is tiny, nowhere near large enough to house one :P)

The quad-cores now should be pretty cool, what with the Q6600 having a lower TDP, running the new G0 stepping, it should be reltively easy to accomodate it into a laptop, especially with the thickness of that casing, they can fit a very beefy heatsink assembly into there, I'm sure.

[Falcon_CMH]

My feelings on my experience with PCMicroWorks and their BlackHawk laptop (10/2007-1/2008):
They delivered the laptop fast within 5 days I was totally stoked on the laptop and PC MicroWorks!
They delivered it with incorrect hardware (ABG instead of ABN) and didn't notify me which they said was my fault because I ordered the laptop without an OS and they normally put the paper in the box as part of the OS (Now you start to see my problem is with PCMicroWorks and their employees, it’s never their fault always the customers).
The laptop immediately black screened and locked up when put in SLI mode for Vista x64 which I explicitly asked if it worked and they said yes (Obviously they never tested it or did and decided to lie to me anyway).
They blamed the video problem on NVidia saying NVidia told them it worked so they shipped it. They also blamed this on me not ordering an OS for them to have installed (Oh by the way there site offers the laptop without an OS as the default choice). They also blame me for getting 4GB of memory and said the problem doesn't exist with 2GB (they never ask me to take out any memory to fix the problem? Also once again their site offers the 4GB upgrade for free at the time I ordered).
They promise me a working driver in a week or so and have me disable some features to get SLI to work which it never does.
Then they ship the new driver which basically has the same problems not as pronounced but still present.
After over a month they finally offer to swap the cards temporarily for 7950 which are not DirectX10 which is the main reason I bought this system and how it is advertised on their website.
I said I would take the cards if they would upgrade the 8700 to the 8800s coming out for my trouble and they would not commit but did send the 7950s.
Now during all this two SATA drives fail one after the other. They overnighted drives to replace them.
I have now spent more money and time on this laptop than it cost me originally ~$5,000.00.
Also the customer support is terrible. They are overly aggressive, blame the customer, refuse to take ownership of the problem, follow through is terrible; don't follow their written or oral agreements.
Back to the video problem so I hadn't heard from them in over a week so I decided to call and either say give me the 8800s with a working driver or take the laptop back. The customer support person was terrible. First off he started complaining about me wanting to game with the laptop, buying it without an OS again, and various other absurd, unprofessional , and just plain ridiculous statements like "we are taking care of you by going out of our way to do such and such" etc. This guy was unreal. He taunted me and finally after I told him I wanted to return the laptop offered the 8800s and told me I would have to get a new motherboard too. I told him no thanks not only do I not want it because of what has transpired (Especially the conversation with this customer service manager) now I really know PCMicroWork’s marketing gimmick of being upgradeable is totally mis-leading seeing you have to change the motherboard to upgrade video cards.
I tried to get a hold of upper management but they refused to let me through.
Needless to say I returned the portable and they gave me a full refund and all shipping was at their cost. They drew out the refund return (during the holidays the worst time for me to tie up 5K of mine, affected my 8 year old daughter’s Christmas) and once again broke their written agreement on that. Even though they think they made me whole they are not even close with the time I invested.
I write this because before I bought the laptop from PCMicroWorks I searched for info on the company and their support and found little to none. If someone had written an article like this I may not have made the purchase.
There are plenty of other companies out there that sell similar systems based on the exact same core Clevo system that will provide much better customer service and support and not waste your valuable time and money.