iBuyPower's Battalion 101 W870CU notebook now available with Intel Core i7

The Battalion 101 W870CU Notebook has been boosted for gaming with an Intel Core i7

The Intel Core i7 is a leading CPU for notebooks, and the 720QM, 820QM and 920XM are the best performing notebook processors in our CPU Benchmark list, ranked at positions 11, 8 and 6 respectively. Our list has Intel Core i7 and i5 desktop processors at the highest positions, and they are there for comparison only. Therefore, in terms of notebook processing power, the Core i7 is as good as it gets.

By adding the i7-720QM to their Battalion 101 W870CU Notebook as a default processor, iBuyPower are laying the foundations for a potentially exceptional gaming notebook. Have they managed it?

Here are the specifications with the default options, taken from their website:-

·         Display: 17.3" Full HD 1920X1080 Widescreen LCD TFT

·         SATA port, Bluetooth (EDR), Fingerprint Reader, Li-Polymer 3800mAh battery, Universal AC Power Adapter

·         Colour: metallic Black

·         Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Mobile Processor (4x 1.60GHz/6MB L3 Cache)

·         Memory: 4GB [2GB x 2] 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM

·         Video Card: Mobility DDR3 1GB NVIDIA GTX280 PCI-Express 3D Video

·         Hard Drive: 250 GB 5400rpm Serial-ATA Super Slim Notebook Hard Drive

·         Optical Drive: 8x Dual Format DVD±R/±RW + 16x CD-R/RW Combo Drive

·         Flash Media Reader/Writer: Built-in 7-in-1 Media Card Reader/Writer

·         Sound Card: 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard              

·         Network Card: Built-in 10/100/1000 Network LAN

·         Internal Wireless Network Adapter: Intel Pro/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi Link Half-MiniCard

·         Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

·         Warranty: Standard One Year Limited Warranty and Lifetime Technical Support

The NVIDIA GTX280 is in position 5 on our GPU Benchmark list and offers excellent gaming performance: it's in position 5 in our GPU Gaming Performance list too. This GPU should play virtually any game with the highest graphical settings, at a fluid, enjoyable framerate (with Crysis Warhead (2008) being the only exception).

This notebook has the components to make it an exceptional gaming laptop, with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, it is likely to give all but the most demanding gamers, everything they need to enjoy their games.

However, the price: $2114, may put a lot of people off. This laptop can get even more expensive, if one were to upgrade a few of the components:

·         Changing the CPU to an i7-920XM (Extreme Edition 4x 2GHZ/8MB L3 Cache) adds $745 to the price

·         Doubling the RAM will set you back another $790

These additions alone bring the price up to $3649. iBuyPower offer a large range of other upgrade options, including SSD options for the primary hard drive or as a secondary hard drive, and a big library of software to choose from.

Is $2114 a reasonable price to ask for such a powerful machine? I thought a quick comparison with the Alienware M17x would answer that question, and one of those costs $1999. The M17x has an Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.4GHz (3MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB), which is in position 38 in our CPU Benchmark list, which is slightly disappointing in comparison with the Battalion 101's Intel Core i7.

However, the Alienware makes up for it's CPU with two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M GPUs in SLI mode, which is an exceptional graphics card option. The GTX 260M SLI is in position 3 in both our gaming performance list and GPU benchmark list. A more detailed comparsion would be needed to compare these two notebooks competently. However, at this stage, the Battalion 101 seems to be good value for money, and deserves a closer look.