Overview: ASUS Zenbook UX51VZ and AFTERSHOCK TITAN: Gaming Notebooks Get More Complicated for the good.

Recently This morning I took a look at a couple of notebooks that are worth taking a peek at.

1.) A Lightweight Gamer that should be the rival to the newest Apple's MacBook Pro Notebook.

ASUS Zenbook UX51VZ
Source: www.notebookcheck.net

Core i7 3612QM (2.1GHz-3.1GHz)
8GB DDR3 RAM (4GB Intergrated, 1x4GB PC 1600 MHz RAM)
512 GB (2 x 256GB) ADATA XM11 SSD (RAID 0)
2GB GDDR5 nVidia GeForce GT 650M
15.6' Ultra Glossy 1920 x 1080p Display
Weight 2.2 Kilograms / 5 pounds

Now the Asus Zenbook is something abit unique compared to other notebooks. It functions as a pretty decent gaming machine but fills in the niche of an Ultrabook because of similar weight, size and how slim it is. The one from Notebookcheck.net is configured such that running applications remain smooth as always. However, that one comes at a cost of a costly machine, knowing how expensive would 2x RAID 0 Solid State Drives cost in such a slim factor. You do get swift no-frills performance with those drives, especially if those are running on RAID Zero.

The GT 650M GPU employed is the GDDR5 variant, which gives a bit of a tweak compared to the DDR3 version found in smaller laptops.

Do be mindful of the heat it emits because of the CPU and the RAID 0 Config, however this is one machine that could potentially be the competitor to the Retina MacBook Pro.

2.) And a Heavyweight Champion that should trump most high End Desktops aside with the Option of Dual SLI / Crossfire GPUs:

AFTERSHOCK TITAN / Clevo P370EM
Source: aftershockpc.com



Aftershock's Ultimate Version of the X17 after the release of the Aftershock X17 notebook. The Titan is perhaps THE ultimate laptop with Similar specs to the X17 but with an added twist. The Titan (which I would like to dub as the X17 Ultimate)  has space to cramp in Dual Graphics Core setup in SLI or CrossfireX Mode rather than the X17. I thought the original X17 could cramp in the Dual setups but I guess if you want a great gaming notebook without burning too big of a hole to swallow, which is probably I reckon why X17 is reverted to a single card configuration.

When you play on the Titan, you know it. You have a sense of power in your notebook. Dual GPUs with the choice of GTX 675M, GTX680M and the Radeon 7970M in SLI/CrossfireX mode can literally take on all today's game titles without breaking a sweat.

And knowing Clevo's range of custom Notebooks, the extent of customization options knows no bounds either. You could ramp up your CPU Processor all the way to the i7 3820QM or more. You start off already decent on a Core i5 Processor as your base CPU. It's still based on the 22 nm Ivy Bridge architecture. You can upgrade the RAM to an excess of 32GB, fit in RAID 0 drives, improve Heatsink thermal compound, deck it with Windows 8...etc. You can pretty much get this decked out to its maximum but of course, don't expect it to come cheap.

Don't expect the base model to be at the ideal cost and weight either. But if you want the maximum performance of a full fledged gaming computer, the Ultimate TITAN / Clevo P370EM even at its base configuration is gotta be that instrument to pwn your enemies to kingdom come.