Acer’s New 8950G-9839

With Intel’s Sandy Bridge rollout including a few Core i7 quad-core mobile processors, it was inevitable that a heavy dose of gaming laptops would be among the first portables announced using Intel’s latest CPUs. Here are some heavy hitters from some heavy hitters in the notebook world.

While the following systems all feature Intel inside, when it comes to their graphics, things start to fragment. For instance, Acer’s new 8950G-9839 uses AMD’s new Mobility Radeon HD 6850, which it pairs with a Core i7-2630QM, 8GB of RAM, 750GB hard drive, and 18.4-inch LED-backlit display. Similarly, the Toshiba Qosmio X505 (pictured above) offers the i7-2630QM and 18.4-inch screen, but chooses Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M graphics. (It’s also available with a Core i5-2410M processor.) Toshiba offers this Qosmio line from between $1,300 and $1,900, while the Acer costs $1,599.99.