Nvidia Corp. has brought its flagship GeForce 7900 technology to the mobile market, with two 90-nanometer-process PCI Express graphics accelerators designed for high-speed gaming on high-definition notebook screens. The GeForce Go 7900 GS combines 20 pixel pipelines and 7 vertex processing engines for an advertised fill rate of 7.5 billion pixels per second, while the GeForce Go 7900 GTX raises the ante to 24 pixel and 8 vertex pipes for 12 billion pixels/sec. Both support DirectX 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 with high-dynamic-range (HDR) lighting plus Nvidia's H.264 hardware-accelerated PureVideo technology. According to Nvidia, the smaller die and PowerMizer functionality make the Go 7900s no more battery-hungry than their 7800 predecessors.

Dell has grabbed some of the first GPUs off the assembly line for its new top-of-the-line consumer notebook, the 8.8-pound XPS M1710. Featuring a 17-inch, 1,900 by 1,200-resolution UltraSharp widescreen LCD plus illuminated touchpad and adjustable 16-color perimeter lighting, the M1710 starts at $2,600 with Intel's Core Duo T2400 (1.83GHz) processor, 1GB expandable to 4GB of DDR-2/667 memory, and 256MB GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics. Deluxe models with Special Edition Formula Red instead of Metallic Black décor start at $3,400 with Core Duo T2500 (2.0GHz) power and 512MB GeForce Go 7900 GTX graphics.