Verdict: Rock makes its fastest laptop faster and more expensive.
Given the succes of its GeForce 8800-series desktop graphics cards, all eyes have been on Nvidia to release an equivalent mobile card that can play DirectX 10 games at decent settings and resolutions. All of Nvidia's DX10-compatible mobile graphics cards so far are aimed at the mid-range or low-end markets, and are a little underpowered for our tastes. Even the previous top-of-the-range GeForce 8700M struggles to play modern games at high settings.
Thankfully, Nvidia has finally released two high-performance laptop graphics cards, the GeForce 8800M GTS and 8800M GTX. Rock hasn't wasted any time installing the faster and more expensive GTX version in its flagship gaming laptop, the Xtreme 770.
The GeForce 8800M GTX is Nvidia's fastest mobile GPU, replacing the old GeForce Go 7950 GTX. With only 96 stream processors running at 1.25GHz, 512MB of memory (with a 512-bit interface) and with a 500MHz core speed, the 8800M GTX is closer in spec to the 640MB 8800 GTS desktop card, rather than the GTX. However, it's massively better than the GeForce 8700M, and its 32 stream processors and 128-bit memory interface, or the GeForce Go 7950 GTX with its old-school vertex and pixel pipelines. On paper, the GeForce 8800M GTX is easily the most powerful laptop GPU on the planet.
The last Xtreme 770 system we saw cost £1,600, had an orange strip of plastic running around its sides, and was one of our favourite laptops of last year. This latest incarnation shows off the alternative colour scheme of silver and black, which isn't as distinctive, but is still pretty. However, it takes more than a different colour scheme and new graphics card to justify adding £400 to the price of a laptop, so we were interested to find out what else Rock has changed.
From the outside, our favourite laptop has changed very little; it's housed in the same sturdy, wedge-shaped chassis from Clevo, and the top-notch keyboard and trackpad remain unchanged. The Xtreme 770 has one of the best keyboards in the business, perfect for playing games, thanks to its desktop-like proportions and layout. The new Rock Xtreme 770 still oozes quality.
Priced at £2,000, the Rock is as expensive as it is heavy; weighing in at 4.2kg (plus a 0.9kg power brick), you'd certainly know about it if you dropped it on your toe. It's also rather large, with its 17in screen giving it a chunky body. This bulk means that if you plan on using it as a laptop, and not just a foldable desktop PC, a large, strong, well-padded rucksack is a necessary purchase. Rock's website offers a good selection of Pakuma bags if you want to carry it in style. The fully charged battery also ran out after only 62 minutes of gaming.
Under the bonnet, the Rock's CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo T7800. With both cores clocked at 2.6GHz, only the 2.6GHz Core 2 Extreme X7800 is higher in Intel's rankings. The only difference between the two chips is that the multiplier of the X7800 can be bumped up - at stock speeds, performance is identical. The last incarnation of the Xtreme 770 we saw was fitted with a speedy 2.2GHz T7500 Core 2 Duo, so the processor upgrade accounts for some of the extra £400 you pay. You could configure your Xtreme 770 with a slower processor if you're strapped for cash. The powerful CPU is backed up by 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM, the minimum amount these days for a laptop running 32-bit Windows Vista Home Premium.
Another contributory factor to the increased price is the optical drive. The Xtreme 770 range is one of the first gaming laptops in the UK to have an HD-DVD drive as standard. However, Rock has made a great deal with Toshiba, the maker of the drive, so it only adds around £50 to the overall price.
There's no option to downgrade to a standard DVD drive, but at £50, you aren't being asked to pay through the nose. It will make good use of the excellent 1,920 x 1,200 screen (there's an option for the cheaper 1,680 x 1,050 screen, but that will limit you to 720p HD-DVD playback rather than full 1080p HD).
Even if a 17in screen is more suited to personal use than watching HD-DVDs with friends, it's hard to praise the display enough. With 1,920 x 1,200 pixels crammed in, detail is pin-sharp. The 1080p trailer for 'Sweeney Todd' looked great, with the dark, dingy mood of the film greatly helped by the glossy coating. The inky shadows had their full impact, while the colours were rich and punchy. Sod your friends, this screen is too much of a treat to share.
If you want the sound to be as involving as the image, we suggest that you ignore the weedy stereo speakers built into the Rock's base and plug in some decent headphones. A more long-term solution is to plug some digital surround speakers into the 3.5mm S/PDIF digital output at the front of the base. A 7,200rpm 200GB Hitachi Travelstar 7K200 hard disk completes the extensive list of premium components.
Performance
Armed with the very latest high-performance laptop graphics card, we weren't expecting the Rock to shirk its gaming responsibilities, so we mercilessly exposed it to the full brunt of our new graphics card benchmarks. Of course, you'd expect a £2,000 desktop PC to play the latest games at high resolutions without any problems, but the inherent compromises involved in making such a small PC lowers expectations. We had to drop the screen resolution to 1,280 x 1,024 (but still used the usual 2x AA and appropriate AF levels) in order to achieve a playable frame rate in Need for Speed: Pro Street and Call of Duty 4. When you consider that both games ran smoothly, with minimums of 38fps and 30fps respectively, the Rock is clearly capable of playing the latest games at full detail, as long as you don't mind using modest resolutions.
Crysis returned a predictably disappointing result, only managing a stuttery 14fps minimum at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA. However, most desktop PCs go weak at the knees when we take Crysis out of its box, so this score is forgivable.
This laptop isn't just a gaming console though - with a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, it should also be a video and photo editing powerhouse, and we weren't disappointed. This new Xtreme 770 set a laptop record in our video editing test, returning an impressive score of 964, only 36 points behind our reference desktop system. This is a fantastic result, given the Rock's slower CPU, mobile hard disk and Intel PM965 chipset. The GIMP photo editing test scored an equally impressive 948 points, although we were sad to see the Rock falter in the multitasking test, with score of 688. This drags down the overall score to 867, but it's still the fastest laptop we've seen to date.
Conclusion
We'd have to think twice about spending £2,000 on a gaming laptop. The Rock is too unwieldy to be used as an on-the-move laptop, yet has the usual laptop performance compromises. A £2,000 desktop would tear strips off our games tests and score nearer 1,500 in our Media Benchmarks 2007. To cut costs, you could drop processor grades, which won't impact gaming performance much. That said, with our sensible hats removed, the sheer excess of this laptop has its own charm. Rock has crammed some of the most expensive and hot-running components into the Xtreme 770 yet still made it a pleasure to use, which speaks volumes for its excellent design. While not offering good value, the Xtreme 770 is as entertaining, fast and desirable as gaming laptops get - it's a purchase you'd make with the heart rather than the head.
