Gaming laptops play catch up game

May 9th, 2007

Gaming laptops play catch up game No matter how much power you cram into laptops these days, they still cannot measure up to desktop systems in terms of performance. This is a sore point for hardcore gamers as they want the same, exacting performance on-the-go that is comparable to their desktop counterparts. Magma is now offering a solution in the form of the ExpressBox1. Shaped like an external drive enclosure, the ExpressBox1 holds a PCI-E graphics card and is connected to the laptop via the ExpressCard/34 module and a PCI-E cable. Latency issues are non-existent accordign to Magma, and the ExpressBox1 currently supports only single-width video cards that guzzle up 55 watts of power at most. Support for double-width cards will follow later this year. The ExpressBox1 hits your pockets hard for $729. Looks like portable gaming just got a boost, but your suitcase will suffer from an extra lack of space.