Mobile Workstation

Ottawa-based Eurocom announced the EUROCOM Racer, which the company is billing as the “most powerful 15-in. laptop on the planet.” While the title may be a fleeting one, for the time being, the Racer does include some very desktop-like features in a relatively small package.

To start, it the mobile workstation sports Intel’s latest high end multi-core processors, from a mid-level i5 up to the i7 Extreme Edition (i7-2920XM), a quad-core, 2.5 GHz mobile processor with 8 Gigs of L3 cache that Intel launched in early 2011.

In addition, the laptop also incorporates Intel’s latest Huron River HM 65 chipset, which allows the Racer to handle 100W GPUs, including the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 485M, the AMD Radeon Mobility HD6970M or the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M.

To take full advantage of these graphics chips, the Racer incorporates the Mobile PCI Express Module 3.0b spec (MXM 3.0b), which provides a wide 256-bit memory interface and a potential future graphics upgrade path.

Also uncommon in a laptop computer, the model supports four memory slots, which can be configured with up to 32GB of either DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1600 RAM. For storage, it features two HD bays, to accommodate solid state, hybrid or mechanical hard drives up to 1.75TB.

The Racer doesn’t skimp on I/O interfaces. It incorporates a 9-in-1 card reader, 2x USB 3.0; 2x USB 2.0; 1 firewire; 1 eSATA; and an HDMI out port, in addition to the usual audio ports and Gigabit Ethernet. For wireless networking, it comes with optional WLAN N or Bluetooth + WLAN Combo and/or 3.75G Mini Card.

For all that’s packed into it, the Racer places almost as much emphasis on the “mobile” as it does on the “workstation.” In total, the notebook weighs in at the low-end of the scale (3.1kg/6.8 lbs.) for a workstation grade laptop. At 35-43mm (1.4-1.72 inch), it is on the thick side, but the Racer’s 15-inch High Def, LED-backlit display slims the machine’s overall dimensions. An 8-cell battery or an 180W power supply provide enough juice to run the laptop’s high-end but energy hungry components.

Pricing has yet to be announced but the EUROCOM Racer is expected to ship February 1, 2011.
www.eurocom.com