AVADirect Turns Up the Heat with Core i7 Notebook

Do you need the need for speed...and an insulated lapboard? AVADirect claims to the be the first U.S. company offering a notebook with a Core i7 processor.

Custom computer maker AVADirect has been hawking overclocked, high-performance rigs to gamers and computing enthusiasts for a while…and now the company claims to be the first U.S. company offering a notebook computer system based on Intel’s high-performance Core i7 processor in the form of its Clevo D900F Core i7 Gaming Notebook. And it’s not just a vanilla notebook: it touts a 17-inch screen and supports up yo three hard drives and 12 GB of RAM.

AVADirect has based the Core i7 model off its earlier D901C notebook design; the system features a Core i7 processor running at anywhere from 2.66 to 3.2 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M with 1 GB of video RAM driving a 17.1-inch display with native WSXGA+/WUXGA resolution. The unit supports up to 1.5 TB of storage with bays for up to three 500 GB hard drives (they can be set up in RAID configurations), and the machines handles up to 12 GB of RAM. Also onboard: video output (HDMI, S-video, DVI, and VGA), four built-in speakers, a 7-in-1 media card reader, an ExpressCard slot, 802.11n Wi-Fi, a 1.3 megapixel Webcam, 4 USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire port, DVD-RW or Blu-ray drives, and gigabit Ethernet. The system uses a 12-cell battery—no word on how long it will power a fully-tricked out notebook—and AVADirect will pre-configure the system with a variety of Vista and XP editions, as well as Ubuntu, Red Hat, or Fedora Linux.

Of course, all this doesn’t come cheap: prices start at $2,538.26—and escalate rapidly from there. AVADirect expects to begin shipping units to customers in July.