Landing at a Cybercafé Near You
January 4, 2005 | Senay TOPCUOGLU
It's tempting to imagine a secret cabal of scientists reverse-engineerin g Alienware's new mobile graphics workstation, the MJ-12m, from a downed flying saucer.
Everything about this powerful laptop-its cutting-edge components, the aerodynamic lines of its brushed-silver chassis, even its name (Majestic-12 was the covert government agency responsible for masterminding the early years of the flying saucer phenomenon)-evokes the UFO lore Alienware vigilantly brands into its computers.
The design may suggest black-op technology, but it would be more accurate to say that the MJ-12m was reverse-engineered from Alienware's acclaimed gaming laptop, the Area-51m.
They have similar components on the inside and the same silvery shell on the outside. The difference between them-and it's a big difference-lies in their graphics cards.
The Area-51m comes with an upgradeableNVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700, a gaming card renowned for producing blisteringly fast frame-rates. The MJ-12m, on the other hand, is equipped with NVIDIA's mobile workstation card, the Quadro FX Go1000, which is optimized for Digital Content Creation (DCC) and capable of rendering precise geometry (CAD) and high-end computer graphics (3D animation).
The Go1000 isn't as concerned with speed as it is with precision.
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