We could have made this a gaming comparison, but that would have partly ignored the rationale behind Eurocom’s quad-core notebook processor upgrade. We still wish the company would have included the dual-core chip as a reduced-cost reference point, because we still think the $700+ upsell is exorbitant.

The Racer doesn’t exactly crush the competition in single-threaded audio conversion apps, but it’s nice to see the low-power CPU edge past its high-energy rival, quantifying the advantages of Sandy Bridge over last-generation's Gulftown design.


Higher scores are bad news in our timed benchmarks, and the Core i7-990X’s two additional cores give it a big advantage in both of our video conversion tests, despite the fact that they don't leverage the superior Sandy Bridge architecture.



Adobe Photoshop, ABBYY FineReader, and 3ds Max again show why some users will always choose more cores over a better architecture. Fortunately, Sandy Bridge-E means that decision is no longer necessary, though we haven't seen Intel's server-oriented design find its way into notebooks yet. If you really need what amounts to a mobile workstation, platforms like that are available through vendors like Eurocom.

None of our compression apps, aside from 7-Zip to a very small extent, demonstrate the ability to exploit the Core i7-990X's extra cores, making up for some of the Racer's losses in the other charts on this page.
It's good to see the battery life has increased notably compared to 990x.
Overall,it's a decent desktop replacement laptop.
sure my computer still runs most current game great at my monitors max res (1600x900) but damn , i'd take one of these laptops any day for that performance booste .. here's to dreaming of winning the builder's marathon though !
But good review on the graphics chip
The single GPU 6990M is overkill for that resolution and $2000 is a joke but hey atleast you can max everything.
Idiots out there will buy this.
That is the native res on the laptop. Which is the res most would game at on a laptop.....
And as for the price, find me a better performing laptop that is cheaper please.
Troll somewhere else
1920 X 1080 isn't that hard to run, a lowly 5870M handles it well.
Whine somewhere else.
Actually, whining is what you're doing troll
Anyways, enough with the troll. Overall, the price level of this laptop seems excessive when you compare it to laptops such as G74 series and other more modest gaming laptops. But, there will always be a price premium for performance gains. As they always point out in these types of articles, it's a very niche market. In conclusion, nice review, great performance, and look forward to where our laptops will be 5 years from now
Don't like my complaint/opinion?
And price premium for performance gains?
Your limited to 1080P what more performance do you need?
It's a niche product, and just like Alienware's topshelf stuff and Razer's new laptop, its overpriced and it won't sell.
Anytime now someone reads something they don't like they toss out the troll word.
Obvious and lame.
And 6990M is like desktop 6870 in case you don't know.
Take the 5870M.
Has 5770 specs...which is still enough to play all games at 1080P and most of them maxed or close to it.
Could also be spinned on how to cheaply give new life to an aging laptop battery versus buying a new battery and price comparison of the parts vs new battery.
Tom's Hardware reviews notebooks on a voluntary basis, so if you'd like to see a company's newer product compared you should ask them to pony up.
But go ahead, keep the conspiracy theories alive. Make sure the next time 1 out of 3 systems has an Nvidia graphics card you call Tom's Hardware out on being Nvidia-biased as well.
I really wish you had picked apart the meat of the comment as far as battery modication vs replacement.