ProStar PR9068-4A

With Intel’s splashy unveiling of its dual-core platform, it’s no surprise that other manufacturers are trying to ride the marketing wave by selling their own dual-core systems with rival chips from AMD. ProStar’s monster gaming rig, the 17-inch PR9068-4A, combines a powerful AMD dual-core processor with the top graphics solution on the market to create a seriously fast desktop replacement. Too bad this 13-pound behemoth doesn’t look nearly as good as it performs.

The switch to dual core and an update to the graphics card are the only two changes on this model since we reviewed it last October. Gone is the 3.8-GHz Intel Pentium 4, and in its place is the most powerful dual-core processor you can buy: AMD’s 2.4-GHz Athlon 64 X2 4800+. This 90-nanometer desktop CPU allows users to multitask more efficiently, so playing MP3s in the background shouldn’t cause any hiccups if you’re engaging in CPU-intensive tasks like photo editing. Multithreaded applications that would fully take advantage of this processor aren’t available yet, but the addition of the X2 future-proofs your purchase.

The other update is Nvidia’s top-of-the-line GeForce Go 7800 GTX graphics, currently the speed king of the gaming universe. In conjunction with the new X2 CPU, the PR9068-4A posted a 16.8 percent boost in 3DMark03 since we last reviewed it, achieving a remarkably high score of 14,124. The increase is mostly due to the graphics processor. (The Pentium M-based Dell XPS 170 turned in a comparable score of 14,749). When we ran F.E.A.R., the PR9068-4A reported an excellent frame rate of 59 fps (frames per second) on autodetect settings.

Unlike systems from Alienware, Falcon Northwest, and Voodoo, the forgettably-named PR9068-4A isn’t jazzed up with any kind of luxury customizations. Instead it relies on the same standard factory template that’s used by at least a half dozen other manufacturers. The notebook’s two-toned silver-and-black paint screams boring. This souped-up behemoth has plenty of premium components at a decent price, but its ho-hum design will leave you yawning.

The PR9068-4A weighs a whopping 13 pounds, but that’s typical for a 17-inch gaming laptop. The battery life is also a pitiful 1 hour and 16 minutes, but this system’s weight will prevent you from venturing far from an outlet anyway.

One of the benefits of such a huge chassis is room for every feature you could want in a notebook. A 7-in-1 memory card reader? Check. Two dual-layered DVD drivers? Check. A 17-inch WUXGA screen with 1920 x 1200-pixel resolution, along with integrated 802.11b/g Wi-Fi with Bluetooth? All check. The PR9068-4A offers USB ports galore, a DVI port for LCD monitors, FireWire for your digital camcorder, and a cable TV interface port for watching and recording your favorite shows.

About the only things missing from the PR9068-4A are a TV tuner and Windows XP Media Center Edition. A standard TV tuner is a configurable option from ProStar, but Windows Media Center is not, which seems odd because one of the bonuses of owning a system like this is that it can double as a multimedia hub for DVDs, MP3s, and TV.

ProStar’s support channels are limited to e-mail, telephone, and fax. If you plan on pushing your system to its limits and know it may need fixing from time to time, you may find the breadth of ProStar’s support lacking. That being said, the price of the PR9068-4A is nearly $1,000 lower than that of most of its competitors, so you’re getting a fairly steep discount.

Dual core on 17-inch gaming systems is finally here, but we’re still waiting for the payoff. Besides a few isolated programs, most software can’t take advantage of this notebook’s ability to simultaneously process two streams of data. The upside is that when software finally does become available—and it will—you’ll have no problems running it on this system. What it lacks in the design department, the ProStar PR9068-4A makes up for in power and price.