Mobile gamers looking for a high-performance laptop have a few new options, thanks to Gigabyte. The Taiwanese hardware company has announced a partnership with iBuyPower to sell configure-to-order gaming notebooks through the latter company's website. Dubbed Optiboost, the new customization program will allow users to choose their storage drives, RAM and other components when they purchase one of Gigabyte's Ultraforce line of high-performance gaming laptops.
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The Optiboost program will initially include three notebooks: the 14-inch P34Gv2 and the 15-inch P35Gv2 and the P35Wv2, with more to come. Starting at $1,399, the 14-inch P34Gv2 comes standard with a 1920 x 1080 display, a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i7-4710Q CPU, 8GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce GTX860M graphics and a 500GB hard drive.
At present, shoppers can only configure the P34Gv2 with up to 16GB of RAM and dual hard drives or SSDs. There's no current option for choosing a different CPU, display, graphics card or wireless radio.
The 15-inch P35Gv2 starts at $1,439 with the same Intel Core i7-4710Q, 8GB of RAM and GeForce GTX860M graphics but with a 1TB, 7,200 rpm hard drive. You can configure it with a faster GTX870M GPU, your choice of storage drives and an optional optical drive.
Also 15-inches, the P35Wv2 starts at $1,599 and has all the same base specs and config options except for the GPU. Instead, the more powerful GTX870M comes standard. Both 15-inch laptops are available for pre-order while the P34Gv2 is shipping now.
While configure-to-order may be a new concept for Gigabyte, competitors have been letting users choose their components for years. Alienware, for example, lets you select the screen resolution, video card, storage drive and memory for its 14, 17 and 18-inch systems. Nevertheless, we look forward to giving one of these gaming rigs a spin.
