HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2014: Editor's Choice - Part 2

Best Enthusiast Gaming Notebook

Best Enthusiast Gaming Notebook

With the release of Intel’s fourth generation Core processors, faster mobile GPUs from both NVIDIA and AMD and advancements in display technology, notebook design and cooling, gaming notebooks have become more powerful and faster than ever.

2013 saw no less than six new state-of-the-art gaming notebooks launched, from the biggest names in the business. To make the cut for this category, the notebooks’ display must be larger than 17-inches and they must have enthusiast-grade gaming GPUs. Overall performance, portability, price and features will all play an important role in determining the winner in this tightly contested category.
Nominees: 

• Aftershock Titan
• ASUS ROG G750JX
• Dell Alienware 18
• MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2
• Razer Blade Pro
• Toshiba Qosmio X70
   

And the Winner Is...

Aftershock is a locally-based custom gaming notebook specialist, which has been making a name for themselves amongst gamers locally. The Titan is the biggest and baddest notebook that the company makes and can be equipped with a bewildering number of options. However, the recommend setup for the Titan comes with an Intel Core i7-4700MQ processor, 16GB of memory, dual GeForce GTX 780M GPUs in SLI, and a 256GB SSD with 1TB HDD combo.

The powerful processor coupled with generous amounts of RAM and blazing quick SSD means that the Titan is more well equipped for general computing tasks such as word processing and web browsing. As for gaming, the twin GeForce GTX 780M GPUs in SLI made short work of just about any game we threw at it.

Blazing performance aside, its choke full with features and connectivity options such as four USB 3.0 ports, a Thunderbolt port, an onboard discrete Creative X-Fi audio chip and Killer network connectivity that helps ensure low latencies when playing online multiplayer games. No other notebook comes close to its levels of performance and features and therefore it wins this category.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.