AMD’s Mobility Radeon HD 6970 in CrossFire mode forges ahead in mobile gaming with stunning “Full HD” 3D performance. But can it stand up to Nvidia’s high-end GeForce GTX 470M and 480M in SLI? Eurocom's 17.3” Panther 2.0 gives us its answer.

Nvidia stands nearly uncontested as the single-GPU performance leader in desktop gaming by virtue of its larger, more complex graphics processors. Currently, AMD's best effort is second-best. It takes a dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 to outmaneuver the GeForce GTX 580. But excessive power consumption and heat force Nvidia's high-end notebook modules to resemble low-cost desktop derivatives. Corporations have no shame, so rather than elaborate on the fact that SLI-capable enclosures like Clevo's X8100 required the cooling hardware previously used to dissipate heat from two cards to support a single GeForce GTX 480M, the firm went on to release a greatly improved GTX 470M.

AMD, on the other hand, has continuously focused on the higher-volume mid-range market for desktop gaming, attempting to scale upwards by linking multiple GPUs together in parallel. While that strategy has prevented it from taking ownership of the elite quad-GPU desktop market, lower prices and fewer thermal challenges have made AMD's graphics processors a big splash in the portable performance pool. AMD aficionados made hay while the sun shined last spring as manufacturers tried unsuccessfully to stuff two extra-hot competing parts into less-than-adequate chassis.

A new chassis gave Nvidia-based builders a chance to finally test the limits of mobile SLI, forcing AMD to dig deeply into its bag of tricks recently filled by the Radeon HD 6850. Eurocom prepared a custom system with a pair of its new Radeon HD 6970M modules in CrossFire, going so far as to send along a pair of GeForce GTX 470M modules for an apropos SLI comparison. 

Eurocom also offers a few extras to put this model over-the-top, such as a $78 Bluetooth internal module, a $113 world-wide TV tuner, and a $259 warranty upgrade to three years. Anyone who wants to throw even more money into creating the ultimate desktop replacement can even RAID a pair of SSD drives and swap out the Blu-ray combo drive for a Blu-ray writer.