You could say It is a "strange time" for laptop gamers with the now available Direct X10 compatible graphics cards shipping with some of the newest models. But what about good old Direct X9 cards, are they obsolete? Well not just yet but, yes soon to come. The 7950GTX is still king in frame rates with 256 bit memory interface and mature drivers. The fastest DirectX10 graphics available now from NVIDIA is the 8700M found in the Toshiba X205. No one yet knows for sure when the 8800M will ship and what performance it will have over the 8700M but a fair guess would be a 256 bit memory bus, faster core and mem speeds with drivers improvements for Vista. If you are looking for the best gaming laptop today there are a few questions to ask yourself. What games do you play? If its older DX9 games like FEAR then the 7950GTX will keep you a happy gamer for months. But if you are looking at new games that take advantage of the DX10 features you have a few options. You could wait for the 8800M to arrive (maybe close to this years end) with the intended Vista service pack, or settle for an 8600M or 8700M now available. Another risky option is to opt for a new DX10 laptop with an MXM card in hopes to upgrade to the 8800 when it arrives but this may cost another $3-500.

ATI HD 2600 DX10 graphics card now available in the FUJITSU N6460.