Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q892 (Upgraded)

One of the lesser models within the Desktop Replacement category, the Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q892 was one of the first models outfitted with the GTX 460M and the promotional deal on Newegg, where mine was bought, sold out within weeks of posting. Once word got around how well it performed it was a hit. However the size alone turned several people away.

It came stock with the i5-460M clocked at a respectable 2.53GHz that could turbo up to 2.8GHz on both cores when needed, a fair 4GB of DDR3 1066 RAM and could be upgraded to a maximum of 8GB, a standard 500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive, and the GTX 460M with 1.5GB worth of video ram. The PM55 Chipset that controls the motherboard allows this very board to support every CPU currently on the market. Everything from the lowly i3-3xx line to the monster i7-940XM.

It's rated cooling capacity, according to Toshiba, is a maximum of 45w, though the only CPUs that are fully supported under the fan bios are the i5-430M, i5-460M, i7-720/740QM and the i7-840QM. The 940XM is supported by said bios however the bios uses the previous CPU's fan control as a reference for the current CPU. This caused me a few problems when I put in the 940XM; I had come from the i5-460 which was only a 30-35w CPU whereas the 940XM was a 55w CPU.

While the GPU is not soldered onto the main motherboard, there's no hope of upgrading the graphics in the future, however the performance of the GPU is very adequate regardless of what game you're playing. Overclocking can yield a few frames extra in more intensive games and the 1.5GB framebuffer helps out with the newer DX11 titles. Overclocking is no problem since the cooling capacity is well beyond what is needed to cool your GPU down, however doing the same to your CPU isn't advised due to the super low voltage the CPU runs at.

The BIOS itself is gimped a good bit, allowing you to only do the most basic of things; the number of options is staggeringly low. The boot process follows the strict guideline of "boot drive goes in slot 1 and data drive goes in slot 2". This isn't that big of a problem but I would like to see a few more options from a later product.

The connections for the board are SATA 2 primarily. The number of connectors it comes with are 4 USB 2.0 ports, a single e-SATA port, VGA output, HDMI output, Mini-USB, an Express Card Slot, and the standard Mic and Audio connections on the sides. Overall it has plenty of room for everything. The DVD drive is a slot loading drive, as all of them are and it has a number of touch sensitive buttons to the left of the keyboard. One opens up the Windows Media Player, two control the volume level, two control the tracks in WMP, one activates play or pause, one turns the speakers on or off, and finally the last activates or deactivates Toshiba's Eco Mode, A.K.A. "super" Power Saver Mode.

The primary negative comes from those little buttons on the side. Unfortunately they can get in the way. A stray finger can swipe across the symbol during a heavier point in a game and pull up WMP as it minimizes your current screen in doing so. Quite irritable I must say. However they've improved on that design with the newer X775 series by placing those touch buttons on the top, above the keyboard. The 18.4" screen is a beautiful LCD Glossy display. The higher priced models feature a vibrant 1080p screen, yet I have the 900p screen which doesn't sacrifice much in terms of clarity, just resolution size. The native resolution for this model is 1680x945.

The CPU is the closest thing to a quad core that I've ever seen. Having personally used a true quad core (who hasn't?) this processor does everything the previous one did and then some. More often than not the CPU will simply sit at 2.8GHz and run all four threads in games. 3DMark06 gives the CPU around 2600 points which isn't bad at all.

The GPU is the sweet spot here for this machine. Anyone can tell you that this little card will open your eyes for games. It plays everything from older games like Half Life 2 to Crysis 2 with very promising framerates. The huge framebuffer allows DX11 games to run flawlessly and allows for SLI to go unhindered. This little chip is overclockable to no end. Stock speeds for this chip are 675/1350/2500 yet mine are sitting pretty at a pinch higher at 750/1500/3000. The boost to the memory clock is the greatest bonus to framerate that I've seen simply due to the rather low stock bandwidth that it starts with, 60GB/s. After said overclock that jumps up to 72GB/s and games just love it. The temperature is fantastic for this GPU; Dead Island peaked at around 80*C with stock cooling after the overclock and around 73*C before. Lastly, according to Vantage, the scores this little GPU rang up before the overclock were around 6800, and after the overclock that number jumped to 7700 pushing it well past the GTS 250 from older times and right, just barely, behind the GTS 450/GTX 260 area. Though gaming performance greatly exceeds that of the GTS 250 even at stock clocks.