There’s been a lot of hoopla over DirectX10 on the side of Microsoft, however, we have yet to see a single game out now or soon to be out that makes DX10 look any better than what we’ve seen DX9 capable of doing. In addition, the performance penalty of running DX10 certainly doesn’t help matters – add to that Microsoft’s “strong-arm” tactics of trying to force folks to upgrade to Vista and you have the makings for quite the point of contention among many consumers and PC-gaming fans.

The Toshiba Satellite X205 is being marketed towards the gamer and high-end customers who enjoy gaming and are ready to leap into High-Definition video, courtesy of the on-board HD-DVD drive. Even the pealable decal on the front of the unit touts that this laptop is “Battle Ready” and “Game enabled”. Is that marketing fluff or has Toshiba really armed this thing with enough muscle to consider it “game enabled”? Let’s press on to find out.

Make no mistake about it; the footprint of this unit is on the larger side as it’s intended to be used as a desktop replacement. It’s not exactly a “laptop” – if ya know what I mean. It weighs about 10 pounds and has a large 17-inch screen. Overall heat output is relatively tame compared to other similar notebook PC’s we’ve reviewed and it remains rather quiet; even under full loads.

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