Alienware got the drop on its rivals this week, showing off this week what it and chip maker Nvidia claim is the world's first "available" notebook equipped with two GeForce Go 7900 GPUs rigged to run co-operatively in SLI mode.

The Dell subsidiary's Aurora m9700 machine contains Nvidia's nForce 4 SLI chipset and an AMD Turion 64 processor. The two 256MB 7900 GS GPUs connect up to drive the notebook's 17in display, either a 1,920 x 1,200 or a 1,440 x 900 model, depending on your preference.

Buyers also have a choice of 5,400rpm or 7,200rpm SATA hard drive, in capacities of 100GB or 200GB, and fitted singly or in pairs in RAID 0 or 1 configuration. They can pick either a CD-RW/DVD-ROM driver or a multi-format DVD writer. The machines ships with at least 512MB of dual-channel 400MHz DDR memory.

Every m9700 comes with Gigabit Ethernet and Bluetooth - Wi-Fi is optional. The notebook has one Firewire and four USB ports, an ExpressCard 34 slot and a four-in-one memory card reader.

If all that seems insufficient somehow, Alienware also showed off the 19in, 1,680 x 1,050 Aurora mALX, which contains two GeForce Go 7900 GTX graphics chips. It also comes with a custom paint job.

The mALX's price is equally hefty: $4,449. Upping the spec will push the price up even further. Alienware expects the machine to ship on 24 June. The m9700 is cheaper. It costs $1,999, and is set to ship on 19 June. The manufacturer has started taking orders for both products. ®