New Monster Gaming

You can't swing a mouse without hitting some high-end PC gaming vendor claiming it's built "the world's first true gaming laptop, " and here comes Razer with another contender. The boutique PC gaming hardware designer's trotting out an all-aluminum chassis portable dubbed the "Razer Blade" at PAX Prime, which kicks off today in Seattle, Washington.

I love how Razer's press writers open the release: "The PC industry today has never looked bleaker." Everyone nodding along? There's mention of Hewlett-Packard possibly dropping its PC biz (though no great loss to gamers, if we're being frank) and opining about a "severe dearth of innovation...to the extent that now PC versions of cross-platform games are often sub-par ports of their console counterparts." Well QFT, Razer.

Enter the Razer Blade, a shockingly light gaming laptop stacked to the hilt with high-end features and parts.

[More on GeekTech - Razer Blade: Eyes-on With the 'Future' of PC Gaming]

I know, if you're thinking "Black MacBook Pro, " I was too. Except unlike Apple's sadly underpowered (for gaming) MBP series, the Razer Blade is packing serious power. Like a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 2640M processor, 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory, and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M video card (with 2GB GDDR5 memory), a 17.3-inch LED-backlit 1920 x 1080 pixel display, and all that weighing just under 7 lbs in a surprisingly thin 0.88-inch chassis. Since you're probably wondering, the GeForce GT 555M sits at the high-end of NVIDIA's mid-grade mobile GPU series—not as fast as the top-end 580M, but more than respectable, if you put any stock in NotebookCheck's numbers.

And then there's the rest of the Razer Blade's unique design, like its "Switchblade User Interface, " simliar to one introduced with its Razer Switchblade microportable gaming device earlier this year. According to Razer, it's composed of "10 dynamic adaptive tactile keys for easier access of in-game commands, and an LCD capable of two modes: one mode that displays in-game information when a mouse is in use; and another mode that functions as an ultra-sensitive, multi-touch panel designed for gaming on the go." Neat!

What else. It has a build in high-def webcam, of course, and a 320GB 7200RPM SATA hard drive. The wireless card's standard b/g/n-compatible, and the chassis's dimensions are 16.81-inches wide by 10.9-inches deep by 0.88-inches high. No word on battery life, but it ships with a 60Wh battery.

How much? Yeah, prepare yourself, because unless you've got $2, 800 lying around, this thing's just going to tease you through the window.