Now that, if you are a hardcore PC gamer, is cool. ASUS has announced the availability of what it claims is the world's first quad core gaming notebook. The G71 series is powered by the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor, and has had 'overspeed protection' removed to push it through the overclocking boundaries of ordinary laptops and enable truly extensive user multitasking.

ASUS tell us that, as far as the gaming goodies go, the G71 gets:

• 17” Crystal Shine high brightness display with super fast response time of 8ms
• NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT GDDR3 512MB graphics card
• 4 GB of DDR2 1333MHz SDRAM memory
• Dual hard disk drives 500GB (250GB x 2)
• Blu-ray drive for total entertainment
• Webcam and Bluetooth for great connectivity and communication

Then there is the 'Direct Console 2.0' stuff which serves as an all-in-one gaming control interface. Basically, this lets the user select from three different processor speed settings depending on what it is they want to do at the time. Oh, and there are also gaming hotkeys to launch games and execute in-game commands.

What else? How about the programmable lighting system within the chassis which lights up and blinks during in-game events? Or the direct messenger secondary display for notifications, instant messages, battery reserves and system loadings in real-time even during intense game play?

Throw in the Altec Lansang Dolby Home Theatre speakers, the gaming keyboard and a 2.0 megapixel webcam and I know what I want from Santa this year! As long as his elves throw in the optional Eee Stick for hand motion control over on-screen movements that is.

Shame about the £1,999 (USD 3000) price tag though!