iBuyPower has just unveiled a new 17.3-inch gaming machine dubbed the Valkyrie CZ-17. If you think that it looks eerily familiar you are not alone. It appears to be based on the MSI GT70. Just like Clevo, MSI is an Original Design Manufacturer (ODM), but unlike Clevo of course, MSI also sells its own MSI-branded gaming laptops, in this case the GT70. Clevo delivers laptops to a wide range of brands such as Origin PC, but MSI is not quite as common among the professional gaming PC builders. Employing an ODM, by the way, is common practice in the laptop industry, only the bigger brands insist on exclusivity.
At any rate, the difference with choosing the iBuyPower version of the laptop is that you get to customize it to a great extent–most importantly with difference processors and GPUs. On the graphics front there are no alternatives but the Nvidia GeForce GTX 670M (renamed GTX 570M) as of yet, but considering that the MSI GT70 was recently upgraded with a GTX 680M, this option might be available soon for the Valkyrie.
The range of processors are the new quad-core Ivy Bridge CPUs, the Intel Core i7-3610QM (2.3 GHz), 3720QM (2.6 GHz) and 3820QM (2.7 GHz). You can also equip the Valkyrie CZ-17 with up to 32 GB of RAM and your on combination of hard drives and SSDs (the laptop has room for two 2.5″ drives).
