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Systemax to Offer 'Hot-Rod' PC
Professor_Quail writes "C|Net News reports that PC maker Systemax is going to be offering a new line of PC's aimed at gamers and performance enthusiasts. The computers, priced at approximately 3-4 thousand dollars, are touted by the company specifically for their overclocking performance; the DoubleX line comes equipped with a water-cooling system and dual hard drives configured with RAID-0. The systems will be sold through the company's TigerDirect subsidiary."
Water-cooling has not been shown in tests to give statistically significant improvements in cooling vs. a high-end fan and heatsink (the primary advantage of water-cooling is it is quieter, but that isn't a performance issue), and overclocking is primarily a way for tinkerhead geeks to get more mileage out of old processors.
The hard drives are a nice touch, but any slashdot reader could build a system whose perfomance equals this overpriced iron and have enough left over for a hooker, a bottle of Courvissier, and a pack of Sheiks. The primary market for these bells-and-whistles systems will be late adopters with more money than brains and a tendency to be easily distracted by "the shiny".
Customer reviews of Tiger Direct
Anybody else see the irony in comparing THIS machine to the $199 Walmart/Lindows/AOL machine?
$199 to 'three or four thousand dollars' is quite the spread for two items that, at a certain level, are more alike than different.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Why would anyone bother overclocking with today's processors? The clock increase gained by it will be surpassed in a few weeks by a new processor release anyway, which is a testament to how ineffective it is these days. It's about % gain, man. Maybe in the days of the old Celeron 300 chips, where you could more than double your clockspeed, at the expense of processor life, this was effective, but I can't see there being any financial reason to do it now.
--sdem
The systems they will be offering for 3-4 grand, could probably be built for less than $2,000. A high end system is where people can save the most money rolling their own. With all the online guides and books available for PC building, just about anyone can build a pc a in day, its really not that hard. I started building them five years ago, and now I'm building budget systems on the side for friends and relatives, padding the price by at least $200 and still beating Dell's prices on their low end systems, but not the ultra low end.
Overclock the CPU and setup a raid 0 so you basically halve the mtbf on the logical volume?
What's the warranty, 12 minutes?
...What's with all of the C-Net and Infoworld stories showing up 2-3 days later on /.? It's not news if a major news outlet has had it on their front page for *days*.
-b
the only reason i would pay for this is maybe the warranty
How do you even begin to attempt to warranty a system which you blantantly overclock beyond the cpu's normal parameters.
joe schmoe: "hello tech support, my 2.8ghz overclocked to 3ghz is fried"
tech support: "Why did you overclock it?"
Joe: "Because that's why I paid 4k dollars for an l33t system that I probably could have built for myself for 100 bucks."
Tech support: "Yeah.. I'm going to have to ask you to not call us again."
Live web cams
No, RAID0 is faster than a single drive. It can stripe the reads and writes to spread the I/O over each disk. The problem is that it provides no redundancy in case of a disk failure (you've lost everything at that point!).
:)
Another advantage is that it makes your two single drives of size N each look like a single drive of size N * 2. This was a big advantage back in the days of the all-common 9GB SCSI. If you had a 40GB movie file you were working with it was inconvenient (or impossible) to partition it up. Merging 5 x 9GB drives into one logical device was great, but with single-drive capacities reaching several hundred GB RAID0's single logical drive is not quie as useful.
Provided it is done via hardware and not software, of course.
Thanks,
--
Matt
You're absolutely right. In the old days you could get some noticeable peformance gain in Quake when you overclocked your cpu. However, in my experience, the system wasn't very reliable.
These days, it pays to get a mid level cpu and spend the extra cash on the video card.
Live web cams
Battlefield and UT2k3 don't even come close, either... A $600 comp will easily run those at 90fps+
Doom3 will not run like that on anything today, btw.
And as it's been said before, the whole system could be built for about under $1400 at newegg, and if you went down to your local PC shop for someone to put it together, it would probably cost $100 at the most.
If you spent $3000 on a PC, just max it out with top-of-the-line products, then buy an entire TERABYTE, or more, of hd space. Believe me, it can be used easily with broadband if you're a power downloader/ripper.
Besides, overclocking sucks -- it's like driving 80MPH in a 75MPH zone speed-wise, except it gets you in a lot of more trouble. Unless you have one of those 300A/1.5As that magically double themselves, of course...
The computer featured in the article is water cooled.
Indeed. If I had two hard drives and a RAID controller, I'd rather mirror them than stripe..
I see this as fundamentally flawed.
Most of the same enthusiasts that this is aimed towards, especially those needing/desiring watercooling, are going to do it themselves. They could build this system for $1500.
Not to mention the fact that they would do it anyways just out of the sheer enjoyment of tinkering with their machines.
Plus, they get to pick exactly what parts they want, not whatever the company decides to put in there.
There is the issue of a warantee, being able to send it back if it blows up... But is this worth the extra $1500-$2000? Absolutely not. You could build an entirely new system for that price.
Er. The rule of thumb with RAID0 is that you not only add up the transfer rates, you also add the seek times.
So depending on the type of access, RAID0 can be slower than a single drive. If you're primarily working with small files (e.g. Windows installation), the transfer rate may not outweigh the increased seek time.
YMMV of course. The only RAID I trust for boot volumes is RAID1 - RAID0 is fine for data, assuming you're working with large sequentially accessed files, and you back everything up on a constant basis. RAID 5 is probably a safer bet, with distributed parity and the ability to have live spares online and spinning to make up for any hardware failure.
Moof!
... and then we overclock the video card!
-- Dr. Eldarion --
I think this Hot Rod configuration gives way better value for money. Pretty damn good system for $1600.
solution?
Nvidia or SiS chipset for the Athlon!
Right, but I think the assumption (the one I made at least) is that most hard-core gamers would be working with few large-files, right? I am thinking of the FPS which traditionally have HUGE (several hundred MB to a GB!) .pak files with all the junk in it.
I would think the large-file benefit would outweigh the many small-file hit. I used to recall that Adaptec Ez-CD Creator (when it was called that) would do benchmarks on small and large file disk I/O. The actuall performance of the system was somewhere in-between. I would suspect it would be the same with your typical gaming system. Faster than a single drive but not as fast as if you had all large files.
I would never use RAID0 because as I stated a bad drive would hose the entire system. RAID1 is the way to go for low-budget RAID.
RAID 5 (10/01 et al) requires too many disks to be a consumer-grade RAID solution, really.
Thanks,
--
Matt
I am one of those gamers that spends about that amount of money on the latest hardware. Yes, 3-4 thousand dollars to build a computer for gaming. I do that about twice a year. It's a hobby, both the gaming and the box-building. I do have other hobbies (and work) so at some point I might be tempted to 'upgrade' the easy way and just shell out the $$ instead of building it myself. Most of the 'work' in building these machines by far is the research. Having a company claim to have done the research to build a gaming system sounds like an interesting attempt at the least.
;-)
I can asure you that $3000 is easily spend on:
- Intel 2.8GHz at roughly $550
- Latest graphics card, currently the ATI 9700 family for about $400
- NEC 21" monitor for $800 (I actually bought a Sony 24" for $2000...Not a good buy)
- 2*512 DDR PC-2700 from Crucial for $360
- Adaptec ATA RAID for $390
- 2*100Gb IBM HD for $240
- Motherboard, sound, mouse, other perifirals $500
we are at $3240 without any games to play
yeah, these choices are not the cheapest solutions. You can save about 50% of the price giving in only about 10% performance. I'm just telling you there is a (small) market for these systems.
Anyway, back to CounterStrike at 1 BILLION frames per second
Let me tell you something, my friend. I'm a college student at Roger Williams University, living in the Cedar freshman hall. The room across the hall from me, and the one next door, are both quads occupied by extremely attractive, cool women who are - ahem - not neccessarily conservative socially. But instead of talking with any of the many attractive women on my floor,
I'm posting to slashdot. What does this tell you?
That said, if I want a top-notch prebuilt gaming system, I'll save a grand or two and buy alienware.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The problem with overclocking are the overclockers themselves. "Yeah, I'm really sticking it to the man!" "They're trying to defraud us on these chips!" "That's how they get you, dude, they underrepresent the chips true speed so they can rip you off" Gah, it's just so pathetic.
Yes, and no. Jedi Knight 2 contains a few thousand files, only a few of which are extremely large. These few files are the levels (and movies), but I'm not sure how loading a level (into RAM) faster is worth the risk. I think VM ends up behaving like small files, because small chunks of data are written into and out of it all the time.
RAID5 requires 3 disks. The problem is you write off 1 disk for parity (OK, parity is distributed across all disks, but a drive's worth of space), so the space advantage is virtually nil vs. a 2-drive RAID0 solution. You just pay for an extra disk and peace of mind. Of course, I haven't seen a hardware RAID5 IDE controller, so...
To be honest I haven't farted around with RAID0 since 4GB drives were the largest you could get your hands on. I think a current-tech 3-drive RAID0 array would have a faster seek than one of those drives. So it's possible that the seeks are so quick these days that even after adding a few it's still fast enough.
I think the only RAIDs in major use these days are 1 & 5, and variations on the theme ("RAID 50" scares me). RAID0 isn't really used except for temporary circumstances.
BTW, I had a drive fail in a RAID0 array. Back up early, back up often. I only lost a few hours of work. I can't imagine what would happen to someone who didn't have a tape drive.
Moof!
Why would anyone pay three thousand dollars for a PC to play games?? Earlier this week - Slashdot ran a thread about PCs Losing Out as a Gaming Platform?. Game companies are developing for consoles first. PC games typically involve an hour or more (if you're lucky) of patch / configuration hell vs. load and go with console games. Soon most consoles will support broadband and multiplayer games. They might be able to sell a $3000 box to a business for CAD applications, but as a gaming box; high end PC's are dead.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Wait, wasn't that the HOT Rod and Hot Wheels PC offered with the Barbie PC?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Okay, my bad. Shoulda pointed out the lack of a gf.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The hair was shaved off for convenience, and I bike/walk everywhere I go. It's the "Say hi/look them in the eye" part that's hard. :-)
I'm the stranger...posting to
I cringed when I saw the name TigerDirect. They're the ones who make crappy advertisements on PCWorld magazine.
AlienWare does a similar thing, but I've heard much better things about them than this Systemax company - they've been tagged the Cadillac of computers.
Not to mention, a high-end machine costs, at most, around/less than $3000.
Ok i dont see how this article is news. As you mentioned companies likeAlienware already make hot-rod pc's. But now everyone and their uncle are mkaing a hot-rod pc. Just because systemax is in it now doesn't mean anything. I think that the market is about to become saturated with these companies and we will see some of them kick off, most likely the new ones without a name in the business.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Heh, want a Barbie computer? They've got 'em at PC Liquidator. Warning: this is basically an i810 with no way of upgrading the video. Which means good luck trying to play games on this puppy.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
With a 50% increase in clock speed, overclocking was well worth it. Even when I spent almost as much on my cooling solution as I did on the processor ($55 for former, $65 for latter). It let me build a system I was happy with for 2+ years at an unbeatable price.
Later, I went to a 800MHz Celeron. Just as I was considering pushing it to a 1.8GHz Celeron through an upgradeware upgrade, a fellow LANner managed to snap two capacitors off my motherboard and fry the whole box. (Don't ask how - and no, he's not going to pony up).
I just didn't see the point in upgrading my box except with processor b/c I was maxed with 1GB of RAM and the box performed (almost) flawlessly. Need ATA-133, pop in a card. Yeah, I only had AGP 2x, but I held my own fraggin' with a low-end GeForce2. If it hadn't been for the accident, I wouldn't have upgraded.
Now I'm the proud owner of a Shuttle SS51G-based system. With a DVD-burner, a smokin' WD 120GB drive, and a GeForce4 Ti 4600 w/VIVO. I wanted to wait for the Athlon/nForce2 based systems to come out in October, but I had a dead box and couldn't really wait. Being an old-school overclocker, I decided to see how far the CPU would go:
I started with a stock 2.4GHz rev B Pentium 4 and cranked it up to 2.52GHz. Went a tad higher, but had to clear CMOS and start over. When I benchmarked the system at different speeds, there was negligible difference. Why make the extra heat? Bah.
My system absolutely smokes. I'm extremely happy and if current trends continue, I won't feel the need to replace this box for another 3-4 years. And the size is perfect for toting to LAN parties. Now I just need a sweet LCD monitor without tracies....
...a window in the case.
/. crowd. How many geeks would put a neon light inside a overclocking box so hot it needs water cooling?
I have a feeling this is not aimed at the
To paraphrase Robin Williams: "Double XX boxen are God's way of telling you you have too much money." The target market is the same as the average Wall Street cocaine dealer: Guys who want to impress their friends with their electronics purchases (but limited to those with gullible friends).
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
One is that gaming is moving towards the console. If that was true then the x-box being the closest to a pc would have selled like hot-cakes. It didn't.
Yes, games have moved to the Console, more consoles sell than ever before and I can't find anywhere near the number of game titles for PC's that I can for Consoles. The notable exception is there are some much higher quality games for the PC's than you can play on consoles, but in shear numbers Consoles win. Don't confuse the Likeness to PC's of the Xbox with what should come out for it, it's hardly an open platform, with Microsoft willing to defend exclusive rights of development (i.e. DMCA smackdown for reverse engineering, etc.), thus they get a cut of ever title, same way Sony and Nintendo work.
Two is that $XXXX is to much, it all depends on what youre income is.
No, $4K is in excess of what's needed for a high performance gaming PC. I've been pricing parts to build my own (not particularly for gaming) and $1000-1500 is plenty. What they offer is the same as Gucci does, you can buy a handbag at Kmart or buy a Gucci, they both function equally.
Three is that you presume pc games are mostly played by kids when in fact the average age hovers around 30 and many older people are starting to pick up games as well.
Didn't say anything about kids as the predominant market for games, even I know better than that and I'm pretty stupid at times. The PC with all the lights and gewgaws is most likely to appeal to the less initiated, whereas the more experienced gamer, particularly those with DIY connections save their money for games, not buying glitz.
Four is that everyone is willing to spend the time building their own system. For some people the extra cost is easily offset by the ease of getting it out of the box.
You can buy a pretty high end PC right off the shelf from Dell, CompUSA, Circuit City, etc. for much less if you don't want to build. $2400-4000 (4000 being the one with the 240+gig of drives and liquid cooling) Read any magazines lately? The prices I'm seeing reflect some resepectable horsepower at a reasonable price. Just slap in your 128Meg graphic card and you're off and running.
Youre response sound a bit like you are jealous of people that would have the kind of money to buy this. Get over it. And if you can build the same system for less, well then open youre own bussiness and compete with them.
I'm sometimes jealous of people who have more money, but I'm rarely so of people who flaunt money or blow it stupidly.
Now, if you'd have actually RTFA you would have seen I'm not alone in my opinions:
Sean Aryai, a marketing director at Systemax could be quoted verbatim as of 10 years ago.
"It's hard to fathom that there's a large audience out there for (Double X), particularly in today's market," said Toni Duboise, an analyst with ARS. "But, on the other hand, it could appeal to those kinds of buyers who look at Sony and Apple...and those people who are willing to spend more on a stylized version of a PC."
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar