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Alienware Reveals 4GHz desktop
keeleysam writes "c|net news.com is reporting that Alienware is going to ship a 4GHz desktop. The new Area-51 ALX, introduced on Friday, uses overclocking, or the practice of pushing a processor past its factory speed setting, to elevate a standard Intel Pentium 4 chip to 4GHz. Because overclocking a processor can cause it to overheat, the desktop also includes a special liquid-cooling system devised by Alienware. Purchasing the 4GHz Area-51 ALX desktop is an expensive proposition for most consumers, as the machine starts at about $4,200, according to pricing on Alienware's ALX Web site."
considering how backlogged AW is i'm guessing the guy it's being shipped too purchased it last spring.
Ultra-Fast "Hello World" here I come...
Or, alternatively, one that actually works!_ alx.aspx
http://www.alienware.com/ALX_pages/area51
*shakes head at mods*
which is why it's on a desktop, not a laptop
Now I can play tetris even faster!
glad we got a definition of overclocking. i always thought overclocking was moving my clock ahead fifteen minutes so i could get places on time. but when i figured out i had an extra fifteen minutes, i just hit snooze. then i was late again. shit. so much for overclocking.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I have always wanted to try out liquid cooling in my gaming PCs, but am petrified of bringing the box out of the house to a friends house for gaming sessions. Alienware usually puts together a pretty good package for it's customers, but reading the site doesn't give me any insight on its portability. My geeky friends feel the same way as I do - an article or study showing that the integrity of the cooling system remains after traveling with it would go a long way towards me taking the plunge, as it were. (By normal traveling I mean putting it safely in your car, securing it, and setting it back up, not waching it into a wall or some other moronic stress test.)
"As the intrepid kobold companion continues his journey, he begins to wonder... if priests raises dead, why anybody die?
alienware also offers a Opteron box too, for a cool $4,964.00 - The Aurora. Firefox doesn't seem to load that up here unfortunately, had to use IE :(
Skype Me! username: john_allen_mohammed
Most people know Alienware is quite overpriced, but $4,200! I know you're paying for the aesthetics more than anything but still, if you want that power then buy two 2GHZ boxes and save yourself $2000, I can't imagine Alienware would have many people 'in the know' purchasing their hardware.
/. and now about 100 other news sites) than anything else.
I think this is more of a gimmick for advertising (seen by the fact it's on
Liebermann has been selling 4.2GHz rigs with watercooling for a while now too.
They have P4 boxes overclocked to 4.2GHz and watercooled Athlon64 "4200+" boxes as well, for the AMD equivalent
I am curious why other systems manufacturers like Dell, Compaq, or Hewlett Packard, do not overclock their products. I would expect that, with all of the setup time they already devote to their products, they would be able to click a few more times in the BIOS as well. Not to trivialize the process, but with the consistency granted by producing the same computer repeatedly, that is all that would be required.
These systems could then be sold at slightly elevated prices. The script-kiddie crowd would lunge at them, buying into a piece of the OC'ing action. The naive would purchase them for the in-between performance levels they would have. The rest would build their own computer and do it themselves. But, in the mean time, those companies get to gouge good customers - all while making them feel that their purchase was personalized.
Would anyone please tell me why it is necessary to spend 5 grand on a PC?
Okay okay -- especially when XBOX and many other consoles approach PC graphics? This is overkill -- the amount of money spent on this one machine could be used to build a small cluster of less powerful machines.
It is a shame that XBOX, a $300 dollar system can get amazing games -- but if you want amazing graphics and sound on the PC you must spend 5 g's.
I'm guessing that the 2mb l2 cache is faster, so why are we still following the fascination with clockspeed (other proof, like AMD, aside)?
you know alienware has struck it rich when they include their own "ALX High Performance Network Cable".
Wouldn't it be alot cheaper and better to purchase a 2 processor system instead of a extremely high-priced overclocked 1 processor system?
Seriously, except the "coolness" I fail to see the sense in this system.
By taking the CPU over Intel's rated speed, there's no warrantee from Intel. Does Alienware promise to replace 'em if they fail during a (nominal) warrantee period?
--
GMail invites for iPod referrals
I'm sure the group of people who buy overpriced Alienware products are the same group who'd pay for penis extensions.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I used to overclock, but squeezing out the highest performence-per-watt is more fun these days. I read about it on silentpcreview.com and gave it a try. It turns out that Athlon 64 CPUs can usually run full speed at 1.3V (vs. 1.5V), which cuts power consumption almost in half. 1.8GHz (3000+) at 1.2V (35W max), 1.4GHz at 1V, and 1GHz at 0.85V (maybe a dozen watts) work well too. Someone with a newer CPU than I have managed 1.2GHz @ 0.875V. Use ClockGen to tweak the clock multiplier and core voltage under Windows. (Does anyone know of a Linux equivalent? 64-bit compatible?)
I watched a bit over 3 hours of DVD video on my HP zv5000z with the CPU set to 1GHz @ 0.85V before the 12-cell battery ran out. Normal screen brightness and everything.
Of course, this won't work all that well on Intel CPUs. Maybe Alienware will include a free naquada generator with their "4GHz" P4's.
I hear it gets over 30FPS on Doom 3 too!
Who doesn't like free music?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, the surprising thing to me is that a similarly configured (but with more features) loaded 2.5 Ghz Dual G5 from Apple (with liquid cooling as well) runs about $2300 cheaper than the Alienware box.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
What's that saying about people in glass houses?
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
- The news page which mentions the 4.0 GHz CPUs Now Available in Alienware Area-51 ALX Systems.
- The ALX configuration page - As the name suggests you can use it to configure your desired ALX
Btw, the moment you choose to configure, the price shoots up to $5,458.00 (which includes ALL rebates)!http://efil.blogspot.com/
OC'ing a P4 to 4 ghz isn't likely to result in any noticable difference... If you're a gamer (like me), a 2 ghz+ machine works just fine, slow-downs are generally caused by graphics card/memory issues... If you do a lot of multi-tasking you're better off spending the money on a dual processor system that has 15k rpm scsis, I assure you if you do this you will see a very noticable difference. I also noticed that alienware is using a raid 0 SATA configuration -- that's just downright stupid considering the data corruption potential.
Seriously, comparing it to heat problems in a notebook is pretty silly, as there simply isn't the same amount of space available for a cooling system. I know what you're saying, but the comparison is pretty shaky ;)
the effective clock speed is 550MHz.
--- Asking inconvenient questions for over 30 years...
Alienware Computer to run it on: $4,200
Losing the last vestiges of any proof of ever being in the sunlight: Priceless
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Interesting that the price tag is now 'expensive' for a machine assembled for extreme performance. It was not very long ago that that was a upper level standard machine.
Funny, I was just thinking that...
My G5 costed me "only" about 3000 for a dual 2Ghz, is probably better designed inside and doesn't run out-of-specs (and the case doesn't look like plastic!)
the case, tech support, performance tweaking, etc etc.
it's the price you pay for getting an OEM box.
So would you buy one if you weren't forced to get it with Windows installed?
Assuming you use Linux and nothing else, do you game a lot, since that is (usually) the primary purpose of buying an Alienware machine?
Somehow I get the feeling you're posting just so you can get in a jab at Microsoft - if you genuinely support the views you claim to, you shouldn't need to post just to basically say "Lookit me! I'm fighting The Man!"
Alienware's dirty little secret is they are all marketing. My wife bought me one of their laptops last year based on their awesome marketing. After getting the run around on out of stock parts and waiting for damn near 2 months, the laptop came without SP1 installed, a virus in the windows system restore files and a faulty backlight switch.
It took over a month to get the laptop back when I sent it in to get the backlight switch fixed.
Their customer service is severly lacking. I would highly suggest you build it yourself instead of paying for Alienware's marketing department.
You can read my whole sordid tale on this topic at my website along with several other peoples comments.
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
How much time before you can buy something similar for half the money? 3 months? 4? I can understand you're willing to pay more for the fastest available, but eehh.. to do what? Gaming? Get a quality motherboard, fast memory and one of the latest videocards. Much cheaper. Scientific calculations? Get a small blade server or mini-cluster, that'll better suit the job. Just to impress your friends? Get a nice looking case, do some modding, add some cool looking lights. Much more fun.
Yes. And you can buy extended warrantees, tech support, etc., just as with any other computer.
Thanks you for shopping Stargate Computers. Please come again.
About the only thing that a single blindingly fast processor is good for is gaming. Now, the whole watercooling/Alienware thing strikes me as silly--instead of paying $2000 extra for an overclocked machine, just wait six months and Moore's Law will have caught up.
But instead of debating that, it's more informative to wonder what all those bogomips would DO in today's games.
Some people would reply: more frames per second! More varied stuff in those frames! But there's a limit to how much more graphics muscle will improve the gameplay experience in any given game (my Athlon 64 3200+/2GHz machine runs Halflife no better than my Athlon XP 1800+/1.53GHz machine), and there's also a limit to what graphics crunching can do for a game. Doom 3 may be shiny, but by all accounts you could write a game with the same gameplay as Doom 3 (but less prettiness) that would run on a P3/Geforce2.
I'm ready to see a game that really makes use of modern computers' incredible power for gameplay/AI/physics. How about a version of Homeworld with realistic trajectory modelling of every mass-driver shot, a version of NWN with *real* intelligent AI opponents, or one of a million different ideas for games whose gameplay design, in addition to their graphics, takes into account modern computers.
NWN did this -- sort of. But it took so long to release (which is a good thing!), and has been a while since release, that modern machines still get bored running its scripting/AI. Hopefully all this will be spiffed up in NWN2.
I was wondering when this would turn into an anti-MS thread.....
I still can't get the screen shots of Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple IIe out of my head.
Only on /. can a perfectly on-topic post be modded off-topic. I love it.
A $4,200 WinXP machine that's been overclocked and tuned for gaming isn't going to be used for anything serious, so obviously when it comes to serious tasks it'd get it's ass handed to it. Of course, I wouldn't want to run Doom3 on a 2 way enterprise server either...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Well it ships with the PC Power and Cooling Turbo Cool 510 (which they naturally list as a 650W supply),
and considering a nice high end Prescott system can pull on the high side of 300W under full load at stock speeds,
I'm guessing it isn't pretty. Maybe in the neighborhood of 400W full load; probably a bit less than half of that idle.
Your processor speed it not the biggest bottleneck. I say high quality RAM and a high end graphics card will get you a lot more than a 4Ghz machine. This just seems like a waste of money. Seriously it's more expensive than any of Apple's computers, and that's saying something :)
Joseph?
Buy me this and my ass is yours for life!
God I want it.
http://saveie6.com/
You have incredibly low standards as a consumer. They basically gave you the run around multiple times, lied to you about a rebate, refused fast shipping for some bogus reason and you sat there and accepted it instead of canceling your order and giving money to a company that would treat you well.
You deserve more when spending so much money.
--- I do not moderate.
the reason they give that definition of overclocking is because the PR people who made this press release...
Just curious, but did you notice that the description of overclocking was part of the submitter's description of the story? Supposedly this isn't a press release. But looking back at the history for the submitter, keeleysam, it looks like the account is less than 2 weeks old. Perhaps created simply as a dummy by slashdot in order to post this paid-placement advertorial.
On the topic of Alienware, I think they are selling a worthy product. There is a niche of gamers / users who want a tweaked machine, but don't have the time or technical prowess to do it themselves. Alienware is targetting that demand quite well.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Me and some of my friends each bought Alienware computers a couple of years ago. Without fail, each of us had a horrible experience with them.
The way they assemble things is very shoddy, and they must have some sort of ESD issues at their assembly facility - we all had extremely short lifetimes on motherboards and cpus - usually measured in months.
These weren't overclocked machines that we purchased, but they were at the time AWs highest end computers.
To make things worse (much worse!) their support is horrible. It takes 3 transfers to be able to talk to anybody who knows anything about your situation when you are in the middle of a component replacement. Their "on-site" replacement means that they hire out whomever is cheapest in your area to replace the myriad of things which break on their boxes. As a bonus, they continually change who they outsource their support services too, so the quality varies a lot, but it certainly is consistent at the low end.
One more thing - if you ever even mention, that you might have, at one time, considered getting a linux installation disk anywhere near your AW box, they will instantly refuse to help in anyway, no matter how obvious the hardware problem.
When it comes to responsibility, they just want to deny, deny, deny.
Just so you know - I don't now, and never have worked for AW or any of their competitors. I'm just a very unhappy consumer of one of their crappy products. I hate them, and I don't want to see anybody else burned.
thx.
Whether he likes it or not? Knowing the buggy and insecure nature of Windows, what sensible person would be happy with what you describe?
You'd be suprised. Though i'm sure you'd never believe it, it's quite possible to get a Windows box secured and plenty stable for normal use. The XP Pro box i'm typing this on now (for example) has been up for about a few months straight, with the last reboot being because Winamp was having some odd issues. If you get all the security patches, run regular virus/adware scans, don't open strange attachments like a dumbass, and use a firewall, you'll be pretty well off.
The vast majority simply buy what's put in front of them without question.
Yeah, I guess the fact that like 99% of all commercial games are Windows-only couldn't possibly have something to do with that, eh?
You seem to have been looking for a chance to spout off about how evil Windows is, but let's remember that we're considering gamers in particular here.