Dell Aims for Gamers with XPS M1710

Mr Tits writes "Dell moved to solidify its position in the lucrative gaming market yesterday by launching the XPS M1710, a dual-core processor system designed to let gamers simultaneously play three-dimensional games while encoding music or scanning for viruses. "

Comments

I think the obvious solution is...

[Jeff DeMaagd]

To save hundreds of dollars by not getting a virus in the first place. But that doesn't help Dell's bottom line much.

What?

[Duds]

"Play games while encoding music or scanning for viruses"

Even as a desktop replacement that's just not sensible. Unless you're playing games from 1998 you're still going to need every teeny little bit of power that thing has, and you'd still be alt-tabbing out of games to check the other tasks, which will do nothing for them.

And how exactly the hell does "Dual core" help you when you're thrashing the hard drive wildly trying to virus check?

Re:What?

[tokki]

While it doesn't help with disk I/O, dual cores really do make a system much more responsive. Alt-tabbing over to another app during a game is instantaneous and snappy, where on a single-core processor alt-tabbing brings the sounds of "chariots of fire" into your mind as it moves in slow-motion.

A dual-core really doesn't make games snapper, as I can't think of any that are designed as multi-threaded, but it means you can leave a lot of other stuff running (assuming you've got enough memory) without worrying about how it might drag the game down.

And in the somewhat frequent instances where one app might consume 100% of the CPU through either design of flaw, the system is still responsive because you've got another CPU handling your requests.

In short, I'm never going back to single-core.

Re:What?

[Surt]

Very few games can currently take any significant advantage of multicore. Nearly all through 2005 do most of their cpu intensive work in a single thread. That by implication leaves the other core free to do something else.

Many games also only load from disk occassionally, so the virus check disk thrashing won't be much of an issue.

I'm also not clear on why you'd alt-tab out to check on tasks ... if the disk is thrashing you'll know when they're done when the disk indicator light stops blinking like mad.

Re:What?

[ivan256]

Alt-tabbing over to another app during a game is instantaneous and snappy

As sombody who has been using dual processors on his desktop PC since 1996 (It was a Dual Pentium 133 back then), I'd like to ask: Where are you suddenly getting all the memory bus bandwidth to make "Alt-Tabbing" from a game in windows 'snappy'? It must not be a very resource intensive game...

Re:What?

[sehryan]

I don't know, alt-tabbing out of Solitare and Mine Sweeper has always been snappy for me, and I have never run a dual core machine.

Re:What?

[Alarash]

And how exactly the hell does "Dual core" help you when you're thrashing the hard drive wildly trying to virus check?

You're right, althought not exactly. A couple years ago I bought a pretty nice "desktop replacement" (these large laptop with powerful processors, low autonomy, large screen and all). The problem to play video games was not the processor. It was not the screen. It was not even the graphic card or the RAM. It was the friggin' hard drive. You can't decently play a game with a 4200 RPM drive, period. The loading times are huge, and the overall computer performance is really lower because of the HDD bottleneck. So yeah, you can buy a nice 7200 RPM laptop drive, but those are *very* expensive (think Raptor drives-expensive), and they eat your battery like a vampire on acid. I read TFA, and they say these laptops will feature a 60 Gb HDD, but didn't speak about RPM. So I'll just take a wild guess and assume it'll be a 4400 RPM or 5200 at best HDD because it's always what they use.

So cool, thanks for the Dual Core mister Dell. I'm glad I can encode my CD collection (not like It's not been done for at least 3 years) while waiting for my game to load.

Re:What?

[the unbeliever]

An Athlon 64/FX/X2 memory controller is on the CPU, running at at least 1/2 the cpu clock speed, so it has shitloads of memory bandwidth.

Re:What?

[mmkkbb]

The same way a Pentium III made your internet connection faster

Re:What?

[Duds]

The same way a Pentium III made your internet connection faster

That actually worked for me. I stuck my brother on the P3 to play games which stopped him eating up all my bandwidth.

Re:What?

[everphilski]

What Unbeliever said. I recently built a box with an AMD x2 processor, I play Everquest 2 and my wife plays WoW. I have 2 gigs of RAM, and alt-tabbing to Firefox is damn near as snappy as alt-tabbing from Outlook to Firefox.

Re:What?

[Jugalator]

Alt-tabbing over to another app during a game is instantaneous and snappy, where on a single-core processor alt-tabbing brings the sounds of "chariots of fire" into your mind as it moves in slow-motion.

That has never happened on my 1 GB system running Guild Wars, TeamSpeak, and IRC. It did a heck of a lot while I had 512 MB though.

Re:What?

[texaport]

The same way a Pentium III made your internet connection faster

The Intel ads were saying your Internet browsing would be faster (eg., at shopping websites)
because their new processor ID feature would more quickly authenticate your buying spree.

Re:What?

[fatduck]

Tagging system says it all: slashvertisement

Re:What?

[br0ck]

A dual-core really doesn't make games snapper, as I can't think of any that are designed as multi-threaded

Most games may not be designed for dual core currently, but some of the latest game's have had patches that have provided excellent results, so I bet we'll see more soon. From Firing Squad's review of the Quake 4 patch, "Biased or not, beta or no, there's a lot to like about the latest patch for Quake 4, whether you have an Athlon 64 X2 or a dual-core/Hyper-Threaded Intel chip. The two architectures each pick up phenomenal performance gains." Their review mentions a similar patch for Call Of Duty 2.

Re:What?

[ironring2006]

I'm sure I can't be the only one who might have their virus scan set to something like 2am thinking they won't be using their PC at that time only to be in the middle of a late night frag fest and have their virus scan start up, consume all your resources, rendering your fps to a grinding halt.

Ok, so maybe its a sign that I should cut down on my Red Bull/Coke/Bawls/Speed intake and go to bed, but not having an unexpected dramatic drop in my gaming performance might prevent me from breaking some windows and chairs when someone frags my frozen ass.

Just a single isolated incident (that never happened, I swear!), so it isn't exactly a huge selling point, but it is a nice feature.

Re:What?

[Jaysyn]

"A dual-core really doesn't make games snapper, as I can't think of any that are designed as multi-threaded, but it means you can leave a lot of other stuff running (assuming you've got enough memory) without worrying about how it might drag the game down."

I think Galactic Civilizations' AI is coded to take advantage of multiple processors.

Jaysyn

Re:What?

[n00tz]

Actually, Dell Laptops have had 7200RPM drives available in most of their product lines for at least the past 4 months. After looking on their site, it appears as if 7200RPM drives are all available on their Precision (Workstation Laptop) and XPS (Gamer) lines.

Re:What?

[TheMoonRat]

Here in the UK I actually got an advert from PC World taken off air due to this. The advert showed an image of a progress bar in internet explorer going really fast whilst the voice talked about "faster internet" due to this new faster intel chip. 1 complaint later, (and several months) I got a letter back saying that the complaint was upheld. Thats my little bit done to help protect the average joe. \o/

Re:What?

[Tim C]

I'm sure I can't be the only one who might have their virus scan set to something like 2am thinking they won't be using their PC at that time

Mine's set to 8am - week days, I should be just leaving the house to get to work. Weekends, I'm either still in bed or on my way there :)

maybe its a sign that I should cut down on my Red Bull/Coke/Bawls/Speed intake and go to bed

You need help to stay up to 2am gaming? Oy, what is today's youth coming to? I remember particularly one day in my early teens when I borrowed Dungeon Master from a friend; I stayed up until about 4 am playing it, then was back up at 9 to carry on.

Yeah, that game had me in its claws and no mistake...

Re:What?

[mikesd81]

But solitaire and freecell don't take that much resources.

Re:What?

[duinsel]

Others noted that Dell has 7200 rpm drives available (using one right now on an Inspiron 9200). However, can someone explain to me why harddrives cannot 'throttle' their rpm's based on the power evironment? I would be happy to run on 4200 when on battery power, and trade some performance for endurance. Also, I wouldn't mind running 10.000 rpm while on AC (drive cooling permitting). Is there someting inherently unthrottlable in harddrive technology?

Re:What?

[Tim C]

Alt-tabbing over to another app during a game is instantaneous and snappy

I have an Athlon X2, and yes, alt-tabbing is snappy. However, since my 2 gig of RAM had to be returned and I'm temporarily down to 1 gig, alt-tabbing out of games is noticably less snappy.

Basically, the snappiness is down to the amount of RAM - if you have to swap the game out and the desktop and other apps back in, then it'll crawl, regardless of how many processors you have. If not, then a single processor will still manage snappy tabs.

Re:What?

[tokki]

As sombody who has been using dual processors on his desktop PC since 1996 (It was a Dual Pentium 133 back then), I'd like to ask: Where are you suddenly getting all the memory bus bandwidth to make "Alt-Tabbing" from a game in windows 'snappy'? It must not be a very resource intensive game...

Quake 4, ut2k4, few others in the FPS category. It really makes quite a bit of difference, being able to alt-tab.

Re:What?

[NutscrapeSucks]

No. The point was that streaming media etc would be faster because of SSE features, which I suppose is marginally true.

Although web browsers are complex layout engines, and therefore browsing speed is a lot more processor dependant than slashdotters generally make it out to be. Try web browsing on an old machine, and the difference is quite noticable.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some electric motors (most DC motors IIRC) use the same power no matter the rpm. As speeds increase, the torque decreases, since power is proportional to torque * rpm.

I would imagine the HDD motor is not a variable speed type, since the read head would need a very constant rotational speed. Neat idea, but probably too difficult/expensive/limited savings.

Re:What?

[FlameboyC11]

I have a single core Athlon64 Venice w/ 2 gigs of Ram and I pretty much alt-tab out of everything just fine. Alt-tabbing sucks due to paging, not dual cores. With a fuckton of ram, most of the programs you're running won't get paged as the game soaks up ram, so they're just as responsive as they were before you started up Quake4.

Re:What?

[tokki]

Part of it is RAM (I've got 2 Gigs, or 1 fuckton [FkT] of RAM by your measure), and that RAM does go a long way to making the system snappy.

However, when you've alt-tabed over, the second core makes everything really snappy, since the game is often still eating up a lot of CPU time on one processor, while the other processor is handling my pr0n browsing. Because that's what I do when I alt-tab out of games.

Re:What?

[Babbster]

"Very few games can currently take any significant advantage of multicore. Nearly all through 2005 do most of their cpu intensive work in a single thread. That by implication leaves the other core free to do something else."

This is why all the snappy dual-core multitasking with games is probably a temporary situation. How long is it going to be before game developers are designing their games to take advantage of the multiple cores that are taking over the market? Many of them are already working on their multithreading chops so that their X360 and PS3 games "rock," and I'm sure they'll be able to bring that experience to the PC table as well. Add in the regular applications moving in the same direction (as some already have - video encoders in particular) and we'll be back to applications and games being sworn enemies again in no time.

Re:What?

[Surt]

True, though you'll still want to have all the cores you can get in your gaming notebook. Fortunately, when games are dual threaded in 2007, we'll have quad-cored machines. By the time we hit 16 to 32 cores, you're reaching enough cores that parallelizing that many threads gets really hard, so at some point in the not too far future, multi-application running will stop being a problem, and hardware builders will all be turning their attention to contention reduction, and people who have worked on supercomputers will be in high demand.

Re:What?

[Zemrec]

I salute you, sir, for creating a new unit of measurement!

Fuckton ( Pronunciation: 'f&k 't&n)
Abbr.: FkT
Function: noun
Etymology: Slashdot.org, 4/19/2006, FlameboyC11)
1. A large measure of something, bigger than a metric assload.

Usage:
"With a fuckton of ram, most of the programs you're running won't get paged as the game soaks up ram, so they're just as responsive as they were before you started up Quake4."

Re:What?

[Wah]

This is not true, in my experience. I'm running an AMD 64 X2 4200+ (w/Geforce 78000 OC) and it runs games and other apps incredibly well. I can get upwards of 50-60 fps in Fear while recording a TV program (media center), ripping mp3s, and leaving 10-15 browser windows open.

Sure, you can get a few more fps by killing everything else (which is what I normally do), but I think you'd be surprised at how well the dual core chips handle multiple tasks simultaneously. It's, you know, kinda what they were designed for.

You do have a point on the virus checks, however, but for apps where processing power is the bottleneck (and not reading every bit on your hd), SMP is quite nice.

Re:What?

[ottothecow]

Its not really a new unit, it has actually been around for a while, basically it breaks down as follows:

Fuckton > Shitton > Fuckload > Shitload > Grip

Re:What?

[Pollardito]

"Play games while encoding music or scanning for viruses"

Even as a desktop replacement that's just not sensible. Unless you're playing games from 1998 you're still going to need every teeny little bit of power that thing has, and you'd still be alt-tabbing out of games to check the other tasks, which will do nothing for them.

my World of Warcraft machine is a Media Center PC, so i'm quite often doing a WoW raid in Molten Core while running TeamSpeak in the background, recording some TV show or another, and sometimes watching a previously recorded show in the Windows Media Player (ok, i admit it, but keep this hush-hush from my guildleader).

WoW, for one, does not require every single bit of power from my PC (a single-core 3.4GHz P4), runs in windowed mode, and works sensibly on a machine with two monitors (ok, i get the occasional graphics glitch when also watching something in WMP). with a nice dual core, i could more safely do a task like ripping DVR-MS files to MP4 for archiving while i was playing, it's really compute-bound processes like that where i get the most interference with my gameplay. Norton used to interfere spectacularly on my old machine that had slower harddrives and no RAID, so it can be a pest but you're right that single-vs.-dual core has little to do with it

Re:What?

[heinousjay]

Vampires on acid eat batteries? I don't think that's canon.

Re:What?

[pixelpunk]

I too have an Athlon with 2gb and while playing EQ as well as other games alt-tabbing is SO nice. Don't forget to disable the windows swap file with 2gb+!

Re:What?

[Shadow Wrought]

Fuckton > Shitton > Fuckload > Shitload > Grip

Out of curiosity, where do "bitchload" and "assload" fit in? I have deabted with several friends before as to whether or not either or both are larger than a shitload. Maybe its just a unit thing and its like comparing a metric tonne with a ton.

Re:What?

[LittLe3Lue]

I only have a P4 with hyperthreading and 1 gig of ram.
I play WoW with quite high settings and lots of mods, and it uses a fair amount of RAM.

Still, alt tabing takes no more than 1-2 seconds, unless at a loading screen (WoW bug?)

I can only imagine with a dual core system with higher memory bandwith it only gets easier.

Re:What?

[Doppler00]

I think you're missing some information here. An application (in user level) will only consume 100% of the CPU if there are no other user level applications of the same priority. Otherwise, they will be switched efficiently through the operating system between the two apps so that it's about 50%/50%. And actually, two CPU's may help at least at the driver level, since Windows XP should be multithreaded aware, it can at least accelerate say subsystems like the audio driver. I really think though that developers have to get up to speed on multithreading programming. For example, if you say have a game with 100 entities to fight against, each with it's own AI you represent each entity as a thread. That way, as you increase the number of core's in the system, you'll get an almost linear increase in performance. In fact, if you had enough cores it could make the need for a physics acceleration unit unnecessary.

Re:What?

[mikefe]

Fuckton > Shitton > Fuckload > Shitload > Grip

Out of curiosity, where do "bitchload" and "assload" fit in? I have deabted with several friends before as to whether or not either or both are larger than a shitload. Maybe its just a unit thing and its like comparing a metric tonne with a ton.


bitchload = fuckload
assload = shitload

one stop to the bowl should be larger than one round of fucking so: shitload > fuckload

Shit should be denser than cum so (assuming the shit isn't liquidic): shitton > fuckton

Dell Gaming

[VorpalRodent]

I thought Dell was looking to solidify its position when it acquired Alienware? While a yet more souped up PC is sure to get them some more revenue from gamers, the hardcore gamers will still end up going to Alienware (which is now Dell owned anyways), won't they?

Plus, if I have a computer that's capable of doing all that simultaneously, I would want that extra power available for use within my game - an extra few frames per second would always make me happy.

Re:Dell Gaming

[PowerEdge]

Believe it or not, Dell's XPS line is a bigger business than Alienware. Dell bought Alienware to own the highest of high end, and also to sell AMD product. They also lend their financing arm to them as well as helping Alienware gain the same clout in buying power as Dell. Furthermore, their manufacturing process and logistics will certainly be improved. At least that is how I see it.

Re:Dell Gaming

[gravy.jones]

Hard core gamers build their own rigs

Re:Dell Gaming

[NapalmMan]

While a yet more souped up PC is sure to get them some more revenue from gamers, the hardcore gamers will still end up going to Alienware (which is now Dell owned anyways), won't they?

I think the reallu hardcore gamers tend to build their own PCs.

So

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this article paid for by Dell? Because it looks like an advertisement. Tons of companies sell systems like this. What makes Dell special enough for a slashdot article?

This site has hit a new low.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we ask the same question about all 500 apple articles posted here a day? More likely, there is new tech in this machine that is suitable for gaming, point being the 7900GTX 512MB GPU. The high-end XPS notebooks have garnered many awards and are quite well built machines. Tons of companies sell systems like this? Ok. Name them.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe any Dell employee would do that...they're not even giving US discounts on it!?!! Normally we get the pathetic 10% off new, 15% off refurbished (i.e. recently unbroken). Instead this year they made the same colorful "dell coupon", but NO discount, just a link to the system.

I'm kinda pissed about it myself, and still no discounts on alienware machines either. That's one of the 8 million reasons attrition is so high.

Scanning for viruses?

[Tibor the Hun]

Is scanning for viruses a regularly scheduled activity for windows gamers nowdays?
WTF?
Heey everyone! Now you can use your computer AND scan for viruses at the same time! How awesome is that!

Is that really a selling point?

Re:Scanning for viruses?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:Scanning for viruses?

[Doppler00]

Well if you're a really paranoid person and you leave your anti-virus on at full settings, all the time, to scan EVERY single file, at the HIGHEST level of security, then yeah I guess it would help.

Honestly, if you're a gamer and you're launching a game, you'll leave the virus scanner OFF. Having a processes in the background eating CPU cycles everytime you load a resource into the game is absolutely ridiculus. The only time you should really use anti-virus is when you are downloading executables of the internet. Or at least set it to only scan executable extensions on write.

Again... bad selling point!

I don't get it.

[the_humeister]

What's the point of XPS now that they've acquired Alienware? Now they can just focus the Dell brand on business and home users with Alienware going towards gamers. I'm sure I'm missing something here...

Re:I don't get it.

[JavaLord]

Dell aquired Alienware and with it the right to grossly overcharge for typical hardware in a pretty case.

Re:I don't get it.

[Garabito]

What's the point of XPS now that they've acquired Alienware? Now they can just focus the Dell brand on business and home users with Alienware going towards gamers.

Or maybe they will just let the Alienware brand die? It's not something that hasn't happened before.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the point of XPS now that they've acquired Alienware? Now they can just focus the Dell brand on business and home users with Alienware going towards gamers. I'm sure I'm missing something here...

You are missing the fact that Alienware has sucked ass for a number of years now.

Re:I don't get it.

[nukem996]

Well I know that many college kids now are getting the XPS. Almost every college has a deal with Dell(I know mine does) which will let you buy any laptop with a huge discount. Ive never heard of a college having a deal with Alienware though. The XPS enables them to get alot more people to buy there laptop and be happy with Dell.

Jesus Christ.

[Gannoc]

Did ./ just post an article from a guy named "Mr. Tits"?

Re:Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL, Yeah pretty much. I was going to try a beavis & butthead impersonation but.. I decided not to.

Re:Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous Coward]

He pities the foo' who uses his full name.

Re:Jesus Christ.

[Austerity Empowers]

Pretty sure I saw a submission by something "Cockmaster" or something like that a few days ago.

Re:Jesus Christ.

[Anonymous Coward]

His real name is Bob. Bob had bitch tits.

This was a support group for men with testicular cancer. The big moosie slobbering all over me... that was Bob.

Scanning for Viruses = IO Intensive

[kannibal_klown]

I don't know about you, but scanning for viruses isn't something that I'd want to do while playing a "3D Game."

I find that virus scanning isn't so bad on the CPU but is killer with the I/O. And personally, I'd rather save my IO for map loading and such.

Re:Scanning for Viruses = IO Intensive

[9Nails]

Encoding MP3's would mean that I have a CD in the drive, which means that I loaded the game first because of the disk key-lock anti-use crap that distributer's install on the games, and that I removed the game disk and launched some CD encoder software then inserted a music CD. I'm not likely to ALT+TAB to the desktop with some 3D game running! Especially now that games take 500+ megs of RAM to swap out. If I did, something impatient thing in the game is likely to snuff me at that very moment. And I fire my virus scans off while I'm asleep to make sure that they're not disturbing me while I play a game.

It's wonderful to have a dual-core CPU, but the marketing is all wrong. And gamers know that! I agree with you Kannibal Klown, keep the I/O for the game! Say "no thanks" to MP3's or Virus scans!

Mahoosive Storage!

[seymansey]

60gb hard drive? OMG I CAN DOWNLOAD THE INTARWEB ONTO THAT.

I would assume that is a glaring typo...

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[seymansey]

Actually, no, it's really not. This is a gaming laptop for god's sake!

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[Splab]

Games like DDO, AA:O and WoW requires multi GB installations, with 60GB you aren't gonna have that much installed...

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[LandKurt]

Hey, at least its a 7200 RPM 60GB hard drive, with the option of going up to 100GB. That's state of the art in laptops. There are still new laptops being sold with 5400 RPM 40 GB drives and smaller.

The first hard drive I ever personally bought was 60 MB (and that's not a typo). So I have no problems with a mere 60GB. It seems everything I buy nowadays has a thousand times more storage than something I bought 15 or 20 years ago.

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[TheNetAvenger]

Hey, at least its a 7200 RPM 60GB hard drive, with the option of going up to 100GB. That's state of the art in laptops.

Well it may be enough, but it isn't the state of the art in laptops...

I have a twin 60gb 7200rpm RAID configuration in this laptop, giving me 120gb of storage with almost twice the speed, and this laptop is almost a year old.

Drives are pretty small and efficient anymore, so RAID configurations in laptops will become even more common, just as dual-core processors have, and even the newer laptops with Dual SLI NVidia 7900GTX Go Video in them.

The new Dell is not the top of the line, but the upper end of the line for a mid weight laptop.

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[LandKurt]

You know, I actually considered making a comment on how you'd have to go with a heavy dual drive laptop to get any more storage (or a slower 5400 RPM drive). But it is a state of the art laptop drive.

The new Dell is not the top of the line, but the upper end of the line for a mid weight laptop.

I'd agree with you there. There are all sorts of tradeoffs to be made on laptops in cost, portability, style, etc.. This Dell is only a reasonable choice if you want gaming oriented mid weight (8.5 lb) laptop and are willing to pay top dollar for it. I've seen the dual hard drive, dual optical, dual GPU SLI laptops, but I wouldn't want to go up to 15 lb to get it. But then some people think that it's ridiculous to go over 4 lb in a laptop and are happy with their 12 inch screen and integrated graphics.

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[rvw14]

That is funny because the first hard drive I ever bought was a 60MB drive as well. I though I would never fill it.

Re:Mahoosive Storage!

[TheNetAvenger]

You know, I actually considered making a comment on how you'd have to go with a heavy dual drive laptop to get any more storage (or a slower 5400 RPM drive). But it is a state of the art laptop drive.

True, but there are also some 10,000 rpm drives hitting the markets, as well as some lower power 7200rpm and larger capacity units.

The strange thing is the 7200rpm 60gb drives that are STILL the fastest first debuted back in 2004, which is a long time ago in the computing world.

As desktop capacities and even RAID become more the mainstream, even lighter laptops will start incorporating them. Weight and space isn't so much the consideration of adding a second hard drive, but power consumption. However to meet the 500gb levels of desktops, notebooks will have to look to RAID for a while before the higher capacity small form factor drives are cost effective alternatives.

Thanks for the post...

After seeing this machine

[Shivetya]

it makes you wonder, why did they buy Alienware?

Unless the real motive is an end-run to sell AMD chips I don't see the logic.

That's just one piece of the pie

[Anonymous Coward]

Improved Core + Graphics Card + Sound Card = ???

Re:That's just one piece of the pie

[nfsilkey]

Profit? :)

Re:That's just one piece of the pie

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont scan for viruses anymore. Live scan usally finds anything. If i have a viruses and it finds it its gonna slow my ThREE DIMENSIONAL game down a bit. Thats just letting me know I should get out of the game and tend to the viruses.

Imagine that! Virus scanning at the same time!

[falser]

I have dreamed for years of being able to scan my computer for viruses with so much computing power that I can even do other tasks at the same time. Wow, computing has come a long way.

woah!

[sk8dork]

designed to let gamers simultaneously play three-dimensional games

THREE DIMENSIONAL?!?!?!?!?!?
O_O

Re:woah!

[kv9]

that's what i was thinking about too. don't i need three cores for THREE dimensions?

Wash your socks while playing 3D games !

[kyashan]

I don't know.. Play three-dimensional games and scan for viruses. It just sounds funny, actually, dumb.
It's a call for a +5 Funny contest !

Dual CD drives?

[gEvil (beta)]

Since nearly every game out there requires you to have the CD in the drive to launch it (ignoring no-CD cracks for the moment), where are you supposed to put the CD to encode music while you're playing games? Or are they referring to the raw wave files of your band that you just finished recording before starting into a heavy gaming session?

Re:Dual CD drives?

[BobNFloyd]

Have you never seen external drives. I've seen them at Fry's, Best Buy, Circuit City, Sears, CompUSA, Costco, Sam's Club, Staples, Office Max, Office Depot. Also, games that run on Steam (as opposed to gasoline), also do not require a CD. You can also image the disk and play it on a virtual drive, while leaving your optical drive free.

Re:Dual CD drives?

[brkello]

Pretty much every game machine I have ever seen or built has two drives to allow for burning straight from CD to CD or DVD to DVD. Of all the things to nitpick about...

Re:Dual CD drives?

[gEvil (beta)]

Really? I don't think I've ever come across a laptop that had dual optical drives in it. Post a link to these myriad machines, please.

Re:Dual CD drives?

[jftitan]

Dell customizing.

My Inspiron 8100 came with 2 drives. DVD/RW 24x, and a CDRW 24x drive. Those spare media bays are really nice.

I've noticed any mobile desktop replacement is usually large enough to have two drives either stacked on top of each other, or one on each side of the keyboard.

As for the lighterweight notebooks, like Sony Vaio SZ series, one drive is all your gonna get.

Re:Dual CD drives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't the two spindle laptops die out back in 2001 when that laptop of yours came out?

Re:Dual CD drives?

[RESPAWN]

Actually, my Latitude C800 has the capability of dual drives. It's got the built in DVD drive, plus the ability to add another drive into the Dell multibay on the front of the machine. In fact, that's the whole reason I bought that particular laptop - on that particular laptop the multibay isn't already occupied by the optical drive, thereby allowing you greater flexibility. Currently, I use it for a second battery, but I also have a floppy drive and a caddie for a second hard drive, both of which have come in handy on a couple of occasions.

Re:Dual CD drives?

[NapalmMan]

Or are they referring to the raw wave files of your band that you just finished recording before starting into a heavy gaming session?

No, no, see, the idea is: you could play games while recording your band.

Re:Dual CD drives?

[Anonymous Coward]

steam...

Re:Dual CD drives?

[nukem996]

Maybe its because I play on Linux and most of my games have native Linux ports but not one of my games require the CD. I think thats really a thing of the past. Most people hated having to carry around all there game CDs when they wanted to play a different game. I know many people who had to buy new copies because there copies of the game got scratched to hell or lost. Many gamers will do anything for one more FPS so using the harddrive will give them that.

Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking about picking up an Intel Mac until I started doing comparing them to Dells.

And to my surprise the Dells really are half the price of Intel Macs for almost identical machines with the constant and seemingly never ending specials.

Dual boot Windows/Linux here I come. Windows for gaming, Linux for everything else, of course.

Outside of people with more money than brains buying Intel Macs, I don't know how Apple is going to compete with the likes of Dell in the x86 market.

Re:Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[asoukup]

Apple and Dell are competing on different things - unless your Dell can run OS X. Despite the fact that Apple makes their money on hardware, they are, by and large, a software company. OS X is the reason you buy a Mac. Try it out you might like it.

And now, with Boot Camp, you can you have your OS X and eat your Windows too.

Re:Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the price and you get to run two crappy operating systems whooo!

Re:Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee thanks dumbfuck, but I think I'll keep the extra grand an overpriced Apple box costs like the rest of the 97% of the computing world does and will continue to do so.

Intel Mac Owner == Idiot With More Money Than Brains

Re:Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[xenoandroid]

Too bad you can't give any example comparesons where Dells were actually HALF the price of Apples.

If you ever decide to actually do so, be sure to factor in form factor and small features like Apple's lit keyboard, ambiance light sensor, and built in bluetooth. I doubt the price difference would be as dramatic as 50% wether or not you factor those things in.

Re:Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

"Too bad you can't give any example comparesons where Dells were actually HALF the price of Apples."

Take any of the shitty MacBook Pros - pick a config, note the price.

Go to dell.com - find as close a config as you can, note the price(including the always active massive special discounts that Mac fanatics love to pretend don't exist)

I just saw a day or two ago a better Dell machine than a 2500 dollar MacBook Pro for 1200 bucks.

Re:Dells Half The Price Of Apple Machines

[Anonymous Coward]

If you price out the top-of-the-line macbook pro compared to this new dell, apple is about $3k, and the Dell is well over that for the "red" flashy version of the aforementioned notebook.

The processors are basically the same, give or take slight clock speed. Granted, the apple video card and displays are slightly inferior, but not awful. Apple gives a small form factor, generally better reliability than dell, and Max OS X which is quite nice for development. Both are overpriced "high end" machines.

Now if you want to compare the low-end Dell's to the iBooks, then you've got more of a point.

This could put us out of business

[Digitus1337]

A 'dummy' proccessor. Spyware and viruses will take all of the cycles of one, and the user won't notice.

It's all marketing

[DrKC9N]

The "selling point" of being able to multi-task while gaming is not a selling point for gamers. It's a selling point for consumers, many of whom would like to game or such. Marketing a PC to gamers by saying it will multi-task is self-contradictory: gamers by definition will want to do only one thing: game! Dell is making a smart marketing move to the general public with the XPS line, but it's only pseudo-aimed at gamers.

viruses

[SolusSD]

something's wrong when scanning for viruses becomes such a common task that computers must be built with enough power to scan for viruses and do what you bought them for at the same time. sheesh.

Re:viruses

[PowerEdge]

It's been a common task since as far as I can remember. Specifically the DOS days when viruses were spread by 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 floppy. I think this was a subtle "dig" at the laptop being Windows only. (Meaning that all Windows machines are Virus ridden) and require an entire processor to scan all day every day. Even though a well maintained Windows system is very stable and offers a great many number of features. I would think though that a Linux oriented site, like this, might be interested in what versions of Linux the community can get to work on this and they might want to dive deeper into just how the Dell Mediadirect susbsystem works on laptops such as this. But, alas... It shan't be. Not aimed at parent but the overall feel / tenor of the slashdot community: Constructive criticism will gain you friends. Outright smugness.. well, that could lead to the destruction of San Francisco!!

Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[John the Kiwi]

There are two big problems I have with Dell computers:

First they have random unneeded software such as Musicmatch jukebox, Quickbooks Demo, various useless Dell phone home software packages etc. There have been several reviews of Dell gaming machines where some games won't even start because of incompatibilities some games have with Dell's TSR's.

Secondly, Dell's warranties aren't worth a crap. For example if a Dell computer has a bad hard drive it will take at least 3 hours of calls and diagnosis before you can get their helpdesk to send someone out to replace it. It's generally easier to go to (insert computer store here) and replace the drive yourself rather than wearing the cost of using Dell's helpdesk at all.

A lot of my customers use Dell computers. I support them a lot. If you do end up with one make sure to reinstal from scratch, try not to use the recovery CDs which will restore all the crappy Dell spyware with it.

That's my 2c.

Kiwi

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Anonymous Coward]

There was one review of one system that was tested. I have read the Anantech reviews, et al and they didn't run into the same issues. So HardOCP had an issue with one machine and people tout that as the pinnacle of all XPS reviews for all time and now it has grown from one "review" to several. maybe someone posted the same review to hundreds of different tech oriented blogs. Doesn't mean that there are "several" reviews.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[omega9]

Currently supporting ~300 Dell desktops at this office and ~250 at a second location. No problems whatsoever. There is a trick to it though...

Know what you're doing.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually...not. I bought an Inspiron XPS Gen 1 about 3 months after they were released. After 9 months of having it, the thing killed two video cards (was killing the third in the 9th month), toasted a fan, toasted the audio card, and melted the rubber feet off of the bottom. To Dell's credit, every time I called them up, it would take about 30 minutes on the phone to get a replacement on its way, and 20 of those was me on hold while the Dellork did whatever they have to do on the computer to get the shipment out (call magic faries? I dunno.). It would arrive the next day with a technician (I had 4 year warranty w/complete care and next day at-home service).

Anyway, after 9 months of crap, I had enough, so I called up, determined to get them to send me a new computer. It took about 9 hours on the phone over a period of 2 days, but not only did I get them to agree to send me a new computer, but I also managed to get them to upgrade me to an Inspiron XPS Gen 2, no charge.

I've had this baby for about 6 months now, I think, and the only problem I've had was that my DVD drive broke a while back (though it was my fault).

The other plus that I love about the XPS line is their dedicated support staff. They're all in PA or something, one guy told me once, and there's no 'Bob' from 'Oregon,' either. They're all actually perfectly understandable, helpful, and when I tell them 'hey, my CD drive is crappy' or 'hey, my video card is dead' they don't argue or make me go through the stupid 3-hour long diagnoses. They just say 'okay!' and put me on hold while they order the part. And this isn't just one or two. I've probably talked to about 10 different people over the time I've called in (yes, I do keep a record of their names and times when I call), and they've all been like that.

Hopefully it'll stay like that, but honestly, I'm not too hopeful. But my father just bought an XPS Gen 2, and he's been an IBM nut for years, and he absolutely loves the XPS. (He didn't want to stay with IBM after Lenovo bought them...and who can blame him.)

So don't bash Dell too much. Granted, their lower end stuff sucks the big one, but the XPS line is pretty good, and the techs that you call about the XPS's are actually quite decent.

(BTW, I'm a computer tech, own my own consulting business, and build my own desktops and desktops for clients....I don't let them buy dell desktops or any other brand. I would recommend Dell laptops only if they are buying the high-end ones; the lower end laptops suck horribly.)

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[MindStalker]

Hmm but their corperate support is yummy. You only spend a few minutes on the phone. Then the next morning a tech is there with part in hand to fix your computer! :) But I digress..

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Drakin030]

First lets see...there is this cool feature in windows called Add/Remove Programs. Its cool because all that stuff you mentioned you can get RID OF! I know its crazy isnt it?

Second Dell's tech support is WAY better than any other coputer company I have had to deal with. Lets start with gateway.
Now I am a Dell reseller, but there is a company that I work for who uses Gateway Profile computers. We had one break on us once. (Busted Motherboard) so we called up gateway for service. After 3 hours of the Shittiest waiting music and most anoying automated system lady, I got in touch with someone. We spent some time on the phone chatting and we were going to ship our system out to be worked on.

Here is the first problem. Gateway requires you to ship to them not "Let us come out and fix it" This is where Dell is better. To have a technician come out the next day and fix your stuff is great.

So gateway sends us a box to ship the PC in. The box takes 3 days to get to my office. (Dell is useually next day in all there service) The box comes and we send it on its way. 6 days later they recieve the box and begin service. We get the box back 5 days later. As we open the box we find that the LCD screen is cracked. OH JOY so we contact gateway and send it back on its marry way. 6 days later they recieve the computer. Approx 6 days later we recieve it back. YAY ANOTHER BAD MOTHERBOARD!!!

Well we contact gateway and tell them the situation. They are going to send us out a brand new Profile PC. But oh wait? They just the businesses account. Turns out in 2004 the place we do business with had not returned an old replacement part that they should have shipped off and now NOW in 2006! They lock the account.... So right now we have been waiting 8 days for the effin box to send out the frekin product that gateway wants to unlock our account.

My experience with dell has been much better than others. Sure you have to talk with there tech support and run through a few steps but its there job. They dont know that we are experienced professionals. Useually what I do is troubleshoot all the big stuff and just tell Habeeb "Hey I replaced this tested this and this is bad" or what not. Normally at that point they will say "Ok we will have your replacement part and a dell technician out next day" (And I never had to wait 3 Hours to speak to a represenative)

Dell is not a bad company. They just recieve alot of fire due to being such a massive computer company.

(Sorry for the major typo's and what not...Im late for work ^_^)

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[TobyWong]

Next morning? Try within a couple hours... you need to upgrade your support option. :p

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[wile_e_wonka]

Even if parent was correct, I don't understand his complaint. 3 hours on the phone is worth the time--though I'm a student, so time does not equal money to me--for a "free" new hard drive.

However, I disagree with the parent's premise. I haven't had any problems. I bought my Dell laptop off eBay, and it still had 3 years left of someone else's warranty. When I accidentally broke a key off my keyboard (note this is the only problem I've had with my Dell so far), I called up Dell. Within 20 minutes I had the warranty moved to my name from someone named "George," and a new keyboard on its way. AND--I didn't want someone coming to install my new keyboard for me. It would be different if I needed a new motherboard, but I'd rather install a keyboard myself so I can do it on my schedule (i.e. in the middle of the night, when I'm done my reading for classes), and so I'm not without a computer (which I need for classes). They were fine with me installing the keyboard--doing so did not shorten the life of the warranty at all even though the switch required me to dismantle the laptop.

So there are a few notable good qualities here:
Quick service
Free
I can do the fix myself without hurting the warranty.
These aren't qualities you find in most tech support or most warranties.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Tenareth]

The corporate builds are nothing like the Consumer ones. I support well over 1000 Dell machines without major issues, but it has none of the crap they add to the consumer versions. They are also much more resilient and you get to use their corporate support center. My wife has a consumer Dell, and I do find the amount of crap software they add to be a bit annoying, however it is easily removed, and it probably drives down the price of the computer.

Therefore, corporate Dell != consumer Dell.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Overzeetop]

I'm guessing that this is embeded in the Know what you're doing line, but the first rule of Dell is to format and reinstall the os after you verify that it boots up out of the box. Even the SB versions are filled with crap when you get them, but there's no rule saying you have to keep all that crap in place.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[MindStalker]

Dude, I'm jelous. Anyways our support option is a contracted deal as we are an off-campus research grant with a university. We get that level of support and an additional 2 years at a lower price than consumers get their machines with 1 year support. So I'm not complaining much.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[tacokill]

You might check into this

I can't vouch for whether or not it works but having used Dell before, ANYTHING is better than the crap they put on their PCs before they go out the door.

Hope it helps.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[crossmr]

There have been several reviews of Dell gaming machines where some games won't even start because of incompatibilities some games have with Dell's TSR's.

Can you back that up and provide one? I've never once heard of anything remotely like that. While the system does come with some crap on it, it only takes about 10-15 minutes to remove it if you're so inclined, but I have never heard of a single issue with software failing to run because of a "Dell TSR"

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Anonymous Coward]

first off, i'm shopping for a new PC and it is going to be custom not Dell....BUT, I say the following from my previous experience as a Dell certified tech.
 
First, don't put factory default machines on customers premises, install it yourself, everyone will thank you for it and it's not much problem to make a ghost image to make this just a 15 minute chore. I see people constantly complain about "company name" default images and I always say those are for people who don't know how to install Windows.
 
secondly, spend $100 on the Dell website and write their technicians test, it's blindingly easy to pass - you get a tech login to the support site, you no longer have to call into their helpdesk for warranty issues, just fill out the online warranty form that only takes about 1 minute to fill out(this is the point of that cert, they trust your judgement now) and within 24 hours you get the part you asked for and a return shipping label for the defective part. you don't even have to deal with another person anywhere in the technicians warranty returns. it's super easy.

your two cents were valid, but the above solves those problems very well. i highly recomend you do the Dell certification thing, the time and headaches saved by having a tech login are wonderful. oh, btw the Dell cd is bootable into a diagnostic for the machine it came with, hardware wise Dell in the enterprise is easy to deal with. not overly impressive machines though, just good for the workplace.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Finnegar]

For the first problem, the Dell De-Crapifier is supposed to work.

http://www.yorkspace.com/2006/04/38

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[SatanicPuppy]

That's why I buy all my own damn components. Get a harddrive with a three year warantee, and if it craps out in two, call the company and they'll mail you another one for free. Most decent ram comes with a lifetime warantee. It's hard not to get a better warantee straight out of the box than dell gives for it's whole systems.

It used to be easier to go through Dell, but these days it's much easier to go through hardware manufacturers. Call 'em up, wait on hold for maybe 10 minutes, get an RMA, send it back. Wait a few days, install the new one. I can maybe see it for someone's grandma, but even there, they'd be better off sending it to the local repair shop...They could die while waiting for customer service from Dell.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[edmicman]

First step I've always done when getting a new Dell is to format the drive, reinstall XP from scratch.

As for the support, I actually have had very good experiences with them. I had a Dell workstation at my last job. One of the USB ports got fried or something, but basically the motherboard needed replaced. I explained the problem to the CSR, and the next morning a technician was there, replaced the motherboard in about 20 minutes, and was done. I was up and running like that. Just my $.02

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Communomancer]

Those problems, AND the fact that the latest drivers published by nVidia do NOT work on Dell Laptops (you have to wait for Dell to repackage them), are the reason I went with a configuration from Vicious PC. Arrived a little over a week ago and it runs like a champ. Came with very little pre-installed software, and whenever I want to get the lastest drivers for my GeForce GO 7800, I just download them from nvidia.com.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[John the Kiwi]

Are you calling me a liar?

http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/19/ 084237

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[pintomp3]

i tend to use latitudes and optiplex which don't come with loads of crapware, but i ran across this utility to help remove the pre-installed crap. http://www.yorkspace.com/dell-de-crapifier/

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[masterren]

I actually needed my HDD replaced after about 3 years. The Dell warranty service was excellent for me. I sent support an email. After a couple hours, they responded back and I sent them additional information. I also was able set up a time for them to come to my house. A few days later, they installed my new HDD and let me keep the old one. I had a similar positive experience when they replaced my GF4 Ti4200 because its fan was getting loud.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[lasmith05]

As opposed to the NEXT DAY a guy rides up with ANY part, and replaces it for you? No thanks.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[SatanicPuppy]

I work for a decent sized corporation with gold support and it doesn't work like that even when it's supposed to. You have to jump through hoops for hours to even convince them you need the part, and then they send some monkey who has to be baby sat to make sure he doesn't do something stupid. And same day support for Joe Shmo? Yea right.

For my dime, I'll buy a spare of anything that should go south, and replace it myself in 5 minutes, but for a home user who can't afford the extra parts? Screw Dell. Much easier to do it yourself, working with a reputable manufacturer. Dell sucks that bad.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[crossmr]

No. Should I? I asked you to provide proof for a statement. When someone comes across someone posting information they've never encountered before they'd like a source.

Sims 2 wouldn't install, locking up on the second disc of four This has always been reported on the sims BBS as a problem with Dells DLA which requires the unchecking of a box somewhere on the system, and never required removal of software. Its likely if they removed burning software it would solved that issue, but was unnecessary.

Quake 4 wouldn't initialize after McAfee popped up a question asking to grant access for Quake to access the Internet this would be mcafee's problem, not Dells. Could you imagine what state some of the PCs would be in if they didn't come with some sort of anti-virus? If you read further:
We had problems playing the game - McAfee popped up when we tried to play Quake 4. Adding Quake 4 to the allowed programs list in McAfee allowed us to play the game normally. if you want to label mcafee malware you go right ahead. and Splinter Cell completely froze the systemThey don't really elude to what was going on here, and just vaguely say " Disabling the pre-installed software allowed us to play this game normally.". I don't really take anything of value from a reviewer who doesn't actually investigate what the specific problem was. Just saying "I removed a bunch of this stuff and it worked" doesn't really indicate a problem with that software, especially if you are removing/disabling multiple programs. For all we know this could be the same DLA issue that simply requires the unchecking of a box.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[lasmith05]

Well I guess I won't get gold support. Whatever warranty we get with Dell Small Business gives me next day support. I don't have to deal with five different manufacturers, I can call just one. And in my experience, these days dell doesn't spend a lot of time troubleshooting if you make it clear you've already tried everything. On the home front, I've purchased a c640 latitude with complete care warranty and YES they come next day with whatever part breaks. In the three years i've owned the c640, I've replaced the lcd twice (two accidental breakings) the keyboard once(broke some keys), the motherboard once (fan died), and finally the dvd/cd-rw (was kind of acting up) just for fun. I don't think Dell is the god of computer company's but they certainly aren't bad enought to be characterized as crap. Compared to other companies I think they do pretty well for a computer seller.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[Cal Paterson]

I often find local machine shops give very good service. There's one in my area (Millenium Computers - Northants UK) which has given me really good service, both in helping with a strange hardware problem in my parents machine, and with helping my build a nice Unix box.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[kindbud]

First they have random unneeded software...

Yeah, that never happens in other computing environments. Every desktop needs to have apache and mysql and spamassassin and clamav and sendmail and latex and postgresql and terminal definitions for every output device since the smoke signal.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[AlexMax2742]

There is a difference between supporting your corperations network of Dell PC's and supporting Joe Sixpack's Dell PC. The support for corperations is really nice. The support for consumer level hardware is off somewhere in India waiting to take you through a three hour diagnosis phase just to tell you what you probably already knew in the first place.

I would recomend Dells to any corperation who wants to pay for it, but if you're going around recomending PC brands to some guy you know who needs it to surf the web and check his email, support your local mom and pop PC shop.

Re:Have they removed the Dell spyware and malware

[KingSkippus]

I 100% agree. Anyone who thinks that Dell is bad should try dealing with Gateway. Actually, to be fair, I haven't dealt with them since, oh, 1995 I think it was? Here's why.

At the time, I was trying to establish that I knew enough about PCs to be a PC technician for any company that was willing to hire me. I didn't have much experience on paper, but I knew that I knew the stuff well. So I convinced my mom to convince her boss, who ran her company, to let me do a consulting job for them. I knew computers really well, but unfortunately, I didn't know computer companies that well, so I went with Gateway. At the time, they and Dell were pretty neck-and-neck in the mail-order computer business, but I read that Gateway was about to start opening those stores up, and I thought it would be better if they had a local presence also.

Long story short, it was a tragedy. I managed to get them set up, but two of the five network cards in the PCs were screwed up. They had that stupid, "We'll only send you a replacement part after we receive the defective one" policy back then, and I ended up sucking up paying some of my consulting fees to go buy a couple of network cards myself so that I could keep the client happy. (And telling him, "I know you spent around $15,000, but two of the computers won't work until late next week" wouldn't have made him very happy.) They also ended up charging the company twice for the computers, almost $30,000. They wouldn't take the charge off until my mom, who handled the book and the credit card payments, wrote a formal complaint to American Express.

I never admitted this to the guy that paid me, but it turns out that the computers were pretty crappy, too. For the next couple of years, I was constantly having to go out and fix one thing here, another thing there. In the meantime, I did get another job with another company who used Dell, and I did several more small consulting jobs on the side that I used Dell for. Of all of the jobs I've had, I've supported around 20 times more Dells than those Gateways, but those stupid Gateways took up around 20 times more time than the Dells. I've bought several Dells over the years for myself and my family members, and I've always been happy with their sales, support, and products.

And no, I don't work for Dell. I just like their stuff, and have since, oh, around 1995 or so when I learned that all computer companies aren't equal. it's no wonder that Dell is so big and Gateway is... Wait, are they even still around? The reviews for this new machine look great, I'm thinking about getting one.

Doesn't make sense...

[__aaclcg7560]

simultaneously play three-dimensional games while [...] scanning for viruses

That doesn't make sense for why you would need a dual core system. I can play minesweeper just fine when scanning for viruses on my Dell laptop with a Celeron CPU.

Isn't Duo Core an SMP system?

[hal2814]

I thought the whole Duo Core thing was an Symetric MP system. As such, I was under the impression that it doesn't run one task on one processor and another task on the other processor. I thought it just distributed the workload as evenly as possible across the two processors regardless of how many processes are running. That's wouldn't really lead to a game on one proc and scan on the other proc scenario the article implies, or am I missing something and/or assuming incorrectly?

Re:Isn't Duo Core an SMP system?

[Anonymous Coward]

As such, I was under the impression that it doesn't run one task on one processor and another task on the other processor.

You are wrong - symmetric multiprocessing has to do with the way the processors are connected to the memory. SMP does, indeed, run one task on one processor and one task on another.

For perspective, read about the NUMA architecture, and about SMP. It wouldn't hurt to read a little about the MPI programming interface, too.

What you're probably seeing on the SMP box you've seen is that, if you have a dual-CPU system, the OS will usually move the process from one processor to the other, making it appear that both CPUs are 50% busy. In reality, one is 100% busy for a few fractions of a second, then the other is 100% busy for a few fractions of a second.

There is no such thing as automatic parallelization. Actaully, the parallel-pipeline architecture of all modern single-core processors (Pentium I, PowerPC, MIPS, etc) does as much automatic parallelization as possible. Dual-core CPUs are just dual-CPU machines where Intel/AMD/whever has provided a way to avoid designing another another socket onto the motherboard, and they did this by integrating a couple of processors and a bunch of stuff that's normally on a dual-CPU motherboard onto the processor chip. It's fast, cheap, and useful - but ain't no magic in the box.

I hope this helps!

Re:Isn't Duo Core an SMP system?

[MindStalker]

No! :)

Is that a good enough answer.. Btw an article this morning mentioned that AMD is working on such technology, but its not out yet.

Re:Isn't Duo Core an SMP system?

[mypalmike]

I thought it just distributed the workload as evenly as possible across the two processors regardless of how many processes are running. That's wouldn't really lead to a game on one proc and scan on the other proc scenario the article implies, or am I missing something and/or assuming incorrectly?

To some extent, you are correct: it isn't a simple one process to one processor mapping. Indeed, any modern OS has many processes that need to get CPU time on occasion. However, if you have 2 processes that are CPU-bound, a dual-proc machine will have CPU available for each most of the time - they will spend much more time running than waiting in the OS scheduler. So it works out to each having roughly the equivalent of a dedicated processor.

They've Got It All Wrong

[wetson]

What affects my online gaming experience the most is the lag I experience when I play online while having a few torrents sucking down a couple of files. Instead of dual core processors, what someone should really market is dual broadband connections.

Re:They've Got It All Wrong

[omg-zor]

Now that is something I would be willing to shell out $$ for.

It does not make sense to have BLAZING fast computers when most ppl are connected via DSL/cable and the actual speeds depends upon reliability of your ISP.

Its all about the network, as my networking instructor would say.

A flaming fast computer will do you no good if your still running a single 384kbps DSL.

This is because a majority of apps rely on a connection to the Internet (eg. IE, FireFox, games, AV, Windows Update, IM'ing, email). The only apps that don't need a connection to the Internet is Office (except when you click the button to check for updates), that is of course granted that you do not have "Microsof Update" that checks Windows and Office automatically.

Re:They've Got It All Wrong

[heinousjay]

Are you seriously proposing that the network connection is the most important factor in running a game? You must either be making a terrible joke, or you're trolling. I refuse to believe you actually think this way.

Mike Dell knows his market

[stlhawkeye]

I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Dell last fall and he mentioned several times that gaming is a major motivation for PC purchases. He said something like, "I think we've sold more World of Warcraft machines in the last year than anything else," in reference to residential sales. He struck me as very savvy, very aware of his market and his products, and how to stay ahead of the pace. I was unsurprised when Dell acquired Alienware.

Australia?

[metricmusic]

I've heard plenty of rave reviews on the XPS range, from reviewers and personal users alike, but what I want to know is, when will Dell bring the XPS range out in Australia.

I have their 389.20 SC model coupled with their 24" monitor for a media machine in the lounge but the built in video is awful. I modified a pci card to suitbut if I could get my paws on the XPS that would be so much better.

I don't think shopthestates for such a thing is appropriate. :(

Marketing dual cores to windows users

[amightywind]

a dual-core processor system designed to let gamers simultaneously play three-dimensional games while encoding music or scanning for viruses.

This is the first time I have heard of virus protection as justification for using a dual core processor. That is almost as bad as marketing dual cores because they do fast DRM. Why have windows users come to expect so little?

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[moro_666]

and even this hype has no ground under it.

3d games jam up the whole system (disk i/o, memory i/o, cpu bandwidth, graphics bandwidth that there's no damn difference how many cores you got on the cpu.

  if the buses are jammed with data overload, you don't encode or scan anything.

  an smp box with separate processor and separate buses and separated memory would be a whole another deal (but they if they still operate on the same disk controller, it's still f-d).

  #1 pointless article of the day (but at least not bad as the dvorak story yesterday).

^H^H^H^H

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[MindStalker]

Most people run virus software all the time. They also have a few other programs running all the time. Touting your machines ability to run these programs while playing games is an obvious fit.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[TheNetAvenger]

and even this hype has no ground under it.

3d games jam up the whole system (disk i/o, memory i/o, cpu bandwidth, graphics bandwidth that there's no damn difference how many cores you got on the cpu.


Actually, you would be surprised how little HD access there is high end games, also with faster drive. And with 2GB of RAM, there is more than plenty of room for ANY game and other processes.

As for the CPU, the Dual cores are designed to handle the bus bandwidths, or in effect Dual-Core CPUS would be worthless.

Also GPU operations that are offset to Video today are quite amazing. For example, running a high end game that stresses a high end video card, and does CPU based backends like physics and post processing, etc will consume about 60% of a normal CPU even at peaks, and with a second CPU core, this leaves a lot of room.

I agree Dell's marketing is a little strange, but they are right, with a dual-core processor, you can be encoding a Video stream or running virus scan in the background while getting your 60fps in your favorite Video game.

Even hyperthreaded CPUs, like the one I am typing on, I can be running Doom3, FS2004, Quake, WoW, CoH, HalfLife, and not NOTICE any frame or performance drops when letting my system even do a defrag or rip DVDs or anything that I would normally run in the background.

And this laptop was the top of the line last year, and is no where close to what the Dell offering has.

Also as for this being the 'fastest' gaming laptop, I am not so sure about that. There are models from companies like Sager, Pro-Star, etc that have dual SLI NVidia 7900GTX, and Dual-Core AMD 64bit processors. I'm sure they are bit heavier, but performance wise, I would be surprised that a single GPU laptop could keep up with a SLI notebook running the same Video chipset.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[badasscat]

Most people run virus software all the time. They also have a few other programs running all the time. Touting your machines ability to run these programs while playing games is an obvious fit.

Unless you're a gamer. You know, the kind of people Dell is hoping will buy an XPS system.

It's all fine and dandy if "most people" want to have all these programs running all the time. Hardcore gamers, though, know to turn everything off if they want the best performance. Dell apparently still doesn't understand this - they first of all load all the same junk onto their XPS machines as they do on their mainstream machines, then rather than tout the raw gaming performance of the XPS line, they tout the fact that you can multitask. Gamers don't care about multitasking. They care about one task and one task only: playing games.

Again, if Dell wants to market the XPS line as sort of a high-end everyman computer, that's fine. But that's never been their stated goal. This was the line intended to garner them street cred, the "top-down" approach where the real hardcore users will spend that extra money and then tell all their friends how great Dell is.

This strategy is ass-backwards if that is their goal. They should be touting how lean their systems are, not how many things you can do at once. They should be touting how many frames per second you can get running the latest games, not how you can encode music while you're playing. These are things that appeal to mainstream users, not the high-end, hardcore users Dell is trying to attract.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[Jaysyn]

"And with 2GB of RAM, there is more than plenty of room for ANY game and other processes."

You can't even fit the art & models for most games in 2GB RAM.

Jaysyn

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[ThousandStars]

Why have windows users come to expect so little?

If they expected more, they wouldn't be using Windows.

It's a catch-22.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[TheNetAvenger]

Well considering the 'in use' portion of any game, YA you can easily...

Even the high end games we have tested, the top REAL-TIME memory use registered is just a bit over 1Gb, and that was for CoV...

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[MindStalker]

Good point! If they are loading them up with ALL the same stuff as regular dells and are providing no difference on the software side. They are idiots. So really they are pandering them to the gamer wantabe crowd. Maybe Alienware can teach them SOMETHING about software customization.. Who knows.... A sweet app that dell could include would be something that would hybrinate all other apps at game runtime. But you'd not goint to see that anytime soon.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[jafomatic]

Hardcore gamers, though, know to turn everything off if they want the best performance.

And if Dell (or anyone) gets these systems built correctly, we won't have to do that.

Here's what they may be thinking we want to run:

• Some bigass MMO
• Some voice software (ventrilo, teamspeak, whichever) on the other monitor.
• Probably an instant messenger on the other monitor. I like miranda-im.
• Web browser on the other monitor, gotta update the website with that 50DKP minus, right?
• Some kind of music player. I still use winamp for this.
• The item you're missing: Fraps. Video capture your raid wipes, pvp victories, new end-game bosses slain. That's video encoding, disk write, you name it.

It's not that much until you get to the video capture application. World of Warcraft takes my old 2.8Ghz HT P4 to ~50%. Windows displays this as one processor peaking around 80% but that's really just one of the instruction paths. Memory usage sits around 80% which is fine by me. Disk I/O is the bottleneck between zones in the game, entering a dungeon instance or arriving in a populated city, and peaks at 100%. In the world of warcraft game, for example, that's because the entire UI is re-read from disk, re-interpretted by the LUA interpreter, and then run to rebuild the UI. The more mods you have, the more work it is.

If I had better disk performance, either through hardware or configuration, those last two items wouldn't be a problem either. Point is it'd be great if I didn't have to care what other shit I've left running. The virus software is a joke, I found out that its scheduled scan had changed because it completed while I was playing. I hadn't noticed until it actually surfaced a message reading "Scan Complete".

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't buy XPS gaming rigs. How many hardcore gamers have ever thought of doing / ever wanted to run Norton while playing games online? I would guess none.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[iminplaya]

Heh, I was thinking the same thing. So, now we need dual core to use our computers because so damn many services are running? That's a little like multi-engine aircraft needing all of the engines just to keep flying.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[moro_666]

yes you can fit some of the game stuff into the ram, but it's being enormously frequently accessed, by both the cpu and being transferred to the gpu. the bus that leads from the cpu to the ram is totally wasted when you bring up a big 3d game.

yeah sure during the pauses of loading a game the hdd controller is free, but what use is it if the memory is still lagging behind big time and your cpu doesn't have enough cache to hold the software that you want to run in there ? you will lag behind the memory-cpu pipe big big bigtime.

if you find it so hard to believe me, try it out. buy the duo core machine and start up a virus scan or audio encoding and try to play at the same time, neither of the applications will be done properly. and you'll waste a bunch of money on that, what is exactly what intel wants you to do.

the operating systems doesn't run just 2 thread when you run 2 applications, it has to take care of the display control (other than just drawing opengl for your amusement), system health checks, paging the memory correctly, handling other software that runs on your machine in the background (component services, daemons, other bloat into this list ...)

there is no way that a duo core machine can encode audio and do a 3dgame at the same time :)

besides, for a while already the 3d games are not single threaded, they will fork over the 2 cpu cores and occupy both of them `to get the best fps` and other performance figures. this will result in that the machine has to synchronize memory access between the `runaway` threads, this itself creates latency etc.

a badly written multi threaded game itself will run worse on a duo core by itself, without any help from a virus scanner or a mp3 encoder :)

if it would be just so easy to stack cores ontop of themselves to raise performance, people would have been doing it for ages already ... but you need the software that supports the configuration and you'll also need a good motherboard architecture below it.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[glesga_kiss]

Hardcore gamers, though, know to turn everything off if they want the best performance.

Hell, I have a dedicated partition for it. Minimal install, all effects turned off, no unneeded services, virus scan installed but not active. Just trying to get the most out of this hardware before I'm forced completely to upgrade.

Re:Marketing dual cores to windows users

[NumerusSpy]

Imagine being able to tell Norton to do a full system scan while simultaneously playing Counterstrike!!!!! Imagine the bragging rights at the LAN. Imagine people actually believing this marketing crap.

Re:Duo Core

[Garabito]

Hope Dell seems the same results for this gaming machine

I doubt so, considering that Dell bundles its XPS PCs with a crap load of software that slows down your gaming exprience. Of course, it's possible to achieve good results by doing a fresh reinstall of Win XP on them.

Battery life

[vchoy]

Notice how the article mentions everything but the battery life...

With all that high spec dual core processor, gfx card, big 30% brighter lcd screen, simulateous virus scanning, burning cds and all the wizbang gizmos...I think it's more of a 'desktop replacement' than a 'notebook'.

If you are doing word processing good, if you're playing, have a power socket nearby.

Re:Battery life

[craenor]

A second article mentioned battery life at 2.5 hours. Which is not too bad for a gaming system. Of course, if you're playing WoW, recording 24 with your TV tuner and burning a CD...I'd expect that 2.5 hours to become more like 90 minutes. But hey, that's what AC power is for. If you want long battery life and ultra-mobility, there are better systems.

If Dell really wanted to sell to gamers,

[gentimjs]

They'd throw in an AMD Athlon FX-57 ......

Re:If Dell really wanted to sell to gamers,

[blueZhift]

They'd throw in an AMD Athlon FX-57 ......

No worries, that's what they bought Alienware for. Now they can play both sides of the fence. If Alienware is not your style, or your Mom/Dad/Boss won't buy from a company with alien in its name, go with Dell's XPS line. But if you believe the Alienware rigs are superior or you just don't like Intel very much these days, go with them. Either way now Dell makes money without chasing away corporate accounts.

I suspect this XPS M1710 project was already in the pipeline before the Alienware acquisition took place, so it had to be launched. If it makes money, they'll keep it around, if not you probably won't hear much more about it.

Re:If Dell really wanted to sell to gamers,

[nukem996]

This new Intel Duel Core chip is pretty fast. Im writing this on an AMD X2 4400 so im no Intel fanboy but the Intel Duel Core is right below the FX-57 and FX-60, much faster then any of the p4s or p-d's.

And all this...

[julienbh]

And all this while frying bacon and eggs!!!

60GB HD?

[C_Kode]

also sports a 256MB nVidia graphics card, 60GB hard drive

60GB hard drives is quite small for a *gaming PC*. Between todays OS (several GBs) and games sizes reaching into the GBs, mp3/ogg collections reaching into the GBs whats up with a 60GB HD? I'm supprised the default isn't at least a 120GB. I don't even game much (though I keep Quake 3 installed for the times when I want to get my blood flowing) have 3 drives. (1) ATA 120GB, and (2) 35GB 10K rpm SATA in raid 0. That gives me 70GB for fast loading software, video, etc, and another 120 for the OS, backups, and scrach media.

Re:60GB HD?

[Anonymous Coward]

"...(1) ATA 120GB, and (2) 35GB 10K rpm SATA in raid 0. That gives me 70GB for fast loading software, video, etc, and another 120 for the OS, backups, and scrach media"

that is quite a laptop you have there...oh what's that? it isn't a laptop? well then you are comparing two completely different beasts

Re:60GB HD?

[LandKurt]

The M1710 is available with a 60 to 100GB 7200RPM hard drive. That's as large as you're going to get in a laptop unless you go down to a 5400 RPM drive. You do have to make some sacrifices for portability. But for a gaming rig it's all about the GPU, and the 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX in Dell's M1710 is just about as good as it gets (outside SLI anyway).

Hooplah!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got a Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop which is nearly the same as the XPS M170 which is nearly the same as this thing. They all have nearly the same specs. Mine actually has a BETTER hard drive. I like this laptop. It IS a desktop replacement. However, take it off the cooling pad or on the go and you have a 60 minute flaming brick - no matter what in the world dell says. I'm satisfied but increasing screen brightness isnt too much of a draw - especially considering the fact that I've got the sun bearing down on my screen right now and everything is fine.

I for one reluctantly welcome my new laptop overlord.

huh!?

Re:Duo Core

[certel]

Great point. I never thought about the all the commercial software. Assuming that the person buying the game has some knowledge of how a PC operates, they'll take it upon themselves to wipe some of that out.

Deal breaker is the input device

[hal9000(jr)]

Don' know about the rest of you, but trying to use the firking touchpad as an input device during a game is worthless. When I travel, I want to travel light and I don't always have room for periperals, so the input must be in the machine. I can romp through HL just fine with IBM pointy stick, but a touch pad? I can just see it, "Headcrab!" arggggh!

Re:Deal breaker is the input device

[zfractal]

I see your point, but is a bluetooth travel mouse too much extra to carry around?

Oh - I'm planning on getting one of those!

[Dark Paladin]

I call it a Macbook Pro with Boot Camp.

*cough*

Re:Oh - I'm planning on getting one of those!

[anagama]

And cheaper. A MBpro with the fastest processor (2.16ghz), 100gb 7200 rpm sata, 2gb ram: $3199. Expensive no doubt. To get the MBpro equivalantfrom Dell: $3939.

The Dell (cheapest): 1.83 ghz processor, 1 gb ram, 80gb 7200 rpm sata: $3114. The cheapest macbook pro with similar specs: $2299 (with 100gb 7200 drive -- subtract $200 for 80gb 5400 drive).

So the Apples are at $740 - $815 ($1015 w/ 80 gb, but slower HD) cheaper than the Dell machines.

Bonus w/ Apple, the machines don't look some anime mechatroid disaster, i.e., macbooks are designed to appeal to adult tastes.

product meet marketing...

[JoeyB]

This sounds like a classic example of a product that has buzz and feet (dual-core)that gets run through the marketing department. "hey...people love to play games and they scan for viruses...hmmm..I know! Let 'em do both at once!" "yeah! How about we bundle a game that auto-starts a virus scan when you open it!"

Many usages

[Rik Sweeney]

...a dual-core processor system designed to let gamers simultaneously play three-dimensional games while encoding music or scanning for viruses.

Or, you could use *both* cores and play a six-dimensional game!

Makes sense to Atari anyway...

Missing the point

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

If your playing a 3D game, and your computer has more power to encode other stuff, then your not aming this system at hardcore gamers.

Hard core gamers trying and squeeze every last performance index out of their system to get the maximum performance and quality out of their favourite games. They spend hours tweaking BIOS settings, RAM settings, overclocking their system, all in an effort to get one more frame/sec out of their system.

Running a movie encoding or DVD ripping software in the background while they play their favourite game is kind of counter-productive.

If this is possible, then game developers are not maximizing performance out of their computers, and this just proves that its no longer 3D gaming titles that is driving hardware development. What this means is that there is now a glass ceiling as to what constitutes a high performance top notch gaming system, and it isn't the most expensive kit out there anymore. If there is performance left over to do other CPU intensive operations, like encoding media, then people should be able to buy a system that is $500 to $1000 less, and still get the SAME great gaming performance as the high end models, which now just have wasted CPU cycles.

The bottom line is, by Dell announcing a so-called hardcore game system that has enough superfluous performance to rip DVD's or encode music/movies, then there is no market for high end systems anymore. People will find hard core gaming available in cheaper packages, and thus Dell will lose market with their high end systems.

It like if your buying a car, but have no intention of going over 60km/h in commuter stop and go traffic, why buy a car with 300hp for $30,000 more then a car with 100 hp for $15,000? Why too, if gaming is your thing, would you buy an expensive computer that does more then you intend to do, wasting money on feature syour not going to use or can't use to maximize gaming performance.

Hardcore gamers really don't blow $3000 on a computer. They like to find the cheapest system with the maximum performance. They like to customize their system and tweak it at will. And they don't buy Dell, dude!

Re:Missing the point

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

One last point, hard core gamers don't buy laptops, period!

Re:Missing the point

[DrKC9N]

As I pointed out in my post above.

Re:Missing the point

[Anonymous Coward]

First, just don't use the phrase "hardcore gamer". No-one agrees what it means.

Second, the *whole point* of buying one of these super-expensive pre-assembled systems from Alienware, Dell, etc. is because you DON'T LIKE TWEAKING. It's for rich gamers who want high quality but don't know or care to optimise stuff for themselves. Tweakers will buy fancy ram and graphics cards they know they can overclock, these systems don't have that kind of thing.
Perhaps this doesn't apply so much to laptops, where tweaking options are pretty limited... but a tweaker wanting a machine for LAN parties will build a mini-itx for that, probably for half the price of this laptop.

Re:Missing the point

[Dreadknott]

I completely agree, I almost bought the M170 but I saw this Toshiba P105-S921 gaming laptop that beat the crap out of it for the price. I decided to wait for the new M1710, but after comparing the two, I dont think $800.00 more for a simmilar outfit from Dell is worth the flashy case and the higher resolution display. The Dell has more powerful models for those who have the dough to spend, but I just want the most performance for the dollar. I have never owned a Toshiba, hopefully I'll be happy with it.

Re:Missing the point

[LandKurt]

As the other replies here point out, there is no united hardcore gamer profile. In fact, it sounds like you are describing a hardcore system tweaker. Someone who gets their kicks producing the highest FPS figure out of a machine, rather than actually playing the game. It seems to me a true gamer would be spending their time actually gaming rather than trying to figure out how to get another meaningless half percent of performance out of their system.

My wife wants a portable system with plenty of power to play whatever she throws at it over the next couple years. She's considering the M1710 because of it's large screen and the Nvidia 7900 GTX in it. She probably would have gone for a Sager 5720, but I suggested she look for a Core Duo machine rather than one based on the older Pentium M.

Re:Missing the point

[sandstig]

Checked out the specs, and they are actually pretty decent (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?seg=H HO&coid=-30597) but I still don't get why there are so many manufacturers that won't offer higher resolutions on their notebooks. I personally feel that 1440x900 on a 17" widescreen is just too low since I've gotten used to 1400x1050 on a 14.1" screen. Which is probably the same reason I won't be going for a MacBook Pro anytime soon.

Designed to...

[evil_Tak]

let gamers simultaneously play three-dimensional games while encoding music or scanning for viruses.

I'm sure that's what AMD and Intel were thinking when they set out to design dual-core chips. "How can we let people rip CDs and scan their systems for viruses while playing the latest 3D-accelerated games with no slowdown?"
Not to mention, things like ripping music and scanning for viruses are going to thrash the disk as much as they use the cpu, so any semi-intensive game won't be playable anyway.

It all makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knew that Michael Dell's slashdot handle was MrTits?

How much did slashdot get paid

[Idimmu Xul]

for this really dull and not at all relevent to anyone bit of marketing?

OMG COMPUTER COMPANY BUILD COMPUTER WITH READILY AVAILABLE PARTS AND SELL IT

anticaps filter line goes here

I'm waiting for the M1911 ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

I'm waiting for the M1911, it should perform much better in FPS games. ;-)

Re:I'm waiting for the M1911 ...

[zaguar]

Definately NOT flight-sims!

Too soon?

Re:I'm waiting for the M1911 ...

[Anonymous Coward]

no, too "completely missed the point"

Re:I'm waiting for the M1911 ...

[velocipenguin]

Actually, no, you missed the point. I believe the grandparent's point was that the combination of weapons and aircraft is still a touchy subject at best.

Re:I'm waiting for the M1911 ...

[zaguar]

Actually, it was a play on the name. M1911 and 9/11 - get it?

Shades of the true scottsman fallacy

[brokeninside]

Person A: No hardcore gamer would buy this.
Person B: My gamer friend bought this.
Person A: Your gamer friends isn't a true hardcore gamer

I suspect that the ultra-l337 gamers you describe are less than 5% of the gaming market.

Er, no.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'll find that the last comment was a bit of sarcasm by the submitter. See the previous article about Linux Snobs for more information.

laptop

[everphilski]

You are compating apples and oranges. This is a laptop. And you can upgrade the drive through Dell.

True Gamers...

[ShadowNetworks]

True gamers build their machines. And there's days we wonder why "gamers" buy their overpriced machines from AlienWare and Dell...

Re:True Gamers...

[xenoandroid]

Because building your own gaming laptop is not worth the annoying that it brings.

dont forget to keep virus on a separate HD ;)

[Anonymous Coward]

And, try not buying an multi-threaded antivirus ;)

Great Expectations...

[Nephroth]

People tend to have pretty great expectations of dual core systems. Partly due to marketing, and partly due to our own subconscious association, many tend to think that "dual core=twice as fast." While dual core hardware can get more done in the same amount of time as a single-core processor, anyone with even a cursory familiarity with SMP systems knows that the performance increase is variable. Single-threaded applications, for instance, aren't going to gain any direct benefit from an SMP system. (Although they might benefit to some degree from having another core to run other system processes, but the process itself won't go any faster)

I think what bothers me most here is the examples given, playing a game while encoding audio, playing a game while running a virus scan. I'm certain the dual core processor will keep your simultaneous CD ripping and virus scanning from interrupting your rousing game of solitaire but don't expect to be playing Doom 3 during these activities with any processor.

That's right, any processor. Reason? The main bottleneck for these activities isn't generally the processor, it's the other hardware involved.

You can't, for example, encode a CD any faster than the CD drive can read its data and load it into memory. This, of course, raises another question: Who the hell encodes audio while playing a game? Most games require some kind of optical media in the drive in order to play, so chances are pretty slim that you'll be doing any encoding while playing a game in the first place.... Unless of course you use a no-CD patch, which is a gross violation of the EULA, and only pirates do that! (please note sarcasm) I'd even be tempted to ask them if they are endorsing EULA violation, I'm sure the response would be pretty funny.

And virus scanning... firstly, not nearly as important as everyone thinks it is. I don't get an HIV test every week because I don't go putting myself in situations where I can contract HIV. Likewise, I don't compulsively virus scan my personal computer because I protect myself from getting infected in the first place.

Furthermore, both games and virus scanning are pretty hard-drive intensive. Unless you've got some kind of crazy dual-arm hard drive, chances are you're going to get a lot of disk thrashing if you try to play UT2004 while running McAffee.

It's almost as though the marketing department at Dell has a hat full of those magnets with words printed on them and they just toss a few at a blackboard when it comes time to write a new ad.

Re:Great Expectations...

[striker64]

You don't have very creative uses for your PC do you?

The fact of the matter is, dual core processors help tremendously in many scenarios. Why should I wait while my 1 hour miniDV video is being transferred to my PC sucking up 10-15% CPU, when I can play a game during that time and not notice the slightest slowdown? How about those instances when I'm developing, compiling my app and my whole (single CPU) system slows down to a crawl ... gone are those days with dual core. You have obviously never used a dual-CPU system for any extended period of time, otherwise you would not be saying such foolish things.

And which computer these days has only 1 optical drive? Even the cheap emachines from 4 years ago came with a DVD-ROM and CD-RW.

Re:Great Expectations...

[AnyoneEB]

I have a feeling that your examples are more hard drive intensive than they are CPU-intensive. Having to share the hard drive with other apps will slow down your games. Also, can't compiling be done in multiple threads (and therefore multiple cores)?

Re:Great Expectations...

[lasmith05]

Are you actually speaking from experience? Not notice the slightest slowdown? I was just on my friend's dual-core pimped out T60p and I definetly noticed slowdown in quite a few programs. I mean don't get me wrong, I just ordered a Dual Core notebook and I think they are a good idea, but I don't think they are as good as you described...

Re:Great Expectations...

[Nephroth]

Secondly, having used an SMP system as a workstation at my former employer, am quite familiar with the performance benefits of SMP. Dual core processors are indeed faster at encoding, and they are indeed faster at running games, but if you are encoding and playing a game at the same time, the major bottleneck isn't the processor, it's the hard drive and optical drives. They can't push data through nearly as fast as your processor can so your hard drive is stuck having to juggle back and forth between writing the information from your ripping application and reading information for the game, that's where the wait will occur.

Sure, if you're encoding to a different drive than the game is installed on, then you won't see a fall in performance, but if you have a sufficiently powerful single core processor, you wouldn't see a fall either.

As for the issue of compiling, you're only correct if you specifically instruct your compiler not to multithread. If you multithread, then both cores will be used to compile at the same time and your computer will run just as slowly as it did before, only it might take less time. Granted, you could adjust your settings so that this slowdown would be minimized, and your compile might take a bit longer, but you could accomplish approximately the same thing with a single core system.

The point of my post wasn't to say that dual core processors aren't good, because they are. My point was that dual core processors aren't magic they don't equate to double performance, and they aren't even really noticibly faster than single core chips. Their primary benefit is that they are cheaper to make, run a lot cooler, and they are more energy efficient.

And finally, the unit in question is a laptop, so yes, most of them have only one optical drive. Furthermore, walk through a Best Buy or Frys now and count the optical drives, it's back to one. The only reason that eMachines four years ago had both was because it was, at the time, cheaper than a combo drive. That is no longer the case.

Re:Great Expectations...

[Mad_Giggler]

And which computer these days has only 1 optical drive? Even the cheap emachines from 4 years ago came with a DVD-ROM and CD-RW. Um, how about owners of the XPS M1710, Dell's fastest consumer notebook. You know, the one the article is about.

Dell-usional

[Launchpad Mcquack]

If Im purchasing a $4,000 laptop, it surely won't be from Dell. I'd buy Alienware long before I ever even considered Dell.

Re:Dell-usional

[ironring2006]

I hope you were going for +5 funny there :) Apparently Dell figured it was better to buy Alienware too!

Re:Dell-usional

[Anonymous Coward]

alienware is dell. Dell bought them out a little while ago.

Re:Dell-usional

[Launchpad Mcquack]

Holy crap, they did buy alienware. I take that all back. I had no idea they were bought out. Screw em both now.

Re:Dell-usional

[brauwerman]

Dell already did.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1941376,00.as p

PSSST

[way2trivial]

Up to 100GB 7200RPM or 120GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive lets you store and access abundant data on your notebook.

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productde tails.aspx/xpsnb_m1710?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~sect ion=specs#tabtop

no brainer

[feldsteins]

I think any machine that is going to run Windows should come with an additional processor dedicated to continual virus detection.

Re:Duo Core

[ironring2006]

A lot of the gamers that I know, especially the ones that would go out and shell $2500+ on a gaming laptop (which they probably get for LAN parties and already have a kick ass desketop setup) have a pretty good sense of how a PC operates and the resources that pre-installed Dell software takes up. Most of them have some sort of additional (small footprint) monitoring software that they use so they can always check their memory usuage, hard disk usage, cpu usage, uptime, and time since Windoze was installed. Basically, these groups of gamers are notorious for trying to squeeze every last bit of perfomance out of their rigs, and a fresh install of Windoze is almost certain to happen on any Dell machine.

Re:Duo Core

[kilodelta]

No kidding. Took me a good hour to uninstall all the crap that Dell installed on my M140.

Then I had that horrid incident repeated this past weekend when my partners M140 all of a sudden couldn't connect to any wireless network. Spent 3 hours on the phone with Daniel in India, went through system restore, enable/disable, check this, check that, wipe system and start clean but first backup data (Only 3 cd's worth as the machine is 2 months old), and wireless still wouldn't work.

Only difference between that machine and mine is I've got the Intel mini-pci wireless, the other was the Dell 1370.

Finally they confirmed my initial diagnosis (And people wonder why I don't trust other people, honestly!) and sent me a replacement card and didn't ask for the old one to be shipped back.

So if you're in the market, opt for the Intel card. You'll save yourself some headaches. But the one thing I actually like about the M140's is that you can replace pretty much everything but the MB. HD, Wireless Card, Memory and CPU are all accessible via hatches on the bottom of the machine.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ...

[MP3Chuck]

... isn't "play[ing] three-dimensional games while encoding music or scanning for viruses" going to muck things up as the cores both fight for L2 cache access? All those things are pretty intensive processes...

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but ...

[Kanerix]

Since when do dual core processors share L2 cache between cores? Usually, each core has it's own L1 and L2 cache and they don't have to fight for access to it. They might "fight" for access to ram, but not for L2 cache.

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong, but ...

[MP3Chuck]

I dunno, I was just going off the Wikipedia article ...

Re:Duo Core

[CrpnDeth]

Seriously, Although any hardcore gamer that doesn't take that machine straight out of the box and re-install the OS is a poser. I don't trust any OEM to install the mix of software I am looking for and keep all that cap off my computer.

Re:Dell-usional .. just cancelled order from AW

[Hohlraum]

I was just about ready to hit the checkout button on a m5500 from alienware and thought I'd verify the weight on the machine again. Yesterday a live sales agent told me it was 5-6lbs. I talked to another live sales agent and they told me 7-8lbs. WTF?!?! I basically told them that I just cancelled my checkout and that they need to get their shit together and decide how much their portable products weigh.

So as a segway does anyone know of a light laptop 5-6lbs that has atleast a GeForce Go 6600 in it?

Slashdot: Ads for Nerds. Stuff that sells.

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, how does this even sort of rate as news?

Re:Duo Core

[Anonymous Coward]

You're far from the only one who feels this way.

6D games

[iridium_ionizer]

Or, you could use *both* cores and play a six-dimensional game!

Actually 6 dimensional games are possible if you do it right. 3D = hieght x length x depth. If you consider time as a dimension then your at 4D. But then you need to include some immaginary or at least non-apparent dimensions.

You can use a "Magic Eye" type of patterned texture (an autostereogram)over the entire screen to add a second dimension of depth (and a true depth this time). Furthermore you can use a the color spectrum to represent some other arbitrary dimension (red = low, green = medium, violet = high). Granted, this game might not be very fun to play...

Re:6D games

[jackbird]

You don't need to go to those lengths for extra dimensions:

• X, Y, and Z in the game world.
• The time dimension T.
• R, G, and B in the colorspace.
• 1 amplitude dimension in addition to T for the audio waveform.
• The 2 dimensional movement of your mouse on the desk,
• and the 2-dimensional screen you view the game through.

That's 12 dimensions for a good ol' game of Quake 1.

Re:6D games

[Xtravar]

I just have to say that that would be freaking cool and innovative to have a 'magic eye' pattern over the screen.

There have been plenty of times where I've played a 3D game and completely lost my 'perspective' of the 3D environment and thought I was seing something else more 2D. Now to plan that purposely to be an objective of the game... would be really neat.

Re:6D games

[pcgabe]

I just have to say that that would be freaking cool and innovative to have a 'magic eye' pattern over the screen.

Magic Carpet (1994)

"In addition, Magic Carpet [...] featured a 3-D mode that utilized red and blue glasses, and a realtime stereogram mode."

Honestly, the stereogram mode sounded better on paper. With stereogram, you ONLY have depth information, you lose colors. So, it's hard to aim at your enemies. ^_^ 3-D mode was much better. And you didn't need a dual-core processor to play it.

Hard core Gamers

[g0bshiTe]

Real hard core gamers, will not ever burn a cd, and run a virus scan while gaming. They will use a second system for tasks that are too menial for a gaming rig (virus scan accepted).

I mean seriously, I don't know of anyone that would even want to burn a cd while gaming.

Come on, that's what microbreaks are for.

probably this might help -

[dotslasher_sri]

Its called Dell Decrapifier.. It removes all the useless stuff dell machines come with. Havent tried it myself tho

http://www.yorkspace.com/dell-de-crapifier/

obligatory simpsons quote

[Austerity Empowers]

"I feel like I'm wasting money just by sitting here!" - Homer

Tits

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha "Mr. Tits"

I am sorry, but the name of the submitter stole the show :-)

rip it all out

[bigdady92]

If any person buys this for 'gaming performance wondermint!' they are usually (work with me here) rather tech savy.

What do I mean by this? They know their way around the computer itself. They full well know that have Windows Media Center 2k6 is the worst OS out there for gaming performance, having bloatware installed on your computer keeps the HD running constantly slowing down gaming, and the wretched drivers that come with it are like running an indy car on doughnuts.

I bought a brand new dell E1705. I turned it on, download 3dMark05, took some benchmarks, wiped it clean. I then installed it with WinXP Pro, latest drivers for the NVIDIA system, and then Norton Antivirus Corp Edition, Ace's Mega Codec pack for movies, and then benchmarked it again. It was night and day comparison.

I got nearly 25% more performance by doing a clean wipe than going with the buggy shit that Dell bundels in there for the unwashed heathen masses. I convinced a buddy of mine to buy one (we both do WoW) and he stuck with the core OS and updated the drivers and ripped everything out. Still he can't get anywhere near my benchmarks.

I would compare this operation to buying a brand new sports car and having the interior and electronics of the car be designed by a schizophrenic woman on menopause. Sure it looks and drives ok and some of the WONDER gadgets may be functional, but I need to do 0-60 in less than 3seconds and I don't give a shit that my seats are the latest in designer leather, I need seats, that's it.

Wrong title

[MoogMan]

I think the title should read:

Dell Aims for Windows Vista users

Re:Wrong title

[sharkey]

BOOM! headshot!!!

Real Gamers

[Kanerix]

A real gamer would never buy a pre-built system and just assume it's going to run what (s)he wants. A real gamer builds their own system from parts. A real gamer fine tunes their machine to be a beast of performance, not a beast of burden. Why buy an Alienware machine for thousands of dollars when you can build one with better performance and much much less ugly for much cheaper? Also, there is the appearance customization element of it. You want your gaming rig to be personalized. You can't do that very well with prebuilt machines (and especially not with those that have proprietary cases). The true benefit of multi-core processors to gamers is not that they will be able to play games while doing other things, but rather that future games will handle multiple cores much better and will be able to process the game on all cores. You don't run anything in the background when you are going to do a very system-intensive game. It's just taboo. Bottom line is, if you really want to sell a computer to gamers, sell it part by part and give detailed specs on each part. Otherwise, don't bother.

Re:Real Gamers

[westlake]

A real gamer would never buy a pre-built system and just assume it's going to run what (s)he wants.

The XPS is a desktop replacement, an eight pound laptop, with top-of-the-line components.
This is not a DIY project.

Re:Real Gamers

[UnStatusTheQuo]

Yeah that pretty much sums it up. The only qualification is that some gamers LOVE video games but know absolutely ZERO about hardware builds. So, for them, there needs to be something. It has a place in the market, most of US just may not be IN it.

Re:Real Gamers

[heinousjay]

That extra 2.5 frames you squeeze out every second must make your penis HUGE.

Burn a CD?!

[leland242]

huh?

Burning a CD takes, what, 2 minutes? less?

Burning a DVD takes me about 8 minutes or so, but I have an older drive.

You can barely get into the menu of a game before your CD/DVD is finished. What dummy approved this bit of marketing hype?

Real Gamers...

[Anonymous Coward]

...build their own rigs.

You, sir...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are an idiot. You know that all the boutique laptop shops (including Alienware) sell rebranded import trash, right? Because they do. You can get the same hardware for loads cheaper if you actually research and find out what it is.

Overlaping product lines are profitable

[Anonymous Coward]

When a company has different divisions that cater to different markets, it is often profitable to overlap the product lines somewhat because of people's brand loyalties. For example Honda and Acura are the same company. Acura makes faster, more luxurious cars while Honda makes cheaper more practical vehicles. However Honda still makes the Civic Si, a compact sports car, which competes directly with the Acura RSX. The fact is that some people are loyal to Honda and some are loyal to Acura, and having a very similiar product in both brands is good business.

the weight

[GoatPigSheep]

I'm surprised by the weight, at around 8.5 pounds, it's not as heavy as some other gaming laptops. It's certainly no feather, but it would be easy to take this to a LAN party and what not without killing yourself. It's nice to see that dell didn't add any insanely USELESS features for a laptop, like 2 drives in RAID, which would have made the weight/heat/battery life even worse.

Then I hope that machine has SCSI RAID

[Lead Butthead]

Then I hope that laptop includes SCSI RAID, since most of the "...simultaneously play three-dimensional games while encoding music or scanning for viruses..." activities involves more disk access than CPU processing, and we all know that ATA drives suck pretty hard when it comes to random I/O.

Exactly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats pretty much what I was thinking, until Dell starts offering Athlon 64 systems, their gaming systems are a joke. Athlon 64 blows Pentium 4s, Pentiums Ds, or whatever Intel has out of the water.

I currently own a 3 year old Dell Dimension 8300 (P4 2.66ghz, 1gb ram), it still works great but I'm upgrading my computer (comes in today).

I'm building an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ system with 2x1gig Kingston, 250gig WD Sata-II drive, Sapphire Radeon X800 GTo2 Limited Edition, etc.. Total cost of my new system is under $1400 Canadian. Can't wait to test this puppy out when it arrives today. I decided to go with a dual core Athlon 64 since I do alot of multitasking when I'm not gaming. Plus from what I've seen the X2 3800+ overclocks nicely. I've owned 5 PCS in my life, all Intel processors. I'm looking forward to owning my first AMD as they seem to perform much better for a gaming pc.

If Dell really wants to impress the "hardcore" gamers that are "hardcore" enough to buy a Dell, they should atleast offer some type of AMD system.

Mac book pro price comparison

[goombah99]

I'm sort of puzzled on the pricing of these machines. A Del inspirion with a core duo costs about $1000-1400 when nicely trimmed (still a tad underspeced on bus speed wrt to the macbook pro, and without the mac software and groovy mac OS). Even so that price beats the pants off of a MacbookPro for the raw hardware however. So one naturally wonders if the macs are overpriced.

Yet now we see that when Dell puts out a more highly speced machine the price jumps up enormously. ENORMOUSLY. so what the heck is going on here. Is there some huge magic under the hood here that says all core duos vary enormously. If so then comparing the Inspirion price to the core duo to the mac book pro is not apropos.

If we compare this core duo against the mac, the macbook pro is clearly a much better price and dell is way overpriced.

So can anyone interpolate these differences. Where does the mac fit in this scheme and which is the apropos comparison.

Re:Mac book pro price comparison

[hunterx11]

The reason most Dells are so cheap is because their competitive edge is low cost. People buy Dells because they're cheaper than most of the alternatives.

Neither Dell's XPS systems nor Apple's computers are trying to marketed as low cost commodity systems. They cost disproportionately more because people they are selling to people willing to pay more. Well, Apple at least; I doubt Dell will sell that many high-end gaming systems until they start putting them out under the Alienware brand because Dell has acquired such an image of producing commodity computers.

In other words, the market for high-end systems is monopolistic competition, not prefect competition.

Re:Dell-usional .. just cancelled order from AW

[GTMoogle]

I'm imagining you riding around on a Segway(tm) that has a laptop for a base. I think the word you're looking for is 'segue'. It's pronounced 'segway', so I know lots of people see it in writing and hear it in usage and don't realize it's the same word.

WHY???

[melted]

Why do people shell out mad coin for these? Can someone explain? Why not just buy an XBox 360 or wait for PS3 or Revolution?

Re:WHY???

[geekoid]

Becasue they are far more versitile then a console, and people like having the latest. A console is only the latest 6 months before it's release.

Re:WHY???

[Anon.Pedant]

Why??? Why do people use idiotic phrases like "shell out mad coin"? Can someone explain? Why not just use english, or wait for the esperanto revolution?

I really wanted to buy this...

[Deviant Q]

... but apparently nVidia now has SLI in notebooks ready to roll. I'm waiting to upgrade my XPS Gen 2 to one of those...

Re:I really wanted to buy this...

[geekoid]

Can someonenplease explain what the hell nVidia SLI IS? I have heard many different explanations.

Re:I really wanted to buy this...

[b0wl0fud0n]

Here's a link to nvidia's site on sli technology
http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_learn.html

SLI boosts video performance by using two graphics cards for one monitor. Initially touted as being able to drastically increase video performance (frames per second/anti aliasing/anisotropic filtering) users soon found that SLI was only useful for boosting the performance of high resolution monitors (past 1280x1024). In fact, having an SLI setup for 1280x1024 or less will decrease your performance compared to having just one of those cards since the time necessary to divide the gpu workload starts to have an adverse affect with lower resolutions.

Most people who shop for video cards now advocate avoiding SLI, since it is cheaper to by a more expensive graphic card than buying two graphics cards one generation down (a single 7800gt will outperform 2x6800gts in SLI and a single 7800gtx will even outperform 2x7800gt's).

Alienware? Why bother?

[UnStatusTheQuo]

I've had only bad experiences with Alienware. A lot of people talk about Alienware like it's the primo computer maker in its market. I just don't see it. I do see it, however, from VoodooPC, and maybe even Hypersonic (have one of their Aviator laptops). I actually hold Dell in higher regard than Alienware, and let's face it, Dell buying Alienware wasn't to acquire some enormous trade secret or anything, it was for the right to mass produce them even more and have the ability to slap that alien face on their high-end systems, which I'm sure will carry a premium price that even the Gen2 can't touch...

Re:Alienware? Why bother?

[b0wl0fud0n]

Probably the best company for getting a computer right now is newegg.com

Most of the high end gamers know that alienware/dell and all the other manufacturers charge ridiculous prices. When they can't build them...they'll ask their friends to (i've built 8 computers in the last 7 months for friends).

I'll do a price comparison on an Aurora ALX by Alienware.

Aurora ALX Desktop
Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) 64 FX-60 with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Case: Alienware case
Cooling: Alienware® ALX Active Liquid Cooling System
Power Supply: Alienware® 650 Watt ATX 2.0 Power Supply
Motherboard: Alienware® NVidia nForce(TM)4 SLI(TM) X16 Motherboard
Video Cards:Dual GeForce 7900 GTX 512
Memory: 1GB Extreme Low Latency Dual Channel DDR SDRAM up to 533MHz - 2 x 512MB
Hard Drive: 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
CD/DVD Burner:16x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Sound Card:Integrated High-Performance 7.1 Surround Sound with S/PDIF and Coaxial Digital Outputs
OS: Windows Media Center

Total cost: $4,399.00

Custom build
CD/DVD Burners (RW Drives): NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE/ATAPI Model ND-3550A
ATX Computer Cases: Antec Performance I P180 Silver 0.8mm
Internal Hard Drives: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Motherboard: ASUS A8N-SLI Premium Socket 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
Video Cards: 2x eVGA 512-P2-N570-AX Geforce 7900GTX 512MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS SB0350 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card
Power Supply: Antec TRUEPOWERII TPII-550 ATX12V 550W Power Supply
Memory: OCZ EL Platinum Revision 2 1GB (2 x 512MB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Kit System Memory
OS: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX60 Toledo 2000MHz HT Socket 939 Dual Core Processor Model

Total cost: $2,988.68 + 5 hours of assembly

Re:Alienware? Why bother?

[Chitlenz]

RE: Voodoopc.

Amazing PC, and it's almost insulting to compare it to an alienware. I had a 'Three-Dimensional' (what kind of marketing filter is Slashdot running these days anyway?) specialist, actually a diagnostic cardiologist, tell me that one of our Rage boxes was the flat out fastest diagnostic workstation he had ever used, including the Super-Bling, most expensive machine in the hospital that goes ping Terrarecon and Vitrea stations (these things have specialized OpenGL boards that are assuredly not free).

I have one alienware station atm... in my closet. I bought it 5 years ago and never liked it (this is back when they were brand new tho, maybe something's changed).

Too slow, all bark and no bite, so who really cares?

--chitlenz

What a bizarre summary.

[__aamkky7574]

It's like something a clueless marketing droid would write. No hard-core gamer willing to spend the kind of bucks required for this machine is going to play the types of games that wouldn't be affected by encoding music in the background. Indeed, I can't think of any game, bar Minesweeper, that wouldn't be affected by such CPU-intensive activity.

Since when did slashdot post adds for dell

[cullenfluffyjennings]

There is not information content here - it's not like this is the first computer to have dual core. I have no idea why slashdot bothered to post this.

Some Points

[geekoid]

The person may be using dual monitors, thus not needing to alt-tab.

I have been able to play the latest games, rip and burn music, and virus check for years, Thanks to SCSI.

I thought our computers were CPU bound, not GPU...

[r_jensen11]

I thought I heard before that the latest video cards are making our computers CPU-bound, rather than GPU-bound. Hell, with the next round of nVidia cards, the physics are going to be outsourced from the CPU to the GPU, so I don't see how this will help that much....

Sarcasm

[Anonymous Coward]

God, Dell's gonnna destroy alienware. What an evil corporation, why even post this and advertise for them?

These claims are blatantly false

[velocipenguin]

Scanning for viruses is not particularly CPU-intensive - however, it does tend to max out drive controller bandwidth. This system, in addition to being NOT AT ALL NEWSWORTHY, isn't going to let you scan for viruses while playing games unless you have either a hell of a lot of physical RAM or a RAID-1 array.

Hmm...

[John Pfeiffer]

Gamers buy prebuilts?! I WAS UNAWARE! Dell once again proves themselves smarter than me!

Re:Dell-usional .. just cancelled order from AW

[Skippy_kangaroo]

A Macbook Pro?

Weighs in at 5.6lbs. Seems that some people consider the X1600 in the same class as a GeForce Go 6600.

Laptop? Pfft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who games on a laptop anyways? With the battery life that thing doesn't have, you could just as easily build a more powerfull mini-atx box, with bigger hdds, for less money, then attach a nice 17 inch LCD to that, and just take it with you on trips.

Exactly

[Avatar8]

After reading this article, I'd warn anyone purchasing a system for gaming to stay clear of dual core.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA wMiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA