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When High End Gaming Machines Fight
mikemuch writes "Games for Windows Magazine and ExtremeTech teamed up to determine which prebuilt high-end PC delivers the ultimate game performance in terms of frame-rate and ability to yield the highest game quality settings on large displays. The winner, VoodooPC's Omen, features an Intel Core 2 Duo QX6800 processor and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX's in SLI configuration. It delivers over 15,000 3DMarks (as do a few of the other contestants), but 'only' costs $5,700 — in contrast with some of the other machines that go for close to eight grand."
Who cares about prebuilt systems that much anyway? Most PC enthusiasts that are looking for this kind of power are the type that build their own PCs anyway, so who are these companies marketing to?
What would you guys do? Build your own or buy from some random manufacturer?
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
Really, where? The only time I've seen anything like that is in response to the inevitable "anything you can do on a PS3 you can do cheaper on a PC" where the response is that you can't buy a sub-$600 PC that outperforms a PS3.
Dont you need CrossOverMac?
And currently, these PCs and the PS3 are selling for about the same price! ;P
"It delivers over 15,000 3DMarks (as do a few of the other contestants), but 'only' costs $5,700 " Which is in stark contrast to $600... You were saying?
Personally, I like to build my own system, as high-end as I want. That way, I don't spend $4000 on something that could cost 300-500 bucks.
I think most of these "contests" and things among the PC manufacturers are mainly pissing contests.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=204055&c id=16677399c id=16517957
... Many Sony fanboys argue that it simply isn't possible (which isn't true)
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=201751&
A reasonable person would argue that the PS3 is a more cost effective performance set up
"High-end" systems can't be bought all in one package.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
But how many FPS do they play Gears of War at? What, they can't play Gears of War? OK nevermind.
Personally, I would prefer more games to work on a Mac. Seriously, I love my Mac but we are getting off topic. TFA is about gaming.
There are just too many games you can not play on a Mac.
Personally, I prefer high end gaming machines to have games.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Your first example doesn't address any kind of practical performance, its a vague handwave about processing power of the Core 2 Duo vs. the Cell.
In the second, the poster of the same article posts, in the thread, a breakdown which is specifically a cost effectiveness comparison, though the initial comment seemed more general.
If those are the best examples you can find, I'd suggest your "rebutting" a strawman.
Personally, I like to build my own system, as high-end as I want. That way, I don't spend $4000 on something that could cost 300-500 bucks.
There is no way that either of the systems would cost anything like $300-$500, even at wholesale. My wholesale account at Ingram Micro indicates that the two GeForce 8800 video cards alone would cost nearly $1200 (and they don't even have any available) and the processor almost $1000. The fact is that on an older system, you might, by biding your time and doing rebates, be able to save a substantial amount of money, but not on high-demand hardware like this.
On the other hand, I never bother to buy any of the latest high-end stuff; I know that it will be half as much in six months.
That might happen if Apple stopped selling neutered video cards like the X1900XT with the current mac pros.
Seriously, that's a huge market that for some reason apple has completely missed. Their Mac Pro line is not far off from an ultimate gaming rig, drop in a decent video card (make OSX recognize any PCI express video card properly!), a decent soundcard (which I think they have?), apply 10 minutes of that apple case engineering to make it look pretty and keep cool and voila now you have the ultimate geek toy, it runs OSX out of the box, you can install windows and linux, massive hard drive expansion for games music, movies, and all those operating systems what more could you want?
I think for the same amount of money (give or take the cost of OSX) apple could build machines this good, and people would buy them in droves. Why would any self respecting geek by a 5700 dollar ultimate gaming rig, when they can get a 5800 dollar ultimate gaming rig, that also runs OSX (or a 2000 dollar rig or a 3000 dollar rig)? It needs to support any PCIx card though, so I can drop in a Nvidia 9800 GTX when they come out.
are you completely retarded? you'd prefer a mac for your gaming rig?
:/
fanboy
The Q means Quad. This is a dual-core X6800 CPU, not quad-core.
8 66 has the info.
It's an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, not an "Intel Core 2 Duo QX6800", which is a non-existent part.
The Falcon NW has a Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700.
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2
actually I'd prefer just one rig, and have it do everything I need. Admittedly rebooting to play games at peak performance is less than ideal, but cheaper than one really fancy gaming computer and one constant linux box.
If you look at the performance numbers for other (ie non neutered) apple hardware like their notebook line it is comparable to the equivalent wintel OSXless machines, so that's where I premise my arguement.
If I could get the same (high end) performance from a Mac as I can from a PC on games (even under windows with apple hardware), for essentially the same price, yes, I'd rather have the mac. If however, as the current situation is, and the high end mac isn't so high end, I'll build my own bloody system or buy a high end PC and a Mac can wait.
oh, sorry, i didn't mean you, i meant the original poster. if you could use any pci-e graphics cards in an apple, they would be fine for games. like you said, rebooting to play would suck a little, but wouldnt be all bad
What parts would you use that beat the QX6800 processor and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX's?
It does, under Windows. And for $800 less than Dell for Dual 2.6 Woodcrests, your aftermarket video card, OEM Windows license, and 10k SATA drive budget is built right in.
except the Mac Pros don't seem to play nice with regular PCIx video cards under OSX. Yes, they work under windows, but I think it a tad strange to by a mac, install windows and then disable the mac part by installing your own video card.
Admittedly I may be out of date on that, if that's changed I'm all for buying a mac pro with a 7300 video card and dropping in an 8800 or R600 Upon release.
Thanks, I'll be here all week.
No SLI. The RAM is slow. The Mac Pro for gaming benches under my Core 2 Duo x6600 which cost $1500 less than a decently configged Mac Pro - and I don't have SLI yet. Oh and I don't believe you can overclock the Mac Pro. My x6600 is prime stable on stock cooling at 3GHz - which puts it in the performance level of the x6800.
The Mac Pro is a damn nice workstation but for games where better video and faster memory is more important than more CPU cores - it isn't really the right mix of hardware.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
Yeah, but is it powerful enough to run Vista?
[Insert pithy quote here]
Here's a place where you can sign up for a chance to get a free Nintendo Wii Console. They give one away per day. http://nintendo---wii.notlong.com/
Go ahead and log my ip, I don;t fucking care!
maybe half of all dells, and 95% of the tv ad buyers, buy systems that start with a 90 day warranty.
lots of dell systems have 90 days as a starting point.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Was "snarky" word of the day recently? I seem to be seeing it a lot.