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Dell's XPS 730x Core I7 Gaming System Reviewed
MojoKid writes "Shortly after Intel released their new Core i7 processors about a month ago, Dell announced a new update to the XPS 730 with Core i7 tech under the hood.
The new Dell XPS 730x is first and foremost a technology update but the chassis has also been buffed up a bit. The Intel Core 2 processor and NVIDIA 790i Ultra SLI chipset powering the original XPS 730 line have been swapped with
the new Core i7 processor and an Intel X58 Express chipset based motherboard. The XPS 730x retains the original 730's ability to
support both Crossfire and SLI multi-GPU graphics. Like all XPS 700 series machines since the XPS 710, the XPS 730x is available with optional factory overclocking and a H2C edition featuring a two-stage liquid cooling system. And yes,
it rips through Crysis quite nicely and puts up rather impressive benchmark numbers."
Maybe it will actually run Vista!
I'll have two then...
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
some of us don't have a grudge against microsoft and don't care if it dies.
get that through your thick skull already.
signed, the other 99.5% of the world.
this isn't the world, it's slashdot.
signed, a fat basement dweller who can't wait for 2009, year of the linux desktop.
I admire your dedication. Another way to look at it though is that Windows is the most used desktop OS. Ditching it only means (for now) losing access to the majority of games. Wii and PS3... blah. I much prefer my games running on PC. If that means having to own Windows, then that is how it is for the moment. Windows, for me, is only a gaming OS anyway. Does it really matter if, one day, Windows is a gaming OS and serious stuff gets done in, say, Linux?
BTX is a far superior mobo layout for air cooled cases. The only reason it didn't end up usurping ATX is because manufacturers didn't want to spend the money to support the new form factor.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
this isn't the world, it's slashdot.
signed, a fat basement dweller who can't wait for 2009, year of the linux desktop.
Oh that's next year!? YES! I'm going to hit up thinkgeek and buy myself every linux shirt I can find. In your face MS admins!
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
I thought that 20NN+1 was the year of the Linux laptop.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Can I put in another HDD without having to disassemble the whole case or sacrifice my current one?
Scott
While I don't really disagree with your assessment, I find it interesting to note that many people have blamed the fall of the Amiga as a platform on it being too heavily marketed as a games platform rather than being for "work stuff".
Ironic that now it seems that one of the major obstacles preventing a particular platform's wide level acceptance is the presence of games.
Truthfully given how limited my scope of gaming is these days Linux could PROBABLY serve all my needs if there were a good WoW (and Ventrilo) client for it. For the time being though my Mac is thankfully able to handle both those tasks.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Conclusion, only fat pasty linux users buy dells.
I don't know what to say.
I don't want it either because I have to buy a new case.
If I'm just swapping out mobos and CPUs every now and then I don't wanna be buying new cases. Especially if I"m using a really good and very expensive one.
Hmm, this really doesn't make much sense. If you're going to spend that much money, the thing should have four graphics cards and its own nuclear powerplant. The one they reviewed, priced at 5099 dollars, only has one graphics card, so it gets whooped by a $1500 computer at Crysis.
Since when did Dell become the de-facto gaming rig? Most gamers that want the machine at the top end of the performance curve will build their own with the top CPU and GPU of the day. And the few who will buy a prebuilt system would probably go with something like AlienWare.
:P
Next we'll see a story showing just how cheap laptops have become showing an Apple AirBook as the example. I'd give a car analogy, but there are just too many to choose from... and it's too easy to throw dirt at the American car companies at the moment, and it'd be in poor taste.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I think it's funny that we're using Crysis as a benchmark, rather than an object-lesson in "what not to do in game development."
The only reason why Crysis is being chosen here is because it's notoriously difficult to get it running on any system maxed out. The article's graph notes that the test was run without adding in anti-aliasing, and it manages to barely squeak out a playable frame rate (on a 22" widescreen lcd resolution).
Crysis looks good, sure, but so do most games at this point. It can scale down to run OK on lower machines, but again, so do most games at this point.
Benchmarking aside, I think it's beyond ridiculous that anyone would buy a $4,500+ PC for home / game use. What could possibly justify that? I have a year old system (quad core, 8800GT) that can literally play every game on the market at max settings... at 1920x1600! Oh, I guess with the singular exception of Crysis, which I haven't bothered with.
I wouldn't dream of spending that much cash on a game system. Think about it this way: You can buy this PC, -or- a used Audi. Or... a well-equipped gaming PC, a Sony XBR TV, a PS3, 360, AND Wii, and still have money left over for games.
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
Your Vista criticism is sound except for the indexing part. I have over a terabyte of stuff on my home machine and despite my best efforts I often cannot find things. OS X Spotlight has literally become my Finder replacement. These days I rarely ever even navigate through the windows. Of course I have had to learn to be a lot more careful when I label documents, but the time savings more than makes up for the occasional indexing. To me at least, real comprehensive search is the killer app of the modern desktop.
I just can't believe that for their top of the line system, XPS 730x H2C, that you can only get it with 6GB of RAM--if you are going to spend minimum of 4k on a machine and have the assumption that you will get all the bells and whistles no hold backs, why would you short change yourself at 6GB of RAM instead of 12GB?
Dell bought Alienware in 2006.
From what I can remember, it was also management issues at the top.
Not to mention that the Amiga was tightly bound to the custom chips they did in-house (Paula/Agnus, etc). Commodore didn't spend (or didn't have?) enough resources on R&D to keep up with the PC, and was also too slow in changing the platform so that it could use PC components instead.
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
I wish Apple would take OpenGL by the balls and do to it what they managed to do with OpenCL.
Right now DirectX's advantages (from what I understand) are its integration between all the necessary services needed to actually put together a game (video, sound, user i/o, etc.). If they could code an IDE that took a base of an improved OpenGL (what OpenGL 3.0 was supposed to be essentially) _and_ integrated its services with all the other necessary ingredients required to make a game, throw in some of Apples magical usability sprinkles, and Boom!, they have an oven to churn out delicious multi-platform cake that could turn another tide in the "Year of the Alternative Desktop".
Currently said cake is a lie, but oh god I can practically taste it now.
brb pastries
Actually, it should be:
signed, the other 89.5% of the world
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
anyone else find it ironic that the signer of this document holds the banner of apple and sony high but wants to see microsoft dead? i thought around here that was like being a member of the axis and praising germany and japan but wanting to see italy get over run by the allies.
i simply can not think of a company worse than apple when it comes down to keeping independent development away from their products.
Does it really matter if, one day, Windows is a gaming OS and serious stuff gets done in, say, Linux?
Yeah, it does. I don't want to have to waste time and resources on Windows. If I was going to do that, I'd buy a console... which is the why of Xbox.
Well what are the options.
Macs yea they can probably be a good gaming system. However you will always need to buy Apple Hardware with Apple OS (As I type it on my MacBook Pro in Safari for OS X). But for gaming where these guys often make their own uber boxes, going Mac isn't really an option.
Linux for Gaming... That is actually laughable. Linux is great for a server. Passible for a desktop system, but not much for gaming... To many diver makers will not support Linux other who do take so much heat about not making their drivers open source. Oh I am sure I can get hundreds of responses saying how great linux runs this game or the other so much better then windows with the same configuration. But there are also the a slew of people who cannot get the App to run in Xwindows much less getting 3d acceleration running. Then people will point out all the problems the Windows users have with their cards. However for the most part you buy the hardware you get the drivers and the usually work. In linux you get the hardware then you need to hunt down the drivers find the right configuration etc... All in all if you want to play games on your computer, and not the game of lets get it configured, then you better off with Linux.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You're missing the point. Maxis is releasing SimEarth soon, which will model weather systems tracking each individual water molecule; geological processes and modeling of the seismic activity including the role every soil particle assumes; the wind velocities inside a tornado; real-time fluid dynamics; life; accurate supernova recreations/simulations; and a whole lot more.
XPS 730x H2C = Intel® Coreâ i7-965 Extreme - Level 2 (Factory O/C'd to 3.73GHz), Genuine Windows Vista® 64-bit Ultimate (English) Service Pack 1
Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
No speakers (FAIL)
PS: I am not kidding they don't give you any speaker options on their most expensive XPS 730x H2C.
There were a lot of reasons. Probably the number one overall was the same reason Mac market share dropped: the large prevalence of cheap PC clones from different vendors. The average user didn't see a real difference between Windows and another OS.
As far as the technical side, you are correct in that the custom chips ultimately held the Amiga back. The updated AGA chipset machines (more or less comparable to VGA at the time) were pricey for the power they offered. For example the A1200 was released with a 68020 at a time when 486s were becoming common on PCs.
Sometimes my arms bend back.
You have been trolled again. See flamewars such as
HDDVD/ Bluray
GNOME / KDE
Emacs / Vim
Linux / BSD
VHS / betamax
Windows 9x / NT
Welcome to the club.
Yeah, ok. I agree with that. But I also don't see why having an OS dedicated to gaming is bad either. If it weren't for driver issues (and this could probably be worked out anyway) I think that an OS designed just to play games would be great. The "OS" would just have to be able to load and support games and do nothing else. I'd buy it. And if XP lost all the crap and became a game only OS then I could live with that as well.
No speakers (FAIL)
Yeah. You're paying tons of cash for the best hardware out there, and then route the audio trough crappy active PC speakers? That's like those people who buy an expensive car, and then can't afford the fuel for it.
If you have an expensive display, or sound card, don't be cheap on the sound. Everybody I know, who has a decent system, has it connected to his hi-fi system. I have only one output on my system: Real-time encoded AC-3 trough a fiber glass cable... It's better to let your amplifier do the D/A-decoding, instead of the cheap decoders in your sound card.
At least I don't have to tell my fellow Slashdotters, that the keyboard is very important too. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Serious question: Are there any laptops speakers that don't suck? That is, are there any laptop speakers that don't make you instantly run for your headphones?
(My laptop is 5 years old, and the speakers are unlistenable. Just curious if the situation has gotten any better.)
What about the mobo? What is it?
Supporting both CrossFire and SLI is interesting, most interesting is X58 chipset being Intel's ... and it gets SLI?
Intel's chipsets are faster than Nvidias, partially thereof, Nvidia won't license Intel the SLI technology to make it work on their chipsets. On the other note then again, some Nvidia chipset (MOST OF THEM infact) refuse to work at all, or almost completely on them (Core Quad Extremes 9600-9770), even on the latest chipset.
I'm running a Q9660 UNDERclocked to 2.4Ghz to make it stable on a Nforce 680i SLI mobo, 780i SLI mobo was actually WORSE than a 680i SLI mobo.
Regular Quads, and dual core 45nm works fine, but not the very top end, and the word around is it's because Intel won't release the microcodes or something along those lines. More curiously even, the engineering samples worked flawlessly on these mobos, therefore marketing that it would work, and general assumption that they do work. However, 3 mobos and 2 CPUs later, still no stability.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
The Altec Lansing speakers mounted in some Hewlett Packard laptop series (the Pavilion TX2000 series for instance) are pretty decent IMHO. Pretty decent for laptop speakers, that is.
Yes. My PowerBook G4 12 inch machine has really excellent speakers.
-1 not first post
I have a two year old laptop, and my dad has a three month old laptop, and they both have absolutely terrible speakers.
Ezekiel 23:20
In a recession few people care about a PC that starts at $1,800 and tops out at $4,400.
Yea, the Amiga was seen as too much 'for children' what held it back was paradoxically its more thought-through and superior architecture. I had a choice at the time between similarly priced Amiga 500 and an XT with no graphics. I should have gotten the XT I suppose, but at least I had lots of fun while other people learned to use Lotus 123.
(I did design and develop a 3D CAD application (with GUI and mouse etc.) while still at high school in 1988 while the rest of my class were still messing around with writing 'hangman' games.)
Then I skipped DOS and windows entirely and went from OS/2 to Linux. Later to use Windows NT.
Yea, you can run WoW quite nicely in Linux nowadays... it's just a bit of an issue with Ventrilo still. But, yes, I prefer using a Mac for this as well... even though I have a gaming machine (to play things like Crysis and Fallout 3 on) I still spend about 99% of my time on my Macbook (WoW, VMWare with XP and Linux, mail, browsing).
I asked once before without any luck. Not being a gamer, I'm very surprised about something. It seems obvious to me that when performance is the measure of satisfaction, a game should boot on the bare metal, instead of running on top of an OS. Especially a pig of an OS that robs you of a good percentage of the hardware you paid dearly for. Maybe you want something else from the OS at the same time? What if the game company built in email, IM, or etc.; would you still need Windows?
Explain to me how the Aero GUI becomes a load on the GPU when you are running Crysis full screen and with F/X cranked up to the max --- which is, after all, the reason why you lay out the big bucks for a high performance gaming system.
How Do I ... tweak Vista indexing options for better performance [Dec 15, 2008]
The Great Vista/Mac Showdown: Goodbye, WinRot [Feb 21, 2007]
do you honestly think that the majority of mac users want windows to die? who would they be snobs to if there was no microsoft?
FTFA: "Also included are a few freebies. Every XPS 730 system comes with a free tool kit with all of the various screwdrivers you would need to tinker with your system, a free Dell XPS metal mouse pad and a free set of XPS branded Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 surround sound gaming headset."
WoW runs perfectly in -opengl mode, and Ventrilo has a hack to make it work (under wine) with working keybindings. It used to be on Gentoo-wiki, but they lost their database recently and I'm not sure if it's still there.
This assumes you have a graphic card which has decent drivers (In my case this was the nvidia-drivers package with a 8800 GTS). I never got it to work right with an ATI card.
MBGMorden (803437) wrote:
> Truthfully given how limited my scope of gaming is these days Linux
> could PROBABLY serve all my needs if there were a good WoW (and
> Ventrilo) client for it.
For the record, I leveled a priest all the way to level 70 on
WINE/Gentoo. Never had a single crash. Ventrilo on WINE works fine for
me too.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
While I don't really disagree with your assessment, I find it interesting to note that many people have blamed the fall of the Amiga as a platform on it being too heavily marketed as a games platform rather than being for "work stuff".
Ironic that now it seems that one of the major obstacles preventing a particular platform's wide level acceptance is the presence of games.
I have to admit that I didn't pay much attention to the Amiga. Which is odd, since I was such a fan of the C=64. One of my good friends at that time picked up an Amiga and it did look pretty interesting. But I never went for one. And that has me really wondering.
I find myself disagreeing with the assessment at face value; it wasn't gaming vs. business that caused the Amiga trouble. There was a more fundamental issue that could have been misinterpreted as business computing. That issue was commodity platforms.
Business computing was important. That's what got IBM to jump in to the fray. And IBM's hat to be tossed in to the microcomputer ring was the IBM PC. IBM themselves are important. IBM lends a lot of credibility, demands loyal budget spending, and simply draws attention from those who didn't realize a revolution was going on around them. But it doesn't end there.
It really starts with Compaq. Compaq re-engineers the gatekeeper to IBM PC -- the BIOS. Then Compaq produces a better, cheaper "IBM PC" than IBM. And so begins the clone wars (stop transposing that in a Yoda voice).
The introduction of clones really means that what used to be IBM's platform instead becomes a commodity platform. And commodities are really difficult to deal with in the business world. What we have is a force that sweeps away almost anything competing against it (and more than a few competing within it). Commodore was one such entity that tried to stand against, instead of figure out how to surf, that wave (Microsoft sells surfboards).
Truthfully given how limited my scope of gaming is these days Linux could PROBABLY serve all my needs if there were a good WoW (and Ventrilo) client for it. For the time being though my Mac is thankfully able to handle both those tasks.
I use Wine. I've had minor issues in the past. But things are pretty decent right now. WoTLK seems to have handed me a performance hit (although I have to admit I haven't done a lot to tweak performance - either in game settings, addons, or wine).
I heard it will also simulate the LHC, which makes you wonder why CERN wasted untold billions building the damn thing in the first place.
There are winners and losers in every turn of the market.
In the 1930s folks went to the movies - an evening out for 25 cents - or stayed home and listened to the radio.
Those quarters added up quickly.
So did the return on every pack of cigarettes or bar of soap sold through "our sponsor tonight, your neighborhood Rexall drugstore."
And if XP lost all the crap and became a game only OS then I could live with that as well.
I'm not getting my head around why this appeals to you so much. Maybe its just how I look at it.
For me - Linux is great. I work in it. I dabble with various hobbies in it. When I want to game, its nice to just swing over to a virtual desktop and fire up a game for an hour or two (or hell - a weekend lost to downing bosses and fighting battlegrounds). A specialized gaming OS would mean I have to reboot (I couldn't imagine running in an emulator but hey - we're getting there).
What you're asking for is a specialized OS. That seems to go against the nature of multi-purpose computing. That environment has been producing some very interesting effects over the years and pushing games that didn't exist anywhere else. Narrow the focus and you might miss the Next Big Thing.
Even consoles are wandering away from their specialized roots. PS3 and Xbox are trying very hard to be all things entertainment; gaming, media, web browsing... it goes on. Unless the market gets burned by this, it is the thing of the future. Even my Tivo wants me to use it to order a pizza (apparently unsatisfied with just recording my TV, delivering movies / internet TV shows / podcasts, and streaming internet music stations).
Bullshit. There are two makers of capable GPUs, and both support Linux well with decent drivers downloadable from their web sites. Installing the drivers is straight-forward for anyone capable of reading simple instructions. Different from Windows, yes, but not in any way difficult. You forget that while Linux is different from Windows, the users aren't in general any less competent.
Also, the fact that you believe there is such a thing as hunting down drivers in the Linux world shows that you have no fucking clue what you're talking about. If that's how you tried solving your problems, then it's obvious why you couldn't get it to work: you're doing it wrong. Don't blame the OS for your own incompetence.
Dell does computer design like old people fuck.
Linux users of course.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
They know their target audience. If someone will spend 5k on a computer for gaming then they probably already spent god knows what on some "hi-fi" home theater system for their gaming computer.
The 700 series of the XPS systems have always been top of the line in design and hardware.
However, if you buy one of these guys and find you need a mobo/cpu/psu replaced within 3 months, request a *new* replacement.
The problems that plague the 700 series can be vague and since it really is a specialty item, not everyone has proper knowledge of how to fix them.
---
Don't bother, I already did.
I think that Windows will eventually (not soon, but eventually) fail for a similar reason to Amiga.
The problem is that technological (hardware) breakthroughs are accelerating (think Moore's law). In order to keep up, proprietary companies must continue to pour more and more resources into research and development in order to keep up. Open source has no such problem since anyone can contribute to research and development at no monetary cost.
If you don't believe me, just look here. USB3.0 is already being developed for Linux, whereas it doesn't look like Windows 7 will even have support for it when it is finally released. While the latter fact may change (AFAIK it may already have changed), it does seem indicative of similar trends in the future as the rate that technology improves increases even more.
Ironic that now it seems that one of the major obstacles preventing a particular platform's wide level acceptance is the presence of games.
The fact that a couple of slashdotters say so doesn't make it true.
In my opinion, Linux's only obstacle to gaining a significant foothold on the desktop market is a better acceptance on the business sector, as it happened with both DOS and Windows before it, with games only being a side benefit of the aditional market share. However, I am also a mere slashdotter so don't assume my opinion as truth, though I believe its better supported than the games theory. Still, conclusive proof it isn't, so take it with a grain of salt.
Ohh, and personally, my gaming habits have expanded so nowadays I do most of it on Windows. But thankfully, everything else (from web browsing to software development) I do in Linux and while it would be nice to someday only need Linux for all my needs, I'm fairly comfortable with the current situation and don't see a pressing need to change. Well, other than the fact that the newest version of Windows sucks ass, but I believe there'll be enough 2K and XP-compatible games for me to wait until Microsoft redeems itself of Vista.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
You're missing the point. Maxis is releasing SimEarth soon, which will model weather systems tracking each individual water molecule; geological processes and modeling of the seismic activity including the role every soil particle assumes; the wind velocities inside a tornado; real-time fluid dynamics; life; accurate supernova recreations/simulations; and a whole lot more.
This seems funny right now, but who knows. The pace at which technology is progressing, I will not be surprised if these things actually get incorporated into a game.
We're just a beta test of Sim Earth, the next test starts in 1461 days, game time.
I would be embarrassed to own such a gaudy box.
I have a P4 Dell XPS from about 5 years ago. The battery has a subwoofer. Let me repeat that. The 16-cell battery has a subwoofer. In its defense, it got a good 2.5 hrs of battery life back when it didn't staunchly deny the existence of said battery.
...I guess what I'm trying to say is: I HATE SAUERKRAUT.
Fun fact: My T60 (CD 1.83GHz and Radeon x1300 discrete card) benchmarks just about the same as my XPS (3.4GHz P4, Radeon 9700) and gets double the battery life to boot...and I didn't get questions from people asking if it's a laptop in a docking station/media base.
I genuinely enjoyed its speakers...I primarily used headphones with it to not bother the roommate. I at one point purchased some 'portable' speakers that were battery or wall-wart amplified so I could more easily listen to music from across the room. I almost never used them because they just weren't worth it.
When I upgraded to a Shuttle desktop/Thinkpad combo I split the desktop's audio output between various headphones and some really nice Behringer studio monitors my roommates and I got. Those things utterly rocked. Too bad we never found a good solution for streaming music between computers (our 'switching' method was a couple of 1/8" stereo extension cables and a Y-splitter. I know, I know, terrible, right?). Shoutcast had too much lag and I was stuck with windows for games and CAD and there didn't seem to be a good cross-platform solution.
Anyway, the point is, agreeing with everyone above - don't buy speakers from Dell if you're going to drop several grand on a desktop from Dell. Nothing wrong with that desktop, but a DAC/amplifier in a separate piece of hardware is almost always going to do a better job than one crammed into a mobo or expansion card. I have an X-Fi Titanium card (my built-in sound card doesn't do 3D sound in games or dolby live whatever...the 5.1 advertised was something of a gimmick, but the latest Realtek chipsets are a lot better) piping Dolby Digital at 96kHz to a Yamaha receiver hooked up to a couple-hundred bucks of a low-end 5.1 Boston Acoustics setup. It sounds pretty fantastic.
The only really good PC speakers that were totally worth their purchase price was the set of 2.1 speakers that came with my old P2 Gateway back in the day. They're from Boston Acoustics and weigh about 5 lbs for each of the little desktop units. I snagged them from my parent's house and have them hooked up to the old XPS for listening to podcasts and whatnot when I'm at the opposite end of the apartment from the 5.1 setup.
The whole point of computers it to make difficult stuff like that go away so we can spend our time doing things humans are better at doing.
Besides, organized folders are really a piss poor way to structure large amounts of data. It is even piss poor for small amounts of data. For example, how would you structure your folders for a bunch of one-off "I'm learning API XYZ" projects you created in visual studio? Since they are all stupid apps, it isn't worth the time to properly oragnize them, yet still you might want to refer back to them.
And this is triple for music or any other media. I gave up the whole "iTunes/Windows Media Player is for suckers, I can do it better in folders" attitude a long time ago. It is far, far, far easier to let those programs manage your 20,000 song music library then doing it yourself.
The computers should adapt to us, not the other way around. IMHO, hierarchical file systems are on their way out for most content. They are good for the "system stuff" like your applications and their libraries, but they suck for your "content stuff".
Turning off UAC on your own computer is one thing (I leave it on, turning it off is like running as root all day). Turning it off on a computer that isn't yours is horrible. You are opening them up to security issues by doing that. Instead you should keep it enabled and train the users what it means when you get a UAC dialog (hint: they shouldn't get any unless the install software). If they are really "clueless", train them to call you before clicking through one so you can make sure they aren't about to hose their machine.
UAC is a godsend for people who maintain their parents or families computer. My mom calls me all the time with questions like this...
The fact that the specs weren't designed to support on-die memory controller, also didn't help. (The RAM slots are too far away from the CPU)
Intel was behind BTX,, just after AMD started including on-die memory controllers. Funny how Intel don't care much for BTX, now that they have on-die memory controllers, isn't it?
butterflies? does it include butterflies in all that?
well, you obviously fail to.
A really good set of head phones will beat any speakers any day. Plus they block out external noises which helps with immersion.
It's not a laptop.
Yuck, Behringer, you'd be better off with some Mackies or Genelecs
I've gotten WoW to work using Wine, but haven't tried Ventrilo. Still, I've never found Wine to be a preferable solution. I want a native port :).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
How exactly do you output the audio to your system, from what device?
To put things into perspective, this machine can run 35 virtualized instances of Ubuntu Linux with full compiz effects enabled, or it can run Vista!
and YOU obviously failed English.
To != Too
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
I'm not sure. I have an Antec 300 case, which puts the CPU up in the top corner and has a 120mm behind it and a 140mm fan above it. I have a good sized CPU cooler which i run without a fan, and the CPU stays cool and silent.
The BTX layout is better then some ATX cases, but it's just not categorically better then all ATX designs. There's not enough reason to switch, so the market hasn't.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Based on the looks of the machine -- it's the same chassis as their 2-3 yr old "Dell Precision 690" Workstation model.
The 690 workstation sported a Intel 5000X Workstation motherboard (the other 5000-series boards are for servers) with sockets for two CPU's and expandable to 64GB of memory. It came with a stock 750W power supply or an optional 1KW PS. It's an impressive case that just feels solid. No tools needed to replace boards in the motherboard. Four 5" bays for media drives + 4 internal 3.5 HD bays. You might be able to configure a similarly equipped machine by ordering the basic system as a Precision workstation and adding in your own graphics card (the workstations usually come with Quadro graphics, which suck wrt/price:performance for gaming).
Haven't tried configuring or ordering one, but you might get a similar i7 based system through their small business and home-office store-front with less flash, similar internals, but less cash. You might also have option to choose a SAS controller that allows you to mix SAS and SATA drives for a RAID0 config + a large cheap SATA drive.
I would say that the AGA chipset was not that much to blame : it compared quite favorably to regular VGA and was better, and more flexible, when it came to 3D capabilities. But the 68020 sucked, definitely. A 68040 with an MMU and an FPU would have made the machine look much better.
And yet, the price ($599) made the A1200 quite affordable for a multimedia computer, compared with equivalent PCs which cost well over $1000 at the time.
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Technically, the Antec 300 is not an ATX case. It's just a case that can accept most standard ATX formfactor motherboards, power supplies, and other parts. The Antec 300 is not a bad arrangement though, a regular ATX case just has the heat from the CPU blowing into the case, so you need addional fans to blow that heat out of the case. This might have worked fine in 1995, but certainly not optimal with CPUs pulling 100W or more nowadays.
I've never liked BTX because it vents the air out the front of the case and blows the warm air at the user. Or I guess you can reverse the fan, in which case the air blowing through the case is first heated by the CPU. That, and the computer now opens from the opposite side, and I'm just too used to it being the other way.
It's not a laptop.
haha! No, it's not. After rtfa-ing, I was googling around and must have looked at pics of the 1730x, which is a laptop. So my question was totally off-topic, but I'm happy to have gotten good answers nonetheless.
Yes, you're right (apart from the insult).
But do you want to have headphones on your ears all day long?
I sweat like crazy, even with the most advanced materials.
Besides: I like my 5.1 system. At least as long, as binaural recording for everyone in an unsolved problem. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Oh, and my setup for a game-headset is a high-end headphone, and a clip-on microphone (like the ones used on TV).
These microphones have a very impressive sound quality and loudness compared to normal headset microphones.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.