Comments on: Alienware workstation uses Quad-Core Xeon processor

By: Alan Ralph

Alan Ralph — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 15:15:20 +0000

I’ve got a similar setup to the one that BHK mentioned (3-year old Dell Dimension 8300, P4 3GHz, 3GB RAM) and it is holding up pretty well with all of the games that I’ve thrown at it, as well as happily multitasking with half a dozen apps open – it only really slows down with really CPU-intensive stuff like audio/video conversion (to put stuff onto my iPod) and 3D rendering.

PC Pro magazine in the UK have tested the Xeon 5300 chips in a pre-production system – applications like Photoshop made no use of the extra cores, and it was only with 3DS Max that the chips got fully utilised. So if you’re thinking of buying such a system, you would want to be sure that the applications you’re using will actually benefit, otherwise it’s probably better to hold off until support for quad-core CPUs (and 8 cores in a dual-CPU setup) is more widespread. The other interesting fact from that article was that extra cores mean that the chips are clocked lower (maximum of 2.4GHz) in order to keep power consumption down to 80W.

One final note – I checked on the UK Alienware site, and the price for the MJ-12 8550i is about the same, so for once you don’t get stung for being on the wrong side of the Atlantic…

By: Eddy

Eddy — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:02:44 +0000

#13

You need Windows XP Pro 64 to get more than 4GB of ram. Then you CAN have dual quad-core with 16GB of ram of kick-ass.

By: JoaoPT

JoaoPT — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:43:07 +0000

Yep. This thread is already on the way out of the blog… so no chance of flaming battles here…ha ha ha!
Just to finish this, and more to the point of this thread, the UberPC shown by Alienware is, IMHO the way thay found to say: “Hey, we can be Pros too, we can produce sexy hardware that’s not just to frag virtual entities on FPS games.”

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 23:31:50 +0000

Angel. He can bash me, I aint scared.

By: Angel H. Wong

Angel H. Wong — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:40:01 +0000

#24

I wonder how long until Lauren starts bashing you?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:37:21 +0000

24. “I’m the first guy saying that I would never buy an Apple machine. Not unless they can come up with a two piece design, affordable and powerful, that permits me to swap processor, HD and DVD drives at my hearts content. And ultimately able to accept a standard Motherboard later on.”

And you realize that is never going to happen. I am surprised they “switched” to Intel Processors and allowed Windows to run on them.. If they complied with the rest of your statement, then its a PC.

Sounds like we are on the same page. Sorry if I misunderstood you.

By: JoaoPT

JoaoPT — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 22:18:12 +0000

No. I agree with you. I myself own (to my misfortune) an original iBook. And that SOB is a bitch to upgrade the HD. I tried but ultimately I went for and external firewire 3.5 case.
No, I was talking about purity of form. The iMac is a beauty. But also, for economical and practical reasons, I wouldn´t recomend buying one. Simply because it’s the least future proof machine you can get. The integrated display is all very nice but the fact is that in three years time you are stuck with a obsolete machine you can’t afford to upgrade while the screen is still very usable. I’ve talked about this before. Apple has been leaning towards a kind of laptop design throughout it’s entire line, except for the MacPro. And the MacPro is overkill for the average user. Apple, because of marketing and design issues, has been neglecting the simple and sucessful design of the two piece desktop machine.
My friend, I’ve not fallen for the hype. I’m the first guy saying that I would never buy an Apple machine. Not unless they can come up with a two piece design, affordable and powerful, that permits me to swap processor, HD and DVD drives at my hearts content. And ultimately able to accept a standard Motherboard later on.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:33:21 +0000

22. Better designed in WHAT way. Are you talking about a case? If so you are dead wrong, the laptops are horribly designed for a technicians ease of repair. I know, because I repair them and THAT is a fact.

ex. What is the hardware device that fails most often. The hard drive. The hard drive can take 2 hours to extract from a Mac laptop. 2 minutes (if that) from ANY PC laptop. And dont get me started on the stupid G4 we refer to as the “lamp” design. You have fallen for the hype.

By: JoaoPT

JoaoPT — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:11:34 +0000

Yeah but when you buy it, it makes some difference…
I’m a MAc user fallen from grace. I no longer am a MacHead, and thus pretty much set myself not to buy expensive equipment (macs) just for the marketing pressure they put on.

But evidence is evidence and MAcs are so much better designed. And that’s a fact.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 20:08:15 +0000

“As for the Mac alike implication, is bogus. Have you ever really looked at PC cases and Mac cases ? It’s Industrial Design at some very different level.”

And therein lies the difference between Mac and PC users. I look at my monitor when using a computer, I dont give a damn how pretty the chassis is, for crying out loud, its a case, WHO CARES!!!!

By: TheGlobalWarmer

TheGlobalWarmer — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 13:55:48 +0000

It’s not possible for any computer to be “too powerful”.

Too powerful for your budget maybe, but we’ll never reach a point where we don’t need to continue working to make systems faster or more powerful.

By: JoaoPT

JoaoPT — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 10:05:08 +0000

I just forgot to attach the link:
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2866

By: JoaoPT

JoaoPT — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 09:58:20 +0000

This machine is just for braggin rights. Dell is well encroached in the CAD niche market to need help from it’s “Gamers & Modders” Alienware branch. The fact of the matter is that this machine probably has the same bowels of the MacPro: intel server chipset and serial ram.
Intel has a better price to performance quad core chip that can use DDRII ram.

As for the Mac alike implication, is bogus. Have you ever really looked at PC cases and Mac cases ? It’s Industrial Design at some very different level.
The only way PC makers could ever reach this level of Ind. Design is to ask some good Italian or German design centers, not from the PC-making sphere, to design some cases. IMHO there’s no such Design culture in american PC makers (or worldwide for that matter).

By: pedro

pedro — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 06:51:02 +0000

#6 is this the first time you hear about Alienware? Jeez!

By: Angel H. Wong

Angel H. Wong — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 01:35:50 +0000

#15

Now THAT is a kick ass machine, not unlike it’s overpriced, overhyped iMac cousin.