You call it moving the goal posts -- I call it dynamic e-business
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Alienware pulls all stops
IT'S ALWAYS an experience to test Alienware’s gaming PCs. Hot Hardware reviews the latest revision of the Aurora ALX gaming system, a liquid-cooled beast equipped with a Core i7 975, dual HD 5870 and a couple of terabyte drives in RAID 0. This simply obliterates anything out there.
Cowcotland, that bizarro sometimes-English-sometimes-French site has published its take on the new Compaq Netbook Mini 311c, based on the Nvidious ION chipset. The touchpad seems to satisfy the finger the most, but overall the netbook is just one really good device
Xbit Labs has some new cooling kit from Asus in the shoppe today, the Asus Square AMAzing (sic) and the Asus Triton 88 CPU coolers. You’ve gotta hand it to Asus, they make some of the coolest looking heatsinks on the market today, even though there performance might not be all that good. The Triton 88 on the other hand, just sucks away those hot temps until there’s nothing left…
Techware Labs looks at the not-so-famous Azza-branded Solano 1000 PC case. First of all, it’s a full tower, a gamer’s case. Secondly it’s a budget case. The included fans are ultra quiet, according to Ilya, and you’re likely to drown them out with your CPU cooler first. Not a bad choice, he says.
Tom’s Hardware is looking at the latest and greatest HDDs. Using 500GB platters these drives can offer the best performance, power saving and capacity on the market. It seems Western Digital still has the lead, here.
OCIA has been playing around with the Dynatron Genius G950 CPU cooler. This company is better known as an OEM supplier, so it isn’t that common to see people using this brand. However, and in their defense, OCIA did produce some very good cooling results for the G950… and it’s cheap!
If you want a feel for what 6Gb/s SATA will afford you, you can take a look at Anandtech’s article on the subject. Apparently the first implementations of the 6Gb/s-capable chipsets offer some advantages and disadvantages, so we’d really recommend a thorough reading of this article.
Tech ARP reviews the WD Scorpio 320GB 2.5-inch drive. This little thing costs just $69 and provides your laptop with as much muscle as it needs. It’s high-spindle speed delivers quasi-desktop performance levels equivalent to top 7200rpm drives. Sounds good.
We like CULV laptops more and more. These slim laptops combine a much more powerful processor with way better battery life. Take the Asus UL80VT at Laptop Mag, for example. It’s got 9 hour battery life and some decent graphics. µ
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OK just to get this out of the way, I don't begrudge people for spending crazy amounts on a crazy fast gaming PC.
I also don't hate Alienware in particular.
But to make no issue of the complete lack of free PCI/PCI-E expansion slots, on a $4k machine, well that's just plain wrong.
Somebody who spends this money probably has a killer NIC or some crazy high end sound card. Nope, can't use either. PhysX card? Nope. Some other crazy new thing coming out? Won't work.
And speaking of PhysX, one can stand on whatever side one wishes, but to block an addition of PhysX hardware (the standalone one still works with ATi) requiring the removal of one 5870... that has got to be a joke.
The review states that the slots are taken, but doesn't take issue with that. Or list it in the "Cons" at the end.
LAME.
Getting ready for Doom 4, I see.
I don't have a high end PC. The games I play run just fine on what I have. I also don't have the latest consoles and the console games I have run just fine. Everyone wants to make money in this economy, including gaming PC companies.
"a liquid-cooled beast equipped with a Core i7 975, dual HD 5870 and a couple of terabyte drives in RAID 0"
There is no need for super high end gaming rigs any more. The game developers have abandoned the PC in favor of the kiddie consoles and the money it can bring in for mediocre games and lots of flashy advertisements to sell the crap. The PC gets left over port jobs now that do not need a high end machine to run on since the game was designed for the kiddie consoles in the first place.
It's a sad situation for PC gaming right now and MS is not helping PC gaming, in fact they are helping destroy it too.