Alienware Aurora 7500-R4

We’ve been visited by two Alienware machines so far; the Aurora 5500 and the Area-51 7500 R3. The Aurora 5500 performed surprisingly well in our evaluation process and received a very respectable overall score. The machine was solid overall and the only major issue we had was that the consumer had to pay a big premium for the Alienware name and design. There was also the landmark event where we were able to actually make the machine smoke.
Out next experience with the Area-51 7500 R3 came at an interesting time since Dell had just acquired Alienware and we were keenly interested to see if anything had changed. The machine remained strong in our performance-based categories, but technical support took a significant nosedive compared to our earlier experience. We ultimately recommended the Area-51 machine, but with reservations given the high price and unimpressive support.

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Scan 3XS OC-GTS Gaming PC

With nVidia launching the GeForce 8600 GTS card today, Scan sent us over a PC incorporating nVidia’s new baby this morning. We generally prefer a bit more notice than a few hours with a review sample, but I thought that this machine was worth making an exception for.
The GeForce 8600 represents nVidia’s mid range, sitting below the flagship 8800 parts. Like the GeForce 8800, the 8600 is fully DirectX 10 compliant, which means you should be reasonably future proof with the upcoming generation of games. But the question is whether the 8600 will actually be up to the task of playing next generation games, even if it is DirectX 10 compliant.

The Abit Fatality FP-IN9 SLI NF650 motherboard makes for a good foundation for the system and offers a decent amount of upgrade potential. The most obvious area for future upgrades is the addition of a second graphics card. There’s an XFX 8600GTS XXX sitting in one of the PCI Express slots, while the other lays empty, waiting for a second card to create an SLI environment. It’s worth noting that this board doesn’t sport twin x16 slots, so if you do go SLI each card will essentially reside in an x8 slot. That said, two 8600GTS cards should be more than happy in this environment, and shouldn’t suffer from the reduced bandwidth. There are also two x1 PCI Express slots, although one will be inaccessible in an SLI setup. Finally there are two free PCI slots below the PCI Express complement.

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Quad SLI under the microscope

OVER THE PAST few years, we've seen an incredible number of extreme hardware solutions marketed to PC gamers: graphics cards that cost over five hundred bucks, thousand-dollar "Extreme Edition" CPUs, motherboards with more ports than Dubai, custom physics processors, and now even a "killer" NIC. Without a doubt, though, the most extreme of all of these offerings has to be Nvidia's vaunted Quad SLI. The concept of running four GPUs together for insane gaming goodness is more extreme than snowboarding down some wicked moguls into a vat of Mountain Dew at the X Games.
But does Quad SLI live up to its practically built-in hype? Can running four GPUs in tandem catapult you into a zone of pure extremeness, where new frames flow like water, object edges are feathery smooth, and textures are so perfectly mapped to surfaces that you're utterly convinced they're real?
I dunno. I'm just making this stuff up as I go along. But we have tested Quad SLI in order to see what it's like to play games on a quad-GPU system. We've also popped open the metaphorical hood on Quad SLI to see how it works. Along the way, we found a few unexpected things, as well.

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Building an Affordable Gaming PC - Gaming machines don't have to be expensive

PC gaming is exceptionally popular and can be a lot of fun, but nobody likes trying to run a modern high-end game on a 3 year old, outdated system. At the same time, not everyone wants to drop thousands upon thousands of dollars on the most ridiculously equipped gaming rig from a specialty boutique computer builder. So what's the answer? Believe it or not, it's possible to get great gaming performance from a system that doesn't necessarily break the bank. Our goal today is to talk about building the best possible system you can for around $1500 US at the time of this writing. With some careful component selection, a little bit of knowledge, patience, and some tweaking, you can build a rock-solid gaming box.

Just my quick comment is that this guide was recently updated, so I hope it will be interesting to read for all of you gamers out there on a budget. One last thing that I wanted to add is just take a look which graphic card & motherboard the crew from Corsair recommended :-)

I think that you know the answer.

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SLI Rig of the Month - April

Motherboard: SLI-Ready EVGA nForce 680i

Benchmarks: Highest 3dmark06 is around 17500 @ 4.2 ghz.

GPUs: 2X BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards

Case: Custom Mountain Mods 22" Cube built around Vapochill and 12" Elo TouchScreen LCD monitor

Cooling: Danger Den waterblocks on each GPU, Thermochill PA 120.3 Rad with 6 SilenX fans in push/pull, plus 7 other SilenX Fans mounted throughout the case

CPU: Intel Core2 Duo X6800 on stock Vapochill LS

Memory: 4 gigs OCZ 1066 RAM

Hard Drives: 750 gig Seagate

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Vigor Gaming's Force Recon QXN packs a quad core QX6800

We're always impressed with how fast manufacturers are able to incorporate newly-announced components into their products -- we think there's some black magic at play -- and sure enough, boutique gaming house Vigor is already offering a gaming desktop powered by Intel's new high end Core 2 Extreme QX6800. Besides the 2.93GHz, quad core processor -- which comes standard -- you can also stuff this box with as much as 4GB of blazing fast 1111 MHz DDR2 RAM, 750GB of storage, dual NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX cards in SLI, as well as the usual array of optical drives, wireless radios, and connectivity ports

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Dell XPS 710 And 710 H2C Still Installed With XP (With NVIDIA SLI)

Last January at CES, Dell made big news with its introduction of its XPS 710 H2C system which allowed massive overclocking of the system due to its new cooling technology. At the time both the XPS 710 and XPS 710 H2C were being installed, like every other PC at the time, with Windows XP. Now it's early April and nearly every new PC system comes with Microsoft's Vista OS installed, except for the high powered and highly expensive Dell's XPS and XPS H2C systems.
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A Look at "The Quadfather" from Vigor Gaming

We recently received a sweet gaming rig here at Tom’s Hardware Guide. Vigor Gaming, based in City of Industry, CA, sent us a brand new model called “The Quadfather.” We haven’t finishing testing this QuadFX beast yet, but here are some pictures of the system along with a few of the specs. This SLI-enabled rig looks hot and we can’t wait to get it going on some Doom 3 and Oblivion tests. More details coming soon. Stay tuned for some benchmark tests on Tom’s Hardware Guide.

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CyberPower Gamer SLI KO QX6800 System

Today, we're looking at the other end of the spectrum from CyberPower. We know what they can do with a budget based build, but can they impress us when dropping a small fortune on a PC? The model we're looking at today we're told will cost $3999 (more on that later), and for $4K, we expect the white glove treatment. After all, that's more than some people pay for an engagement ring, and while we can't expect a PC to offer the same benefits as a giddy girlfriend turned fiancé, a four thousand dollar rig better put out (heh) nothing short of an ass kicking computing experience.

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Velocity Micro Gamers' Edge DualX Custom Gaming Computer

I know that you're probably tired of so many links and reviews of complete based systems (Alienware, Dell, Velocity Micro etc.) but it's just that there are so many reviews around the web, that it's a shame not to mention it....





When you are looking for an ultimate gaming PC there are not a lot of choices. It's not like you can go down to your local Best Buy or Circuit City and get a great gaming PC. At those retail stores you will find basic consumer systems, no hardcore gaming systems. So where do you turn if you want a top of the line gaming PC where you can choose the components inside and have it professionally built for you? Velocity Micro is one of the few companies out there that will do this for you. Today we will be taking a look at their Gamers' Edge DualX Custom Gaming PC. We will see how it performs against our test system and compare results to the price of each system.

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Dell XPS 710 H2C

The XPS 710 H2C represents the pinnacle of Dell’s engineering, and is the company’s first true no-holds-barred gaming machine, so we’re looking for unparalleled gaming performance, stunning design, rock-solid stability, and exceptional tech support. At $5,500, if ever we expected a PC to be damn near perfect, it’s this one.

Dell has stated very clearly that it wants to compete with the other hardcore PC builders, and for a couple of years now we’ve been waiting for Dell to whip out the big guns and go toe-to-toe with the best the rest of the industry can offer. With the H2C, which is Dell’s first factory-overclocked gaming PC, it has finally thrown down the gauntlet – or at least answered the gauntlet that has been thrown down by the boutique integrators.

But anyone can build a PC with high-end specs and a modest overclock. Whether or not the H2C’s build quality, Windows build (Dell is notorious for bloatware), and tech support (it also has a spotty record in this category) can live up to the level of quality we’ve seen from other boutique builders remains to be seen.

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Alienware Area-51 7500 Gaming System

Today in the hothardware labs, we have the Alienware Area-51 7500, which features Alienware's signature, unique aesthetics and some of the most powerful hardware available today.
The Area-51 7500 can be configured to be one hell of a gaming system, one that most of us can only dream about. The Cyborg Green-colored monster (this system is BIG and HEAVY) that we received was shipped in a black box with Alienware logos on it.

What would a high-end PC be without the latest and greatest video cards? It wouldn't be much to brag about, right? Well, no worries here. The picture below highlights the presence of not one but two NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX video cards in SLI mode. It doesn't get much later and greater than that right now. Considering the size of those cards, it's a good thing the Alienware P2 chassis is an extended ATX case. You can see that the cards actually go beyond the motherboard.

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Alienware 7500 P2 with Blu-ray

Reviews of Alienware kit have previously caused consternation in these pages. Such pieces traditionally polarise readers into two camps - those who appreciate the engineering and build quality that goes into an Alienware system built for a specific target market, and those that can't see past the stupendously high price tag. We've always subscribed to the theory of different strokes for different folks, and we've consequently enjoyed the mahoosive towers the company has sent in for us to check out.So what's on the test bench this time around? Well, Alienware has a new chassis for one, a smaller version of the gigantic tower we have seen previously. This is more of a mid-tower size than a full-tower, although the styling is otherwise pretty similar. There are some neat new tricks in the case, which we will look at in just a tick.

The hardware has changed, too. Under the hood of this beast is an 8800 GTX SLI setup - absolutely the fastest graphics sub-system that money can buy.

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Commodore's Gaming PCs Revealed

Ghost Recon 2 painted Commodore is indeed back but it's no different from everyone else this time around. DailyTech previously reported that Commodore was expected to make a splash back into the gaming scene by introducing computers targeted specifically towards gamers. The company left the scene more than two decades ago after launching the famous Commodore64. Commodore confirms the reports after it launched its new website and revealed upcoming system specifications. Officially called the Commodore xx, the new flagship system will be based on current off-the-shelf components.

Official specifications include:
Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core processor QX6700: 2.66GHz 8M Cache
ASUS P5N32-E nForce 680i SLI motherboard
2x 150GB 10000 RPM SATA Raid 0 and 2x 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Raid 1 hard drives
4GB Corsair Dominator 2xTwin2x2048-8500C5D memory: 1066MHz
Philips DVD-RW optical drive
1000W ICE Cube power supply
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
2x NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB graphics cards

I would just like to add that It's a great idea! I remember playing on my first-ever computer C64 some legendary games like Laser squad, Ghosts'n'Goblins, Rick Dangerous, Commando etc, etc...
It's really nice to play on PC thinking it's powerfull as much as legendary C64.
Ah... memories come to life with this computer. My first 'bloody eyes effect' happened with C64 and an old TV :-) ... ah, the nostalgia is all around me :-)

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