Alienware: Game PCs need more than faster chips

Fast silicon is hitting a wall in game PCs, according to Alienware, which is looking for ways to boost game PC performance.

Parent company Dell vowed on Tuesday to pour more resources into the game PC unit and invest in "product development, design, and engineering."

Alienware Area-51 m9750 notebook

(Credit: Alienware)

Alienware's Marc Diana believes optimizing systems for the 64-bit world would allow game PCs to make big strides in performance. In effect, today's 32-bit environments are putting a crimp on PC-based gaming.

"So many people are caught up in this hardware race. Dual-core, quad-core this and that," said Diana, who is Alienware's product marketing manager for desktops. "If these companies--Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, ATI, and AMD--if they'd just sit down and realize the performance benefit of optimizing their drivers and software for 64-bit."

"I think that would make sense now," Diana said emphatically.

Much of the software in the PC world is still 32-bit, including most copies of Windows XP and Vista. In fact, Diana said Alienware doesn't offer 64-bit operating systems because "we don't feel comfortable shipping a system to a customer with the 64-bit driver support that's out there in the industry."

The most obvious limitation of 32-bit operating systems and applications is a cap--4GB--on how much memory an operating system can use. And some applications can't even use the entire 4GB. "Who cares about DDR3 memory? What about giving me 4GB?" Diana asked.

"They're building (software) for something that is inherently very old technology," he said. "We (need) drivers that are very healthy in the 64-bit space. I'm not saying that 64-bit drivers don't exist. I'm just saying there's not enough software development and support on that end to warrant companies like us to move to 64-bit operating systems."

He also talked about other factors--beyond faster processors and graphics chips--that affect system performance, particularly for consumers who have limited budgets. "If I was looking to invest in one component over another," Diana said, "I would probably invest in a really good motherboard," and after that, a dual-core processor and a midrange graphics card such as Nvidia's 8800GT or ATI's X2 card.

New DDR3 memory is also becoming more of a factor. DDR3 memory is offered in two Alienware platforms. "It is the highest-performing memory now on the market. But I'm not so sure it's quite there yet. The cost is very high," he said. "Six months from now it will start making a lot more sense (economically) than it does right now." Because of this, DDR2 memory is still widely used.

DDR3 memory modules use less power and double the data prefetch buffer to 8 bits from 4 bits per cycle. DDR3 also operates at higher clock rates (1600 MHz), among other improvements.

[drewdizzy]

I like the idea of companies or software makers to switch to 64-bit programming. That will move the industry to another level. Also I like the notation on all major companies that deal with computer components and chips should consider optimizing their drivers and software for 64-bit.

[aelantha]

Another issues is drive speed. My perception is that is the slowest link right now. Incorporating solid state drives is probably feasible, but I'm not sure about the cost.

[laynemoseley]

Yeah it's sooo true. They really need to get going on the 64 bit deal. There is alot of potential with current hardware, but what are they doing with it? They are playing a number game again like Intel did with the Pentium 4. They all could do so much better. Who really needs a faster processor if my current one could run things so much faster if I had the software to do it?

[pepperboi222]

"a midrange graphics card such as ... ATI's X2 card."

That's a high-end card. If a customer has to hand over 450 USD for a "mid-range" card then a customer will be fine with a "low-end" card.

[aka_tripleB]

Not just games, virtually no one has 64-bit software. I've already switched to a 64-bit system. I'm using my system that I built two years ago, and all my hardware runs fine. But it's basically just Microsoft that's willing to put out 64-bit software.