We just got our hands on Alienware's latest laptop, the 17-inch M17. It's an offshoot of the popular Area-51 M17X, which impressed us earlier this year with its twin Nvidia GeForce 9800 GPUs and striking new design.
The new M17 (minus the "x") system trades Nvidia graphics for ATI (including a multi-GPU CrossFireX option) and also includes optional Intel Quad Core 2 Extreme CPUs.
We tested a relatively inexpensive (and not terribly exciting) configuration, which for $1,999 (starting price: $1,399) included dual ATI Radeon HD 3870 GPUs and a dual-core, Penryn-class Core 2 Duo P8400 processor. For basic computing, it was about as good as our gaming favorite, the $1,350 Gateway P-7811FX, but the Alienware had better gaming scores, pushing 104 frames per second in Unreal Tournament III at 1,920x1,200 resolution, versus 58 frames per second for the Gateway.
On the other hand, The M17 skips the recent slab-like redesign seen in the M17X, and goes back to an older chassis, similar to the one we saw in last year's Area-51 m9570 model. It's a step backwards aesthetically, and we're not sure what this means for Alienware designs going forward.
(Credit:
Alienware)
PC gaming giant Alienware announced a new addition to the company's gaming laptop lineup on Monday, taking a somewhat sharp turn from the recent M17x model. The new M17 (minus the "x") system trades Nvidia graphics for ATI (including a multi-GPU CrossfireX option) and also includes optional Intel Quad Core 2 Extreme CPUs. Those new parts drive the price up quite a bit, but a more basic config is actually very affordable (at least when talking about Alienware), starting at just $1,399.
The M17 skips the recent slab-like redesign of Alienware's laptop line, and goes back to an older chassis, similar to the one we saw in last year's Area-51 m9570 model. Also missing is the amusing (but not terribly practical) M17x lighting system, which could illuminate the keyboard, touchpad border, and other parts of the system with different colored lights. This new model has just a simple backlit keyboard.
We just got our hands on a test system that includes a 1,920x1,200 display, dual ATI Radeon HD 3870 GPUs, 64-bit Vista, 3GB of RAM, and a 7,200rpm 160GB hard drive for $1,999. We're running some initial tests right now, and will let you know how it compares to the $6,000 M17x we looked at, as well as our recommended budget gaming laptop, the $1,399 Gateway P-7811FX. (If you're curious, our CPU is a Core 2 Duo P8400. Upgrading to a Core 2 Quad Q9100 would be an extra $850, and upgrading to a Core 2 Extreme Quad QX9300 is a $1,200 upgrade).
The Hydra chip
(Credit: LucidLogix Technologies)Last month, LucidLogix Technologies announced Hydra, a new take on multi-GPU implementation for desktops and notebooks. Monday, I got a chance to see a live demo of the technology, and get some clarity on what exactly this thing is expected to do.
Before we get into the demo, allow me to provide some context in case the previous link did not do its job (very likely, as looking back on it, it's kinda thin; anyway...). The Hydra 100 is a Silicon on Chip (SoC) solution to scaling 3D graphics. Basically, it allows you to, for example, insert up to four graphics cards from any one vendor (ATI or Nvidia) and receive linear performance from each card. That's the promise at least.
Now you may be asking, "Doesn't this already exist?" Well kinda. Each graphics card vendor has its own solution that allows you to place multiple GPUs into one system to achieve increased performance--ATI with Crossfire and Nvidia with SLI. What separates the Lucid method is the techniques involved in achieving this.
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PowerColor's ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 card.
(Credit: PowerColor)The reviews are in for AMD's new high-end 3D card--the embargoed, but not exactly secret 2GB Radeon HD 4870 X2--and the official results are as enthusiastic as the previews. By all accounts, the $550 Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the fastest desktop 3D board on the market, outpacing Nvidia's flagship GeForce GTX 280 card on most tests.
According to the results on PC Perspective, Hot Hardware, ExtremeTech, and Anandtech, AMD's new card comes up faster than both a single $450 GeForce GTX 280 as well as two $250 GeForce GTX 260's. Nvidia may steal a win here and there depending on the settings, such as on Crysis, but at higher resolutions and with more image quality details turned on, the AMD card and its 2GB of fast DDR5 memory the Radeon HD 4870 X2 fares better overall.
You won't really see a benefit from the 4870 X2 unless you play games at 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution or higher. That means unless you own a 24-inch or better LCD, you should probably stick to lower-end cards, at least for the moment. You can also double-up AMD's new card in CrossFire mode (AMD's multicard technology, and competitor to Nvidia's SLI), but that would be hard to justify on anything less than a 30-inch display.
Keep in mind that to see any kind of performance gain, both the graphics drivers and the games themselves need to know how to distribute the workload efficiently across multiple graphics chips. AMD's drivers seem to get along well with current games, but we have no guarantee that that will continue to be the case. Of course, you can't exactly wait for new tests for every title that comes out. And based on the performance the Radeon HD 4870 X2 has shown so far, we think it's a safe bet.
AMD introduce a new low-wattage dual core Athlon CPU today.
(Credit: AMD)AMD introduced a new CPU and a new motherboard today both aimed at low-end to mainstream desktops, each with different benefits. The new CPU is the dual core 2.5GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 4850e. That chip follows AMD's strategy with its similar, slower Athlon 64 X2 BE-series chips, in that they're all 45-watt parts. Standard dual core Athlons run about 89 watts, so by cutting its power drain in half, Athlon 64 X2 4850e makes itself well-suited to small and all-in-one PC designs, and with a higher clock speed than you often find in such systems. The price of the chip is around $89, making it budget-friendly as well.
Potentially more interesting is the motherboard the new CPU rides in on. You'll find AMD's new RS780G chipset in motherboards from the likes of Gigabyte and ECS going for between $70 and $100 or so. The highlight of these boards is their support for Hybrid Crossfire, which we first reported on back in December. The gist of Hybrid Crossfire is that it lets you use the RS780G chipset's integrated Radeon 3200 graphics chip in conjunction with a low-end Radeon 3400-series graphics card in the same system. The strategy takes a page from ATI's higher-end Crossfire and Nvidia's SLI dual-graphics card designs, and the goal of Hybrid Crossfire is to give you playable frame rates in 3D games even on low-end systems.
We actually had the chance to play with a generic, AMD-built RS780G system and a Radeon 3400 card to see the impact of Hybrid Crossfire for ourselves. We ran it through our Unreal Tournament 3 benchmark, and you can see from the results that the discrete-plus-integrated combination actually makes a difference.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
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1,280x1,024 | |
1,280x800 | |
1,024x768 | |
800x600 |
Hybrid Crossfire won't work miracles. The 1,280x1,024 score only goes from totally unplayable to almost totally unplayable in hybrid mode. But at a more forgiving 800x600 resolution, you actually get close to that 60 frames per second holy land. You still shouldn't expect to play the very demanding Crysis on a Hybrid Crossfire PC, and AMD told us itself that a $75 to $150 midrange 3D card will always be a wiser upgrade (Hybrid mode only works with the low-end 3400 series Radeon cards, and only in Vista). But if you only have $50 or so to spend on a 3D card, Hybrid Crossfire could provide you with a nice little boost.
For Nvidia's part, it also announced the similar Hybrid SLI at CES this year, although we have no hardware yet. Also, with the drivers that enabled Hybrid Crossfire, you also get CrossfireX capability, which will let you use three and four ATI 3D cards in tandem on the same system. That hardware is also MIA.
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