Alienware at E3

[OneManArmy]

ALIENWARE AT E3
May 13, 2004 - Everyone knew that Alienware was going to show something big at E3, but the company caught everyone off guard with its Video Array and X2 announcement. I got a chance to see the new technology running this morning and I was floored. The few other journalists at the demo were equally impressed. It's no secret that Alienware builds outstanding machines, but this is a genuine tech innovation. The company reps were extremely vocal about Alienware's commitment to enhance the gaming experience. And the new technology will certainly do that.


While the technology is complicated, the idea is fairly straightforward. Take the rendering workload and split it between two video cards. That's it. The specially made motherboard is called the X2. It is based on an upcoming Intel chipset. Ultimately, Alienware will offer both AMD and Intel versions of the X2. As you can see in the pics, it is a dual processor board. More importantly, it has two PCI-Express graphics slots. This is where the video array comes into play.

The scheme involves two video cards -- they don't have to be identical cards -- and a tertiary PCI card. The outputs from the video cards run to the third card, which sends the signal to your monitor. Basically, each card renders one-half of the scene and then throws it to the array card, which assembles the final image.

At the demo they had two systems. One system showed the outputs running to two monitors. Each monitor showed half the scene; one had the top half and one had the bottom half. The second system was showing the final output, fully assembled. There were no noticeable artifacts on the final image. It looked as if the game was being rendered by a single card - except that it was running extraordinarily quickly.

As for an increase in performance, the reps were saying that they were already seeing a 50% boost. The technology is still being tuned, so expect to see even greater performance.

The X2 mobo and Video Array technology will be available in Alienware's new ALX family of computers. System should start shipping Q3 or Q4 2004, which isn't soon enough for us. Prices have not been announced.

The importance of this innovation cannot be overstated. It is a refreshing approach to rendering power and could drastically change the PC gaming experience.

[Electrofreak]

Hmm that is pretty impressive. I don't really see anything "revolutionary" about the technology, all it is is running dual video cards and dual CPUs together to split the workload... kind of a brute-force solution. It will work well, but god that setup will be expensive. Also, since one high end CPU and video card can run most current (and future) games really well (take an AMD 64 and an x800 and you are set for the next year or two in games) all this setup will really do is grant systems a bit more longevity.

So basically my opinion is that this new Alienware rig is cool, but nothing amazingly revolutionary, it will be expensive and all that power won't be needed with most games until the system is a few years old. (Personally I'd rather buy a new $3000 rig every couple years than buy a $6000 system that will last me for 4.)

[Biohazzard56]

Originally Posted by Electrofreak

So basically my opinion is that this new Alienware rig is cool, but nothing amazingly revolutionary, it will be expensive and all that power won't be needed with most games until the system is a few years old. (Personally I'd rather buy a new $3000 rig every couple years than buy a $6000 system that will last me for 4.)

[OneManArmy]

reminds me of my gaming days when I had 2 voodoo 2's linked together... man that was the shit!

[Vick]

Might be nice when you upgrade v cards, just throw the one you just took out into your secondary slot.

[Rbstr]

that wouldn't work very well i'd assume Vick, becasue each card would have to work at the same speed or else you would get frame missmatches of sorts.

Realy nothing new, as electrosaid, and its not revolutionary in the least, a PCIex chipsset and have many many 16x slots.

And going dual CPU will mean two things, Xeon or Opteron, and those cost a shitload

[Vick]

It said in the article they didnt have to be the same speed...

[Rbstr]

But the way the article has it, they each do half a scene, meaning if one card sucked one of two things would happen, either the half that the bad card did would be behind the good cards half, or the good card would be slowed down to go at teh same speed as the less good card

[Daleon]

My guess is the 3rd card will handle matching up the rendered scenes of the two cards. But yea if one is exceptionally slower than the other it won't be good. But considering what your spending on this system, whose gonna buy a low end video card for it. This is high end only obviously.

Its defintely not revolutionary. I think Falcon tried to do a similar setup with the old Voodoo cards that were both 2d/3d before the V3's came out. I had one of those cards, they suckkked.

Agree, with the cards we have today its hard to see any justification for this. But it does let Alienware say they are the best and the fastest, that alone is worth the investment to develop this system.

Though this setup might actually be able to play PS at 1600x1200 4xAA/16xAF at a decent fps... though I seriously doubt it.

[dscytherulez]

Waste of money IMO. I agree with what electro said.

[Ait'al]

Both of the cards arent always going to be doing the same things. Since this is going to be emphasizing multiple moniters more its safe to assume you could have your old and new card rendering somehting together for twice the old one, while the big card could do some other work load with another moniter or other programs alone at the same time. If it lets you use them for more than one thing that is and doesnt completely isolate what they do.

Maybe it can even the whole thing out really well and artifically make extra available space on the bigger card act as part of the smaller card or something too if it has the extra space before it is sent to the third card for that display or something like that.

Youll notice the array cards at the top both have multiple moniter capabilities even if theyre not being used.

Are they using the seperate two displays to show you a normal feature or is it just to emphasize the real purpose in the single display. Otherwise is it meant to have broad application prospects or not.

[Strygun]

Bah. I had this idea a few months ago. (no really, I did...)

Anyway, there are 2 things I know for sure after reading that article:
1) That system will be extremely expensive, and the only people who will have it will be the extremely rich people who want to put it in their forum sig.
2) That system will run extraordinarily hot. You can already see they are using a water cooling system. I don't know any conventional fans that could cool a mid-size case with 2 CPUs and 2 Video cards + a PCI card.

[Fragmatic]

Originally Posted by Strygun

Bah. I had this idea a few months ago. (no really, I did...)

Anyway, there are 2 things I know for sure after reading that article:
1) That system will be extremely expensive, and the only people who will have it will be the extremely rich people who want to put it in their forum sig.
2) That system will run extraordinarily hot. You can already see they are using a water cooling system. I don't know any conventional fans that could cool a mid-size case with 2 CPUs and 2 Video cards + a PCI card.

2 80mm vantec tornado at the front, 1 on each CPU, 2 on the back, and 1 120mm tornado blowhole at the top.

Would sound like a jet engine though

[Rbstr]

Yeah Stry i agree.

Also Ait you have yet again knocked of a point of My IQ with that post, what are you trying to say?

[Smaug]

You're also going to need a beast of a power supply to run that kind of system.

Its neat, but I won't get into until they let you buy the technology seperate from one of their systems. If you have to buy a whole overpriced alienware system with this, its not worth it.