Dell's quad-core XPS 710 gaming rig, for designers

Dell's bringing the quad-core gaming heat this morning with a Core 2 Extreme QX6700 update to their XPS 700 gaming rig. The new XPS 710 is said to be a "gaming beast" offering "up to" a 55% bump in performance at an equivalent premium over its C2E dual-core cuz. Just be careful here folks, 'cause as we've seen in the reviews, the QX6700 is matched in performance by the dual-core X6800 and E6700 procs (found in the XPS 700) when tested in real world gaming scenarios despite having twice the cores. See most games simply aren't written for four cores -- yet -- having just now adapted to dual-core architectures. But let's wait for the reviews before getting too far ahead of ourselves on this. Prices start at $3,699 for that quad-core luxury in jet black chassis or $3,799 for Special Edition Formula Red and heftier 1-kilowatt power supply. Just don't come crying to us if you find it better suited at 'Shopping images than an all night frag-fest.

[Grizz @ Nov 14th 2006 8:13AM]

Portals by Valve should feed your quad core gaming needs. And by the time it comes out, the quad cores prices could drop a little.

[William @ Nov 14th 2006 8:29AM]

what games need Quad - Core though?
Even if games with Quad Core requirement come out, there aren't enough people who have Quad-Cores for there to be a market right?

[Filip @ Nov 14th 2006 8:41AM]

This is one nice video of what the power of Quad Core can do... soon... when the game is ready:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6rR-Xv2Ro

[Lord Dark Moon @ Nov 14th 2006 9:58AM]

Hum! This is almost 3Gs less than the upcoming Voodoo Qcore and 5Gs less than the Vadim Rig. Decisions, decisions. I think I will be patient and wait for the AMD �true� Qcore CPU (4x4 and not this 2x2+2x2). In the mean time I will just fill the Rig void with a PS3. That recent disassemble video was pure porn to us PC mod types. The PS3s dual pipe blocks and that heat sink/blower combo is pure GENIUS!

--------------
LDM
Water-bending Master
http://www.eternal-champions.com/images/ldm_master_builder!.jpg

[shinyhat @ Nov 14th 2006 12:59PM]

I was confused by the title. How is this machine 'for designers?' What kind of designers? Microsoft Word designers?

If that atrocity of a case is what makes it for designers, than you may have just insulted the design community.

[Adam @ Nov 14th 2006 1:59PM]

It's for designers because they are the only ones who currently have a use for quad core processors. As they stated, there are currently no games out that support quad core.

[Markcus @ Nov 14th 2006 2:38PM]

3D "designers" who use applications like 3dsmax and XSI will benefit from the extra cores.

[Mike Ishi @ Nov 14th 2006 9:24PM]

Yeah, no games work with multiple cores yet. That's why the performance isn't boosted. That should be stated in the actual post. And Markcus is right, 3D modelling and rendering programs work with multiple cores already. (e.g. modo 202 on my Mac Pro runs much faster.)

[Snap Shots Photos @ May 19th 2008 11:31AM]

The machine is amazing. I am not experiencing any of the problems other vista users are having , then again the system is not online, I only update what I want downloading the files on another pc online. As for the quad core, yeah most games are not written for that spec , when the software does come out then it will be right for it. So the machines in 4 cores are quite expensive and what is the point most people ask, well if you thinking about only gaming then there will be no current games out there for 4 cores, but its not just gaming is it, what about other software, if gaming is all people do then they either have a lot of time on there hands of no partners. I use mine for everything, I have every title in the pc charts 2 years running all work out of this world apart from Broken sword 4 ( a typical example of why a game doe not work on multi core) sill really cause it will not work on a dual core either, when games manufactures design games they are aware of what's coming out os system wise yet they are working backwards making games in 2006-07 technology. This is the only title that will def not work so far on a multi core. I'm using adobe editing pro, running adobe photo shop, running soundforge sound editor and only running my machine at 1.2 gigs memory. This is where you see the benefits of multi core specially 4 , its the programs that need to use it comfortably. So before you ask yourself what is the point of quad core, think about are they making games for 700mb graphics cards yet, answer is no. You get great graphics top end which I have, but no game is written for 700mb yet, so before you ask for quad cores people want big graphics cards but no software is written for this power yet also. By time games are made for quad core, graphics cards will be 1000 GB games will be made for only half that so sometimes , well most times hardware is way way ahead of software.