Alienware curved display rocks Crysis at 2880 x 900

Don't get all frothed up quite yet because it's still only a prototype, but this sweet doublewide curved DLP display with LED illumination from Alienware will reportedly be available in the second half of '08. The curvature of the 2880 x 900 rez screen mimics peripheral vision, and in action the performance seemed pretty flawless to our Crysis-dazzled eyes (official specs report less than .02-millisecond response time). We did notice three faint vertical dividing lines that appeared to indicate four sub-panels making up this screen, but we may be willing to suspend disbelief in exchange for the potential of indulgent wrap-around immersion. There's not even an inkling of an MSRP on this thing yet, but you know we're gonna be keeping our eyes on this sucker for ya. Pics below and don't miss our video footage.

Gallery: Alienware curved display rocks Crysis at 2880 x 900

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[Tom @ Jan 7th 2008 1:22AM]

Lieberman Computers had something similar to this a while back.... except Lieberman was a vaporware company. Thanks, Alienware!

[I LOVE THE CAPS LOCK KEY @ Jan 7th 2008 7:19PM]

Is this what you mean?

http://www.go-l.com/monitors/athens/features/index.htm

[Tom @ Jan 7th 2008 7:24PM]

Yeah, that's the display I was referring to. Their store pages never work and they're still advertising computers with P4, so I'm assuming they're vapor. Oh yeah, and they claim to have "overclocked" monitors and had huge SSD drives 3+ years back.

[Taylor @ Jan 7th 2008 1:23AM]

Honestly, it looked a little choppy in the video - I'm not really impressed. You'd think they'd put some real hardware to back up such a gorgeous screen. Why only 2880x900, by the way? Wouldn't the equivalent of 2-24'' monitors be 3840x1200?

Still, cool. Its an interesting thought that we might be moving BACK to the big-booty days of CRT monitors and away from slim LCD screens.

http://taylorwilsdon.com

[Will @ Jan 7th 2008 1:46AM]

1440x900 is a fairly common resolution.

[Jonathan Worrel @ Jan 7th 2008 1:23AM]

DUUUUUUUUDE!

ASDFDALFKJKJKLASDFLKJLASDKJFA WHAT IS THE MSRP!!!

[Macha88 @ Jan 7th 2008 12:56PM]

Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price

[Jonathan Worrel @ Jan 7th 2008 1:51PM]

obviously I know that lol. I'm asking what the price will be.

[Deputy Doffoos @ Jan 7th 2008 1:30AM]

I just fainted and this my alter ego writing fainting at the same time for knowing both of us will never be able to convince our imaginary girlfriends to buy these.

[derka @ Jan 7th 2008 1:33AM]

wow just wait till OLED gets cheap enough, then you dont need the huge back like this does, or the subtle dividing lines

OMGOMGOMGOMGOGM cant wait!!!!!

[Gremlin @ Jan 7th 2008 1:39AM]

Triple SLI can't even run Crysis with all the bells and whistles at 1680x1050, let alone 2880 x 900.

[lancerdud @ Jan 7th 2008 5:57AM]

crysis?

bleh! i can't wait to play doom on it...

[Jeremy K. @ Jan 7th 2008 10:39AM]

UT2K4 FTW!

[Patuxentbball @ Jan 7th 2008 11:21AM]

My 2.4gHz Core 2 Duo (overclocked to 2.85) with 2 gigs of ram and a nvidia 7950GT w/ 512 vram lets me run crysis on very high(with the dx9 very high hack) on 1680 by 1050

[fischju @ Jan 10th 2008 11:18PM]

Indeed, people who keep saying that 3 8800 Ultras can't play Crysis are not doing it right. (And therefor, fail)

[Gremlin @ Jan 7th 2008 3:45PM]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183&p=4

The fact of the matter is, unless you guys have magical graphics cards that perform 10x what they perform with everyone else, its just not possible. If you want to maintain a frame rate of over 30 FPS, at a resolution above 1680x1050 at very high with AA and AF on, you will have to wait until graphics cards get much more powerful.

[risk @ Jan 7th 2008 5:36PM]

gremlin that prooves something that you cant seem to grasp.

Triple SLI/CrossfireX are only useful on VERY HIGH RESOLUTIONS as the I/O operations of the three+ graphic cards communicating with each other will bog down the FPS.

[Twitchy @ Jan 7th 2008 1:41AM]

So, what kind of hardware do I need to run a dual screen setup with two of these monsters?

[Stevie Wonder @ Jan 7th 2008 1:50AM]

I just jizzed in my pants!

[euclid @ Jan 7th 2008 1:50AM]

Holy crap! I can just imagine what my living space is going to look like 5 years from now.

[Jesse S @ Jan 7th 2008 1:52AM]

Eh, no thanks. That res sucks, honestly.

Needs moar dual 1920x1200.

[Blake Bowen @ Jan 7th 2008 1:59AM]

Now if only the gaming consoles supported this baby...

[Corey @ Jan 7th 2008 2:10AM]

Am I the only person who thinks that there's a Dell XPS tower underneath that tower? Why would they bother covering it up if it was an alienware?

[500mph @ Jan 7th 2008 5:16PM]

Same Company.

[Corey @ Jan 7th 2008 5:20PM]

*Tower under that TOWEL. My bad.

[z @ Jan 7th 2008 2:12AM]

Why is that back so thick? Might as well just go dual screen instead.

[Brian @ Jan 7th 2008 3:27AM]

Oh helllll yes!

I want one of these yesterday! Put a sub eight hundred dollar price tag on it, and I'll have one on my door step!

[Tom @ Jan 7th 2008 8:25AM]

Dude, the first consumer 24" monitors were over $2k just a couple years ago (I'm using one of the first right now - a Samsung 243T). How much will the first huge curved monitor be?
Answer: Hell of a lot more than $800!

[Brian @ Jan 7th 2008 9:57AM]

A man can dream!

Seriously, though. You can buy a 720p 37" tv for $500, now. You can buy two 20" lcd monitors for about $300, TOTAL. Why cann't this thing be well under $1,000? They could price it at $1,500 and sell one thousand, or price it at 800 and sell ten thousand. It doesn't take a degree in economics to figure out that curve.

[Randy @ Jan 7th 2008 10:21AM]

@ Brian,

You're forgetting that it costs money to build these things. $800 may not even cover the manufacturing costs (initially) for this thing.

[Brian @ Jan 8th 2008 7:10AM]

@ Randy

If it's going to be made by Dell / Alienware, this thing is going to be produced on the assembly line. I can't imagine the manfacturing cost being too high on this. I doubt they are using unique panels for this.

[saycheese @ Jan 7th 2008 5:49AM]

Dude !! That's one extreme display they got there !

0.02 milliseconds response time, as in 20 microseconds? Double check and confirm, please.

[crispy @ Jan 7th 2008 9:05AM]

I thought dlp tv's had input lag on their displays in consumer tv's. Is that really the way to go with a technology like this? That question aside, I'm all for it.

[CosterMonger @ Jan 7th 2008 10:30AM]

love the real estate, good for more then just gaming.

sure you could always get two bigger monitors for the same price but how much are you will to live with having an inch of nothing on your main focus point.

[Eric @ Jan 7th 2008 3:04PM]

This has already been done..
http://www.seamlessdisplay.com/index.html

[Matt @ Jan 7th 2008 3:23PM]

That's not curved.

[Eight_Quarter_Bit @ Jan 7th 2008 3:12PM]

Um, am I missing something here or won't the aspect ratio in most games be totally whacked? I mean honestly, how many games are going to support an aspect ratio of 16x5? Even if the game supports a (fairly common) 16x10 factor all players are gonna look like they were on jupiter or dwarves or something.

[sikanorng @ Jan 7th 2008 3:30PM]

DUUUUUDE. Sweeeeet. I wonder if I can write more code on a curvy monitor

[pulverz @ Jan 7th 2008 5:09PM]

What's the use, we all know you'll just be surfing the web with all the extra real estate...

...at least until the boss comes around :P

[Digital @ Jan 7th 2008 3:40PM]

Lots of games support these resolutions, because the Matrox Triplehead2go lets you do 3840x1024 across 3 monitors. Wonder which ends up being the cheaper setup?

I have a Triplehead2go and it plays WoW, HL2 and Bioshock just fine.

[Gokie @ Jan 7th 2008 5:02PM]

I always said I'd never buy another monitor with vertical resolution lower than 1200 pixels, but if this actually makes it to market I may just reconsider.

Of course, I'd rather have a version with 1920x1200 panels instead.

[aguiluz @ Jan 7th 2008 6:13PM]

Bah! I will wait until they play Spyro!

[elliottcable @ Jan 7th 2008 8:09PM]

You think that's big? Try this on for size:
http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2176070409&size=o

8796 x 1654, hehe. On a later iteration of this desktop setup.

[elliottcable @ Jan 7th 2008 8:11PM]

Ah balls. It didn't link the word 'this' in my above comment. It was supposed to point here:
http://flickr.com/photos/elliottcable/sets/72157600402270889/

[Z @ Jan 7th 2008 9:28PM]

Love the curved aspect and incredibly wide screen, but 2880x900? What kind of lame res is that?

That better not be the max res or this will FAIL.

Not that 95% of the people here could ever afford one or would ever buy one even if they could.

[Anthony @ Jan 7th 2008 9:30PM]

looks like the dell xps 420 if u look at the blue light that shines through

or maybe something new, because why would they cover it up anyways.

[Dave @ Jan 8th 2008 8:12AM]

So you could still theoretically get two of them and dual-screen.... at 5760 x 900!

[Jimmy Ohsnapson @ Jan 8th 2008 7:02PM]

Totally use that to play Viva Pinata.

[Er0ck @ Jan 9th 2008 4:04PM]

You guys need to understand that this is 4 monitors, not just one massive 2880x900 monitor. the 2880x900 is the combind resolution of all 4 monitors. I am highly doubtful that Crysis or any other game is actually being rendered in 2880x900. What is mostlikely happening is the games are rendered in a high, but not quite that high res, and then the monitor it self has a scalar chip that scales the picture across the other monitors so it fits.

That why it keeps the gpu from having to render games at insanely high resolutions and there should be no hardware impact from the monitor it self. I am sure you have the option to render in 2880x900 if you want, but I would bet that crysis and most other games will simpley be rendered at something like 1600x1200 and then upscaled across all of the monitors.

[SOLO @ Jan 9th 2008 6:27PM]

Saw the same design/unit with NEC logo slapped on it at the TI booth.Looks like Dellienware just slapped their logo on it as well... somuch for doing your own R+D.