ATI's CrossFireX now offered on Alienware Area-51 gaming PC

Alienware's AMD-powered Aurora ALX picked up CrossFireX support just as soon as it went live from ATI, but it has taken a few weeks for the technology to make its way over to the iconic Area-51. Said gaming rig is now available with ATI CrossFireX, meaning that you can take advantage of all four GPUs across a pair of Radeon HD 3870 X2s. Full release posted after the jump.

HEATING THINGS UP – CROSSFIREX NOW OFFERED ON THE ALIENWARE AREA-51

For the first time, users can choose between the industry's two dominant multi-GPU solutions on the same platform

Miami – April 28, 2008 – Alienware – the leading manufacturer of desktop, notebook and entertainment systems – now offers ATI CrossFireX™ on the Area-51® desktop computer. Alienware recently retooled and re-launched the Area-51, its flagship system, with NVIDIA® Quad SLI® graphics.

With four GPUs across dual graphics cards, CrossFireX cranks out not only intense, lifelike graphics but also the raw processing power necessary to manipulate and navigate real-time 3D environments for a never-before-seen gaming experience.

"This is huge," says Marc Diana, Product Marketing Manager for Alienware. "One of the biggest reasons our customers choose Alienware is unmatched graphics performance. Adding a CrossFireX option to the award-winning Area-51 reaffirms its status as the world's best gaming desktop."

[Idlemind @ Apr 28th 2008 10:09AM]

"...Sorry honey, we cant goto Hawaii, I have to refinance my video card"

[OneLove @ Apr 28th 2008 11:53AM]

So, if we are already at 4x graphics cards at $1000+ whats next 6x, 8x at $2000? These expectations and prices are ridiculous. (...and stop blocking my slots)

[Flashpoint @ Apr 28th 2008 10:10AM]

4 GPU's across 2 video cards...but, you'd need 4 empty PCI slots just to be able to use em.

[Derk Kooi @ Apr 28th 2008 10:16AM]

Erm, it's just two x dual slot PCI-E x16.

[Kizorblade @ Apr 28th 2008 11:09AM]

Nah, 3780X2 has two GPUs on one card, so you only need two PCI-E slots to use CrossFire X... or maybe I'm wrong, been some time since I've read up about Crossfire X

[Zeus.:God @ Apr 28th 2008 11:27AM]

You take up 2 PCI-Express slots as far as the connections go, but you take up 4 slots inside the case. They have dual slot coolers- whats your point Flash?

[Ty @ Apr 28th 2008 11:33AM]

You often make one or two PCI-e slot useless when dealing with full length, huge heatsink / fan video cards like these. They just take up a shitload of space.

[dervheid @ Apr 28th 2008 10:21AM]

This looks like being capable of producing enough heat to keep the average games freak warm through the coldest winter!

Gonna be a bitch of a load on the Air-Con in the summer though!

[dervheid @ Apr 28th 2008 10:25AM]

You WHAT Derk?
2 x 2 = 4 (where dual =2, which it did where I went to school!)

[Lein @ Apr 28th 2008 10:30AM]

...meanwhile, on the other side of the over-priced home computer market

[w00t @ Apr 28th 2008 10:37AM]

Looks like two PCIe slots to me...

Of course depending on your motherboard design you might be blocking an extra one or two slots with those beasts :)

[E71 @ Apr 28th 2008 1:57PM]

I'm so sick of these dual slot cards... instead of manufacturers working on producing efficient cards (in terms of both physical space and electrical consumption)), they throw together this crap and end up overtaking the entire motherboard...

I mean, they might as well NOT place those extra PCI/PCIe 1x slots on there...

The least they can do if they unable to control the heat emittance is produce fanless single slot versions so people can water cool the cards...

[retro77 @ Apr 28th 2008 10:44AM]

Hopefully stuff like this will help out the AMD/ATI family.

[V1k1ng1337 @ Apr 28th 2008 10:47AM]

This seems to be getting a bit out of hand. Disregarding the fact that you would actually need four PCI slots, as Idlemind said, there would still be an enormous amount of power consumption from the cards alone.

[Lein @ Apr 28th 2008 10:59AM]

The real crappy part is how you gain less and less for every card you add. In most cases, with early nvidia quad-card solutions, you'd actually have worse performance from using four cards at once as opposed to two.

I still think multi-gpu is crap, since most of the performance benefit is reliant on software to get it to work.

[Silverfrog @ Apr 28th 2008 11:09AM]

Re: Lein

I have SLI and let me tell you, it's not crap--unless you think a 50-80 performance boost is crap. For SLI, Quad, or Crossfire to work properly, you have to pair it with a top-end CPU, otherwise you will bottleneck yourself.

And by the way, performance of ANY application is going to be reliant on software. Usually the drivers play the biggest role.

[Lein @ Apr 28th 2008 11:19AM]

Silverfrog:

Oh no, I'm not saying that it doesn't work--if I set my 7950GX2 to single-card mode, I can definitely feel FPS drop--but IF you stack up cards in a tri- or quad-card setup, you certainly don't see a framerate increase that would make it worth the cost.

But the fact that it IS so software-bound is what makes me reluctant to invest in a true dual-card setup (I, along with many credible review houses such as tom's hardware, consider the GX2 to be a single-card solution that just happens to be two cards sandwiched together.) The problem, as you mentioned, is drivers, and it seems that nvidia has been genuinely sucking at them lately given their Vista crash results.

[Erik Wessel @ Apr 28th 2008 10:49AM]

Sorry, I meant Flashpoint

[Spiritsnare @ Apr 28th 2008 11:01AM]

"...With four GPUs across dual graphics cards, CrossFireX cranks out not only intense, lifelike graphics but also the raw processing power necessary to manipulate and navigate real-time 3D environments for a never-before-seen gaming experience."

...So we couldn't do this before?

[Bellzebub @ Apr 28th 2008 11:04AM]

It's two processors on one card therefore it doesn't need additional PCIe slots. 2 slots, like a standard crossfire rig. Think dual core processor, but for your graphics card, but different.

[Jordan @ Apr 28th 2008 11:08AM]

Yeh right...

anyone for 2 x geforce 9800 gx2?

Yes please. Geforce are still leading Radeon.

[danlar75 @ Apr 28th 2008 8:09PM]

"Yes please. Geforce are still leading Radeon."

Well that depends (like anything else) on whay you are doing..

If you are into 3D-models etc ATI rules supreme, while most antialised games run better on Nvidia..

Still, I like ATI for their driver handling

[Y0ssar1an @ Apr 28th 2008 11:09AM]

"Enhanced beyond your imagination"?

Luke: Well, more wealth than you can imagine!
Han Solo: I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit.

[maxz @ Apr 28th 2008 11:35AM]

Enhanced beyond your imagination is indeed true....








BECAUSE THE ENHANCEMENT IS SO SMALL YOU CAN'T IMAGINE IT!!

[AutoTom @ Apr 28th 2008 11:54AM]

you failed

[dan2600 @ Apr 28th 2008 12:47PM]

How is it that consoles with half the processing power still dominate the market?


oh wait, cuz people care more about games being fun then by how good they look.

[mark @ Apr 28th 2008 3:55PM]

I care about how good a game looks...

[poached @ Apr 28th 2008 4:42PM]

um, no. people are cheap and don't want to spend the money to play games on the computer. The console is a much better value for the average gamer, ie the majority of the people out there.

[Allen @ Apr 28th 2008 6:07PM]

You know, you can buy four 3870 cards cheaper than two 3870X2s.... so long as you don't waste cash on the MOBO, a board with 4 PCIe X16 slots or better (some 2.0 goodness) makes more sense than two 3870X2s.

[Kevin-Mahalo @ Apr 28th 2008 8:42PM]

Alienware, definently got the latest in tech! :)!