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Over a dozen Steam Machines 'more powerful' than consoles hit this fall
Valve continues to put console gaming in its crosshairs with news that a dozen new Steam Machines are hitting this November. Prices aren't concrete, but the company promises higher performance than game consoles starting at "the same price point." What's more, new units from Alienware and Falcon Northwest are on display at this year's Game Developers Conference, with the latter showing off Unreal Tournament running on a 4K monitor. Don't miss out on all the latest from GDC 2015! Follow along at our events page right here.
Here are Valve's 14 Steam Machines partners (so far)
Valve's Steam Machines initiative is supported by a first-party box that 300 beta users have right now, but 2014 is all about third-party Steam Machines taking that reference box and running with it. Thus far, the only third parties we know of that're making Steam Machines are iBuyPower and Digital Storm -- today, that all changes. Alienware, Falcon Northwest, iBuyPower, CyberPowerPC, Origin PC, Gigabyte, Materiel.net, Webhallen, Alternate, Next, Zotac and Scan Computers are among the first companies signed on to support Valve's initiative, Engadget learned this afternoon. The entire lineup will be on display this week at CES 2014, and we'll have many more details in the coming days. Beyond the dozen companies above, it's totally possible that there are other third parties signed on for Steam Machines -- we'll have to wait and see when Valve unveils everything at its press conference tomorrow afternoon. Update: As seen in the image above, live from Valve's CES 2014 presser, those third-party manufacturers are double confirmed. Maingear is the final addition that makes 14 in total.
Intel Core i7 desktop roundup: the rest of what's new
You likely don't need any reminders that the likes of Gateway and Dell (and Alienware) have released some new systems based around Intel's flagship Core i7 processor, but it's a whole other matter to sort out the multitude of options available from some of the smaller PC manufacturers out there, and we thought we'd take this opportunity to shed a bit light on some of those slightly lower profile contenders for the desktop throne. Ready to get started? Then check your bank account and head on past the break.
Intel Core i7-equipped Falcon Northwest Mach V gaming desktop hands-on
Benchmarks and reviews of Intel's Core i7 processors are pouring in, and while mere mortals must wait till later this month to get their hands on the hardware, we spent much of our weekend working overtime with Crysis, Fallout 3, and Age of Conan on an $8,238 Core i7 965-equipped Mach V gaming desktop from boutique PC manufacturer Falcon Northwest. It's got the works and then some: liquid cooling, dual ATI Radeon 4870X2 graphics cards with 2GB of RAM on-board, 12 GB of DDR3 RAM, Blu-ray, HD-DVD (yes, you read that right), and over a terabyte of storage. Based on our dozen or so hours of grueling, utterly boring hands-on tests, all three games were plenty playable maxed out at 1920 x 1080 resolution with 4x anti-aliasing -- only Crysis ever dipped below 40 frames per second, and we never saw Fallout 3 under 60. We sincerely hope you appreciate the backbreaking, soulcrushingly hard work we do for you -- more photos and benchmarks (including Crysis) in the gallery. %Gallery-35975%
Falcon Northwest's portable FragBox 8500 gaming rig gets reviewed
Oh yeah, you've options oozing everywhere for a bona fide gaming desktop that takes up some serious square footage in your domicile, but what about those looking for a potent portable? And we're not talking laptops, either. Falcon Northwest's FragBox 8500 -- which sports a chassis that hasn't changed much in years -- was recently reviewed by the folks over at PC Magazine, and put simply, it was deemed a "game system without apologies." Checking in at $1,895, critics found the internals to be "neatly put together," the unit as a whole satisfactorily mobile and yes, they confirmed that "you will definitely be able to play the DX10-heavy versions of Crysis and World in Conflict at very decent frame rates." Did you hear that? They said Crysis. Head on down to the read link for the full review of the Editors' Choice-awarded machine.
Falcon unveils flame-painted FragBook TLX gaming laptop
Falcon Northwest has unveiled the FragBook TLX which, as you can probably tell by the name, targets Falcon's traditional audience of hardcore gamers. Similar to its FragBook desktop replacement brethren, the TLX is based around a 17-inch, 1680 x 1050 LCD; but unlike the DR model, the TLX has a relatively diminutive design. At only 1.5-inches thick and weighing 7-pounds, it's certainly not what you'd call an ultraportable, but then again, most ultraportables don't feature the TLX's 2.33GHz Core 2 Duo processor, up to 160GB of hard drive storage and 2GB of RAM, nor the nVIDIA GeForce 7600 GO graphics card with 256MB of video RAM. The combination of thinness and performance doesn't come cheap though, as the starting price of the TLX is $3,516. Those of you who really want to burn money -- and be able to prove that you did so -- can opt for an optional flame painted color scheme for $426.[Via Techie Diva]
'Luxury' gaming PCs: When a solid-gold PS3 isn't enough
The Associated Press writes about high-end, "luxury" gaming PCs easily overpowering the consoles. The computers cited from Alienware and Falcon Northwest cost $5,400 and $9,600 respectively. (The Falcon PC includes a 30-inch display at that price.)Our first reaction was, "So what, of course PCs are faster." Then, we moved to, "How much again!?" There seems to be a sense of pride in enthusiasts spending a lot of money on their PC. At a recent Nvidia event, audience members in the front rows were thanked for being such strong supporters of the company; they'd each spent about $1,000 for SLI setups on their current gaming machines. Yes, that's just for video cards.Is the ability to appreciate gaming rigs for their price just a gene we're missing? Are we getting old and cranky? Where's our pudding?
ExtremeTech's Ultimate Gaming Machine shoot-out
ExtremeTech and Games for Windows magazine have combined their forces to take on a few of the ultimate gaming machines that are tearing up the scene these days. Over the last week, they rocked six, that's right, six full-on reviews of these rapacious rigs: the Dell XPS 710, Gateway FX530XT Gaming PC, CyberPower Gamer Infinity SLI KO, Alienware Area-51 ALX, Falcon Northwest Mach V, and VoodooPC Omen (pictured). First up is the Dell XPS 710, which really didn't get high marks at all -- they dubbed it a "very average system." What made it deserve such a panning? Basically, the site found that it's overpriced ($5,314) for the performance you get (2.66GHz Core 2 Extreme Quad QX6700) -- Dell seems to have spent the extra money on case design and not the actual components. When stacked up against a very close rival, the Gateway FX530XT, ExtremeTech found that the 530 edged out the Dell system, earning points for a faster chip (3.24GHz QX6700 quad-core), smaller case, lower price ($4,030), and quieter fan. Keep reading to check out the rest of the hardcore action...
PC Gamer lures PS3 buyer with $7500 gaming rig
What would it take for you to give up your shot at a PS3? I don't just mean your shot at getting a system on launch day... I mean giving up your right to ever own Sony's newest system? For one gamer waiting outside the Sony Metreon in San Francisco, the price of loyalty was a $7,500 PC gaming rig.In an effort to "prove that the PC is, and always shall be, the finest gaming platform available to man," PC Gamer and computer maker Falcon Northwest teamed up to lure away prospective PS3 purchasers with a top-of-the-line PC complete with 30" LCD monitor and Nvidia 8800 GTX graphics card. The catch? To get the system, you have to sign a notarized, legally-binding contract certifying that you will never, ever, buy a PS3.Judging by the photo gallery of the night's events, PC Gamer editor Greg Vederman had no trouble finding willing participants for the offer, but a gamer identified only as "Neal" was the randomly-chosen winner. Vederman said he will be checking in on Neal "several times a year to make sure he keeps his end of the deal," an arrangement we're sure will lead to frantic "quick, hide the PS3" escapades when the PC Gamer van approaches.[Thanks Norman]
Falcon Northwest's Core 2 Extreme Mach V reviewed
Intel fanboys will be delighted -- and AMD should be a little worried -- to know that the fine folks at PC Mag have nothing but positive things to say about Falcon Northwest's new Core 2 Extreme (formerly named "Conroe") toting Mach V. The specs are impressive all around, including two 10,000RPM 150GB SATA drives in a RAID 0 configuration, 2GB RAM and two ATI X1900 3D cards, but the real news here is how much of an improvement they saw over the older, AMD-based systems. Many of PC Mag's old benchmark records were crushed, with the Mach V suffering its only defeat at the hands of one of Polywell's quad SLI machines in the Doom 3 test. If that wasn't impressive enough, the addition of a liquid-cooling system also helps this gaming rig run cooler and much quieter than previous versions. As you probably could have guessed, all that performance doesn't come cheap, so you'll have to decide for yourself whether or not a fancy paintjob and the ability to run your favorite PC games at 2,560 x 1,600 is worth the $7,000 price. But hey, at least it's not $10,000.
NVIDIA denies enthusiasts the Quad-SLI goodness
Techreport has posted a review of nVIDIA's latest dual-GPU graphics card, the GeForce 7950 GX2, which also happens to be capable ("capable" being the key word) of Quad-SLI. You won't be surprised to read that this card is fast when compared to its predecessors. It positively destroyed all the other single-GPU cards the Techreport guys tested it against; in Battlefield 2 the GX2 managed "twice the average frame rate of the GeForce 7900 GT." As you probably already know, this kind of performance doesn't come cheap. NVIDIA expects the 7950 GX2 to cost around $599 to $649, and that's before you check your power bill: in tests the card drew 133 Watts at idle and a whopping 237 Watts under load. In comparison to the card's main single-GPU rival, ATI's X1900, the 7950 featured similar levels of power consumption, size and heat output but performed significantly faster in all the benchmarks. The 7950's dual-GPU solution also surpasses the performance of traditional SLI configurations like dual 7900 GTs, with the added advantage of being compatible with any PCI-e motherboard chipset. Strangely, the biggest problem that the review found had nothing to do with the card itself. Although the 7950 GX2 is perfectly capable of being partnered up with another card to make a Quad-SLI system, nVIDIA refuses to support this type of configuration, citing the "complexity" involved. The only way you'll be able to get a Quad-SLI setup is by either hacking two cards together or by purchasing a (some say overpriced) system from Alienware, Falcon Northwest or Dell.The company went as far as refusing to supply the website with a second review card. As the reviewer points out "when explaining to your best customers why they can't purchase two of your $649 video cards for themselves without also buying a $5K PC built by someone else, it's probably not good idea to use a shaky excuse with an embedded insult."
