Quad SLI? Dell Says Yes

[zippyjuan]

Crazy things going on these days.

Nvidia, Dell Demo 4-Way Multi-GPU Technology.
XPS 600 Renegade: Dell, Nvidia Unveil Quad SLI Technology

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 01/05/2006 | 03:36 PM ]


Dell, the world’s largest maker of personal computers, and Nvidia Corp., a leading designer of graphics processing units, on Thursday demonstrated the world’s first personal computer (PC) for gamers that features four graphics processors thanks to Quad Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology. In addition to the ultra-fast graphics sub-system, the forthcoming Dell XPS 600 Renegade will use overclocked Intel dual-core chip.

“Today’s demonstration of the new Dell XPS 600 Renegade with our Quad SLI technology takes gaming to new levels,” said Dan Vivoli, executive vice president of marketing at NVIDIA.

The Dell XPS 600 Renegade will be equipped with Intel Pentium Extreme Edition dual-core processor 955 (3.46GHz) overclocked to 4.26GHz, 2GB of PC2-5400 (667MHz) memory, specially designed graphics cards each carrying two NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX graphics processors with 512MB of memory per chip (2GB in total), Western Digital Raptor hard disk drives and so on.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/news/2006-01/quad_sli.jpg

Dell XPS 600 Renegade PC will be a limited edition computer featuring state-of-the-art components and offering breakthrough performance both overall and in graphics-demanding applications. According to Nvidia, the new Quad SLI technology will allow users to run even the latest and most-demanding games in resolution of up to 2560x1600 at comfortable frame-rates as well as enable 32x full-scene antialiasing.

“The ability to run today's hottest titles in extreme HD resolutions with all the eye candy turned on is absolutely amazing. Strap yourself in, because you are in for the ride of your life,” Mr. Vivoli added.

The Dell XPS 600 Renegade will be available this spring at undisclosed price.

Rumours about 4-way SLI graphics solutions have been floating around for some time now, for instance, recently it was said that Nvidia was aiming to allow such a capability in its ForceWare Release 90 drivers scheduled to arrive in early 2006.

While the cost of 4-way multi-GPU solution is unlikely to be lower than $1800 - $2000 or more only for graphics sub-system, provided that the drivers work fine, end users who agree to pay that amount of money are likely to get unbelievable performance. Even ATI Technologies, who first doubted about the success of multi-GPU technologies in the desktop space, recently said that 4-way multi-GPU was possible on the enthusiast market. Furthermore, technology may become very interesting for professionals seeking for the highest performance possible.

As part of this technology demonstration, the Dell XPS 600 Renegade Quad SLI PC will be on display in the Dell booth and Nvidia booth at Consumer Electronics Show 2006, January 5-8th, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.


http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060105153500.html

[clutchy]

what a waste of a good system... drop in that A64 dually and you're good to go. $2000 sounds a little low for that much hardware.

[LPMiller]

that price is just for the graphic cards.

[Grimm]

that price is just for the graphic cards.
Yes, but there is an additional $200,000,000 in cost for the nuclear power plant they have to build next door to your house to power those four graphics cards...:ugh:

[zero2dash]

that price is just for the graphic cards.

That's what I was thinking.

Wow...and an Intel Pentium EE overclocked cpu too? Ooh ooh (probably) add another $1,000 to the price and we're still not including memory, hd, optical drive, etc.

At those prices you could probably get a better computer from Alienware.

...or you could be smart and build your own stuff for 1/2 to 1/3 of the price. :) (assuming the markup is the 'standard' rate)

[LegendKiller]

All of that and they will install 15x as much bloatware, making that 5,000 system as fast as a 486 DX2-66 with 64MB ram.

Check out hardocp's review of the dell XPS "gaming" system. They could hardly install games.

[zero2dash]

All of that and they will install 15x as much bloatware, making that 5,000 system as fast as a 486 DX2-66 with 64MB ram.

Check out hardocp's review of the dell XPS "gaming" system. They could hardly install games.

That was a great article; I read over that the other day. I couldn't believe all the crap that they had to remove off that computer in order to get performance to be where it should've been, from the moment they took it out of the box expecting a high end gaming PC.

[bachviet]

You could almost get a brand new KIA with the same amount of $$$. :eek:

[Grimm]

You could almost get a brand new KIA with the same amount of $$$. :eek:
I can configure a current XPS 600 at $8600 with all the bells and whistles. That is with a 24" screen instead of the 30.
The Renegade with the 30" screen an Quad SLI will probably add at least $2000 to that for a total of $10,600.

2006 Kia Rio MSRP: $10,570

You can get a New Kia for the cost of the XPS Renegade. :eek2:

[kimchicowboy]

are there really enthusiasts that would actually pay that much for a computer??

[LPMiller]

That was a great article; I read over that the other day. I couldn't believe all the crap that they had to remove off that computer in order to get performance to be where it should've been, from the moment they took it out of the box expecting a high end gaming PC.

Oh that article was overblown crap.

All consumer level PC's are full of bloatware. That's why they are so cheap. All those deals with AOL and itunes and whatever makes those PC's cheap, not just child labor. If anyone is buying an XPS, they know enough to uninstall the crap. And HardOCP knows this, they were acting like they'd never seen a computer by a major maker before. And they were acting like the same thing wasn't a problem with the gateway they reviewed - oh wait, they didn't pay for the gateway.

A fair review would point out that the price of a cheap PC means bloatware you have to uninstall first. It is totally right to mention the bloat, and the problems it causes, it is not fair to single out Dell and not Gateway.

[clutchy]

that price is just for the graphic cards.


how did i miss that.

[Devhux]

Oh that article was overblown crap.

All consumer level PC's are full of bloatware. That's why they are so cheap. All those deals with AOL and itunes and whatever makes those PC's cheap, not just child labor. If anyone is buying an XPS, they know enough to uninstall the crap. And HardOCP knows this, they were acting like they'd never seen a computer by a major maker before. And they were acting like the same thing wasn't a problem with the gateway they reviewed - oh wait, they didn't pay for the gateway.

A fair review would point out that the price of a cheap PC means bloatware you have to uninstall first. It is totally right to mention the bloat, and the problems it causes, it is not fair to single out Dell and not Gateway.

THANK YOU!!!! Now there's somebody else that actually agrees with me. :) I own an XPS Gen. 2 notebook, and even I knew to do a clean install of XP for maximum performance. Sure, not everybody will, but those who the system is targeted to (high-end gamers) would.

Heck, did you see HardOCP whine about that Falcon Northwest system instead of actually LETTING FW fix the problem that they acknowledged?

[LegendKiller]

Oh that article was overblown crap.

All consumer level PC's are full of bloatware. That's why they are so cheap. All those deals with AOL and itunes and whatever makes those PC's cheap, not just child labor. If anyone is buying an XPS, they know enough to uninstall the crap. And HardOCP knows this, they were acting like they'd never seen a computer by a major maker before. And they were acting like the same thing wasn't a problem with the gateway they reviewed - oh wait, they didn't pay for the gateway.

A fair review would point out that the price of a cheap PC means bloatware you have to uninstall first. It is totally right to mention the bloat, and the problems it causes, it is not fair to single out Dell and not Gateway.


What if Dell didn't ship the system with the bloatware? Would it have mattered if a few thousand systems shipped in a year didn't have it while the rest did? The variable cost would have been spread out and made little to no difference.

Furthermore, the system just couldn't install games, at all. How can you sell a system that is *slow* and can't even install games as a *gaming* system? You can't!

Ok, hows this LP. I will sell you a Porsche GT, but then put 4,000 lb of lead in it that I get from a major manufacturer. As a part of the deal, that manufacturer agrees to reduce the price by half. You get an uber-fast car for half price. However, it isn't uber fast and you don't know why. In fact, it can't even run a race.

So what do you have?

Eliminate HOCP from the equation and look at it from an objective point of view. Dell is hawking a system that can't do what is advertised because they weigh it down. You are paying a premium for bloat!

As far as your assertion about uninstalling. Did you read how many problems they had doing that? What didn't work after they did it? They had to reinstall MS .net framework. Do you think your average joe-sixpack who buys a XPS for his kid will know how to do that? Doubtful, you are assuming everybody can understand why Quake4 won't install or work and be able to fix it.

They are buying a Dell after all.

[thekidrocks]

Bloated indeed! I have Dell XPS Gen 2 desktop, so we go back a bit in time. Soon after I bought it, I installed RAID 1, which required a fresh install of XP Pro.

A year later, it's still running stable and resonably quick for a older architecture PC.

Bought a cheapie Compaq desktop as a print server (after rebates, selling the monitor, and figuring resale, it was dirt cheap - cheaper than building my own). Anywhoo, got rid of the junk - not even a full restore, bumped up the RAM to a gig that I had on hand anyway, and it's shockingly fast. Processor is a socket 939 Sempron 3200+. Impressive for a PC that I have a little over $200 invested in ($299 AR - less monitor sale - already had the RAM).

[shocky123]

AHAHAHAHA, I have that 'processor'.. It's not even stable @ 3.2Ghz, it'll shut down after about 30 seconds of any serious loading process. (And this is with water cooling system by the by)

Dell, you yet again have shown your stupidity in sticking with Burntel.

...And who here has a 486 *X running 64MB of ram, that's absurd lol ;)


~Kyle

[LPMiller]

What if Dell didn't ship the system with the bloatware? Would it have mattered if a few thousand systems shipped in a year didn't have it while the rest did? The variable cost would have been spread out and made little to no difference.

Furthermore, the system just couldn't install games, at all. How can you sell a system that is *slow* and can't even install games as a *gaming* system? You can't!

Ok, hows this LP. I will sell you a Porsche GT, but then put 4,000 lb of lead in it that I get from a major manufacturer. As a part of the deal, that manufacturer agrees to reduce the price by half. You get an uber-fast car for half price. However, it isn't uber fast and you don't know why. In fact, it can't even run a race.

So what do you have?

Eliminate HOCP from the equation and look at it from an objective point of view. Dell is hawking a system that can't do what is advertised because they weigh it down. You are paying a premium for bloat!

As far as your assertion about uninstalling. Did you read how many problems they had doing that? What didn't work after they did it? They had to reinstall MS .net framework. Do you think your average joe-sixpack who buys a XPS for his kid will know how to do that? Doubtful, you are assuming everybody can understand why Quake4 won't install or work and be able to fix it.

They are buying a Dell after all.

Hey, I promise you 90 percent of their problem was the fact that Kyle and crew don't know systems all that well. They know hardware, but not integrated systems. They prove this with each system review they do. I'd bet you a grand that given the exact same system, I wouldn't have had near the problems, and would have solved them instantly. It's what I do for a living.

Second off, they clearly exaggerate in that review, much like they did in the Falcon review and the Gateway one. They review these systems from the wrong perspective all together, and expect them to be home brewed custom jobs. They aren't, they are mass produced systems, with all the advantages and weaknesses that implies. I've worked with many a Dell, HP, Gateway, Sony, you name it, there isn't a peace of bloatware that cannot be uninstalled or disabled, period.

They complained about drivers, for petes sake, like Dell is going to create and mass produce a new boot disc image everytime time Microsoft sneezes too hard. They freak out because they've never even heard of a restore partition, which EVERY SINGLE MAJOR COMPUTER COMPANY does, and has for years. They bitch about it, but fail to mention that every restore partition setup for these companies also comes with an option to burn your own restore disc. This is a glaring error, and rather appalling. I don't care if you are reviewing an Emachine, learn what the industry standards are before you bitch about them. It was a half assed review with a giant chip on it's shoulder.

[Chgoman]

I have my own dislike of Dell for several reasons, but in the end, I often go back to them simply because I can get great deals from them. As LP and others have said, for the main market that Dell is aiming the XPS systems at, it is fairly simple to get rid of the bloatware and get a clean setup. On my new computer it probably took about 20 minutes to strip everything out that I didn't want there and then off I went with a clean setup. Unless you are buying from a smaller vender, its not like Dell is unique in this. All the major vendors do the same thing.

[LPMiller]

hell, HP/Compaq and Sony are worse. Not by much, but they are worse.

[Jeffbx]

Ok, hows this LP. I will sell you a Porsche GT, but then put 4,000 lb of lead in it that I get from a major manufacturer. As a part of the deal, that manufacturer agrees to reduce the price by half. You get an uber-fast car for half price. However, it isn't uber fast and you don't know why. In fact, it can't even run a race.


Hell yeah - just pull that lead out & set it by the curb. I don't know about the rest of y'alls - but ANYTIME I get a new system the first thing I do is format & reload it. I sure as heck don't trust Dell, Gateway, IBM or even Falcon to fully load all of the latest drivers, patches & updates but none of the crap I don't need. It takes a day or so to get everything just the way I like it, but then at that point the system is running as fast as it should and any performance issues are my fault.

Sure, there are people out there that don't know how to do this, but likely they're not the ones paying $5k on a specialized gaming system. Comparing PCs to cars is a pretty good analogy - if you go out & buy yourself a street racer but don't know how to tune it, you'll have pretty crappy performance. You can complain about it all day long, but it simply won't perform unless you know how to MAKE it perform. PCs are no different. You can buy the fastest, most expensive one out there, but unless you tweak it & maintain it properly, it'll be a big 'ol dog. But despite this, many people will blame the poor performance on the manufacturer.

[LegendKiller]

Hell yeah - just pull that lead out & set it by the curb. I don't know about the rest of y'alls - but ANYTIME I get a new system the first thing I do is format & reload it. I sure as heck don't trust Dell, Gateway, IBM or even Falcon to fully load all of the latest drivers, patches & updates but none of the crap I don't need. It takes a day or so to get everything just the way I like it, but then at that point the system is running as fast as it should and any performance issues are my fault.

Sure, there are people out there that don't know how to do this, but likely they're not the ones paying $5k on a specialized gaming system. Comparing PCs to cars is a pretty good analogy - if you go out & buy yourself a street racer but don't know how to tune it, you'll have pretty crappy performance. You can complain about it all day long, but it simply won't perform unless you know how to MAKE it perform. PCs are no different. You can buy the fastest, most expensive one out there, but unless you tweak it & maintain it properly, it'll be a big 'ol dog. But despite this, many people will blame the poor performance on the manufacturer.

I disagree, we aren't talking about tweakers here. We are talking about people who are looking for a simple brown-box solution to something that has only been attainable to those with the know-how. Furthermore, we are talking about a lot of parents who want to buy Junior a huge gaming gift. If you are going to sink even 2.5k into a "gaming" system that sucks, why not just buy a 360 or Ps3?

YOU guys know what to do, the average joe has no dang clue, nor wants to. They don't visit tech websites other than Shopper.com or news.com, zdnet, or some other tech-lite website.


Besides, it isn't always as easy as just uninstalling all of that stuff.

[LPMiller]

The average joe is buying a Compaq Presario with an X300 and happily playing half life at 800x600.

[zippyjuan]

You would definately want to be careful with the video drivers on this set up. Ordinary ones probably either wouldn't work or would lose the SLI feature. Just my guess- so I would be careful about re- installing everything. Probably lots of bloat that can be eliminated though.

[LegendKiller]

The average joe is buying a Compaq Presario with an X300 and happily playing half life at 800x600.


What about the average joe looking for a gaming rig to play a hyped Quake4? How come I see XPS' advertised during football? They aren't targeting the tweakers or the people who really know about formatting and installing.

[LPMiller]

If you are a gamer, meaning you play more than one game a month, you know how to tweak at least somewhat.

The average joe is not a gamer. He may play once in a while. He also has Spyaxe installed, 3 different trojans, and returns his computer to Office Depot because it's too slow and broken now.

I think your problem is in believing Average to be much higher than it is.

Yes, gamers that aren't quite hardcore will buy the XPS, and most of them will uninstall AOL and be fine. Believe me, I deal with Average Joe all the time, and while he's a nice guy and I'd have a beer with him, he is an absolute idiot when it comes to PC's.

Gamers, on the other hand, have been trained by years of buggy gaming software and release day patches. Hell, games like Everquest were great for turning otherwise Average people into software tweakers.

Again, most people who buy an XPS system for gaming will be smart enough to uninstall the crap they don't need. They aren't hardcore enough to build their own, but that doesn't mean they aren't on the ball at all when it comes to PC. They are internet users, they follow gaming sites, and they found a dell coupon. That alone puts them well above the Average Joe.

The fact is, you can hype Quake 4 till the cows come home, but the Average Joe ain't buying a PC to play it. He's cramming it into his low end Emachines and putzing away at a low resolution. Either he's happy that way, or he begins his true journey to gamer - and it's inherent tweaking. It's no longer a binary thing knowing computers/not knowing them. It now has levels, and the Average Joe is the guy that still picks up the dell without the AGP/PCIE slot, not knowing how that screws him in video cards. An Average Gamer knows better.

And again, there is not a consumer level company that doesn't ship 'gaming machines' the same way. Compaq had gaming versions of their machines, again loaded with crap. Sony too. You pick them up because you don't want to build your own (which face it, isn't cheaper any more and hasn't been for awhile now) and you tweak it to how you like it. If you aren't, chances are good you aren't even buying that system, your getting the one with the free printer and the 150 mail in rebate, and you did zero research.