LOLZ, 10k for a computer, Dell has got to be on crack.

[mr_coffee]

Check this out:
http://www.dell.com/html/us/products/renegade/renegade.html

Who the hell needs 4 graphics cards? Not only that, but 4.3 ghz overclocked!
Your game isn't going to look any better by increasing the # of graphics cards, it may run faster but christ, 4 is just over kill. Your going to be paying for room and board for the other 3 graphics cards. What type of game requires that much processing power?

I'm also glad to see they overclocked it so in over a year that whole thing is going to melt. Also if 1 of those graphics cards pulls 550 wats, think of the powersupply your going to need to run that thing.

After blowing 10k on this system, i'd like to e-mail whoever did and congradulate them on their recent failure hah. Maybe its just because I hate Dell and I heard they just bought out Aleinware, so i hate them exponentially

[PN]

I'm not too excited about Dell purchasing Aleinware. I do recall, and this is years ago, when Dell had good Tech support (it was in the US, probably out of Texas). I can understand all that horse power if you are going up against Fatality (http://www.fatal1ty.com/).

[Jadis]

WTF? Dell bought Alienware? I thought Alienware was formed to get rid of crap like Dell computers--at least for gamers anyway.

[Linda H.]

Hey, hey, I'll thank you to quit dissing my DELL. I am well aware that some people have bought dell's that were junk, or were way late being delievered, but that's also true of every other major brand on the market today. I have bought 2 new dells in the last 14 months, one laptop (Inspiron 1150) and I just bought this new Dimension E510 for my DH, both are custom built, and were delivered earlier than promised. If Dell's computers are such "crap" why are they still in business, and doing so well to boot.

[Broknwing]

They're PC's.....what's that mean??

Oh, yeah.....
PC=Piece of Crap...LOL

If ya want a GOOD computer get a MAC........

now that i've inserted my .02 of harassment into this thread i better run before the masses start flogging me severely......lol

[Linda H.]

you'll never catch me flogging anyone for loving the computer they use, and I'll agree that apple makes some fine computers, but I still love my dell's. Now when I get much, much more serious about digitally working with my photography then I'll start looking at apples. But until then the apples I've looked at cost way to much money for me taste.

[Scott Pruett]

PCs & Macs are neck & neck in the photography world. I'm all Mac, but have other friends working professionally who are all PC. As long as you've got the software needed, the display you run makes more of a difference. Just FYI. :)

[Linda H.]

Very true Scott, I've talked with some photogs that use both. I've got to get back behind my cameras this spring, I've not done any serious work in over a year. Which type of media do you shoot with, film or digital. I work with film, then scan to my PC. The only digital photos I've taken were with a loaner point and shoot from my daughter. Which reminds me, I've got to transfer a couple hundred images off my old PC's hard drive.

[Wise Young]

Check this out:
http://www.dell.com/html/us/products/renegade/renegade.html

Who the hell needs 4 graphics cards? Not only that, but 4.3 ghz overclocked!
Your game isn't going to look any better by increasing the # of graphics cards, it may run faster but christ, 4 is just over kill. Your going to be paying for room and board for the other 3 graphics cards. What type of game requires that much processing power?

I'm also glad to see they overclocked it so in over a year that whole thing is going to melt. Also if 1 of those graphics cards pulls 550 wats, think of the powersupply your going to need to run that thing.

After blowing 10k on this system, i'd like to e-mail whoever did and congradulate them on their recent failure hah. Maybe its just because I hate Dell and I heard they just bought out Aleinware, so i hate them exponentially

Feast your brains on a custom Mac Quad G5 that I just put together on the Apple web site:
• Processing Power (http://www.apple.com/powermac/dualcore.html). Two Dual Core (four processors with velocity engines) running at 2.7 GHz each, doing 76.6 Gigaflops, with 8 Gb ECC SD RAM, 1.25 GHz bus.
• Graphics (http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html). A Quadro FX4500 with 512 Mb GDDR3 SDRAM each with 33.6 GBps memory bandwidth, and two Apple 30" Cinema Displays.
• Ports and drives (http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html). One Firewire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, Airport Extreme with Bluetooth, two USB 1.1 ports, two 250 Gb serial ATA 7200 rpm hard drives.
• Applecare 3 years service and parts.

Only $13470.

Add $340 for Quake 4 ($50), Star Wars Battlefront ($50), Call of Duty Deluxe ($60), World of War Craft ($50), Doom 3 ($50), Close Combat: First to Fight ($40), Unreal Tournament 2004 ($40).

and you have the ULTIMATE GAMING COMPUTER.

Maybe after the cure...

[bob clark]

They can't even get two video cards to run at twice the speed of one. Not even close. If you get an additional 50% consider yourself lucky. I average around a 30% increase in my 2 SLI'd video cards running on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard with an FX-55 processor. Even with only a 30% increase the processor can't keep up with the video cards.... at least in flight simulation. And some games won't even run on two... or will even run slower as with MS Flight Simulator 2004. I can only imagine the problem with 4! One of my video cards has been shipped back to nVidia for over a month ago and I haven't heard a word from them. So much for customer support.

And so much for old Ma Bell getting broken up into Baby Bells too. They're all coming back together to form a good old-fashioned monopoly or duopoly (duopoly = wink and a nod price fixing) once again. Same with Big Oil. They may as well just rename it Standard Oil again and put a Rockefeller back in as owner/CEO and hand him a roll of dimes to bless the poor and defrauded with.

I guess Ford, GM and Daimler-Chrysler will morph into one entity to fight off the Asian imports and reduce salaries and benefits to the lowest common denominator in the global marketplace.... I think Vietnam still has the lowest hourly wage for auto manufacturing.

I still own an old Alienware but I never developed a loyalty to them. It's like becoming a fanatically loyal fan to your city's professional football, baseball or basketball team. You're loyal to the team but the player's and coach's jump ship at the first offer of more money! Loyalty my ass. The only time I get interested in pro sports is when I'm betting on them!

Dell was always the whipping boy at the Alienware forums. I guess the Alienware fan boys are starting to get a little cold water on their manhood now and may be in need of a fitting "adjustment". :) Perhaps Alienware has a UTI and is in for some "shrinkage factor". Way to cave Nelson.

http://bcee1.home.comcast.net/rubbers.jpg

[Andy]

Yeah Dell makes a fleet of cheap mass market PC's, but they do sell high performance/latest greatest technology at a much lower price than anyone else also, so they are good in my book. I dont know if you could DIY it for cheaper, it has been some 10 years since I built a computer, but I suspect that you would end up paying more than just going 'dude, I got a dell'.

A quad SLI computer, man, talk about a computer hotrodder's dream. I kind of wonder about the market for that, I'd think that if someone wants that they would be more interested in DIY'ing it, but who knows, maybe it will go to the buying a Porsche crowd. I also thought that graphics technology was always CPU limited, unless you start running beyond 1600x1200 or so. Maybe with one of those beyond 1920x1200 LCD's these will shine, I am kind of wondering what games will support that res however. One thing for sure is that this will have a long life before obsolesense.

Buying Alienware...well, as I am not too big a fan of Alienware as I lean towards laptops, so for me this is an 'oh well' type issue. If I am not mistaken Alien gets their laptops from Clevo, and you can buy the same hardware from Sager for cheaper, so I ask 'why?' with these. Fancy paintjob and all is not worth it in my book. I'll stick with my latest Dell M170 with the NVidia 7800 GTX in it for 1/2 the price if I was to buy similar hardware from the other guys. Heck, I am such a Dell sucker I bought an XPS desktop 2 Christmas' ago for my HDTV with a ATI 800XT, P4 3.4 in it for 1/2 of what I would have paid from the other guys also (holiday 33% + 10% eps + stackable $150 coupon discounts worked great). Yeah, I know, quite overkill for running at 1280x720, but hey, it wont be obsolete for some time :D .

In short, I think Dell rocks, so what if customer support is in India? :mega:

[Scott Pruett]

Very true Scott, I've talked with some photogs that use both. I've got to get back behind my cameras this spring, I've not done any serious work in over a year. Which type of media do you shoot with, film or digital. I work with film, then scan to my PC. The only digital photos I've taken were with a loaner point and shoot from my daughter. Which reminds me, I've got to transfer a couple hundred images off my old PC's hard drive.
All digital now, well beyond the point & shoot realm. I have a film scanner collecting dust. :D

[Linda H.]

All digital now, well beyond the point & shoot realm. I have a film scanner collecting dust. :D
Scott, what type of scanner is it, a flatbed of dedicated film scanner, 35mm or medium format? If it's the latter, dedicated film scanner would you be interested in selling it?

I shoot 35mm, all Cannon equipment, I know many swear by digital photography, but I still love the anticipation of waiting to see my slides and negatives when I get them back from the lab. I still love pouring over the proof sheets with a loop, deciding which ones I want to enlarge and print. That's when I go to the digital side, scanning and improving my images before I print them on my Epson. I wish I had my own darkroom here at home, I'd love to be able to process my own film. Unfortunately I am very sensitive to many chemicals, so that's out of the question.

[PN]

In short, I think Dell rocks, so what if customer support is in India? :mega:
Andy, that's because you are a sophisticated user and you don't need their support unless you have a physical or mechanical crash.

A novice/beginner who has to rely on Dell's tech support may waste many hours on the phone in New Delhi or Bombay and the problem may not get resolved!

I do like Dell's prices and I will probably be purchasing two or three of their laptops next month.

[mr_coffee]

I don't see myself buying another computer anytime soon. If i do, and i have free time I might want to build another one if i'm not feeling lazy.

I think i'm going to wait for some more games to really put the physics card to use. UT2007 seems promising!