Alienware Area51 or Dell XPS?

[CrusaderX]

Speaking of ATI drivers...I'm going to update the drivers on my Radeon 9700 Pro soon, just to get ready for some new games I'll be getting in the near future.

I've never done this before, so what's the best way to update?

I see that there's an "update driver" button when I look at my card properties, but is this really the way to procede?

I've heard that it's a good idea to completely delete your old drivers first, then reboot, then go and install the new ones.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Ristamar]

The Radeon 9800 has been out for a while now. ATI has had time to tweak drivers to give better performance. The FX 5900 Ultra was just recently released. In time drivers will be tweaked and optimized. Compare the 2 cards again in 3-4 months and see if the Radeon 9800 is still as close on the benchmarks.

I will also add, that I was going to purchase a 9800 pro 256 ram, but decided to see if the hype about the 5900 Ultra was true.
Time will tell......

The sad part is that in FS' benchmarks, the older 9700 Pro beats the Ultra in quite a few benchmarks (IL-2 Sturmovik @ all resolutions w/o AA and anistropic filtering, Serious Sam 2 @ 1280x1024 and higher, Q3 @ 1280x1024 and lower), and that card has been out nearly 8 months, a lifetime in the videocard industry.

It's strange to see nVidia playing catch-up...

 

[Aazenius]

The sad part is that in FS' benchmarks, the older 9700 Pro beats the Ultra in quite a few benchmarks (IL-2 Sturmovik @ all resolutions w/o AA and anistropic filtering, Serious Sam 2 @ 1280x1024 and higher, Q3 @ 1280x1024 and lower), and that card has been out nearly 8 months, a lifetime in the videocard industry.

Which card has been out nearly 8 months?

The GeForce FX 5900 Ultra was just released last week to computer makers.

I will agree without AA and anistropic filtering on, the FX 5900 Ultra is weaker, however with both on, it leaves the 9700 in the dust. I will agree with you though... ATI does make good cards. But I believe that Nvidia does as well...

Hopefully I made the right choice going with the new Nvidia card... only time will tell.........

 

[Ristamar]

Which card has been out nearly 8 months?

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was referring to the 9700 Pro, which was released in October 2002, if I recall correctly.

Regardless, the 5900 Ultra is still a damn nice card.

 

[jdavis]

Review of FX5900 (with comparisons)
http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030512/index.html

 

[jdavis]

Maximum PC did a comparison of the Dell XPS, The Alienware Area-51 and the Voodoo pc F-Class F-510 Stealth in the newest issue (July 2003 issue). It pretty much spells out everything this thread was talking about (FX 5900 ultra not available yet on Dell, Alienware is actually cheaper than the Dell, Voodoo pc is awsome; and $4995 without monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse). They disliked the Dell because of it's proprietary power supply and motherboard instead of standard parts (ie not upgradable), it's lack of the FX5900 ultra card (the others both had it), the fact the Dell overheated and started acting up on them and the price.

 

[Aazenius]

Cool I'll have to pick that up!

I noticed that Alienware released the new Intel 3.2 Ghz chip. Not really worth the 273 they are asking...

And it seems they jacked the price of their pc's up by $200 or so... since the last time I configured... I configured the same system I bought 2 weeks ago and it was nearly 200 more.

However, since then I have canceled that order and placed a new one this morning... my friend pointed out that the Custom was cheaper then the Area 51 with the exact same configuration. Lo and behold it was. So I added some new hardward and I still got the PC I wanted for 100 less.

However since then they have changed the price on the Custom... jacking it way up. Maybe they caught their mistake? I'm just glad I bought when I did...

 

[jdavis]

The voodoo they reviewed was hard to beat but it was overclocked and watercooled. The Alienware rig they reviewed didn't have a DVD burner which was one of the reasons it was cheaper, but it had the newer(and better) video card. Maximum PC does a great job on it's articles.