About the RAM - i guess i figured faster was better, ...but if you' re saying there won' t be a noticable increase in performance then i' ll save my money and leave it as it is.

As for overclocking, ...it' s something i' m interested in but don' t really know enough about to be messing with this rig right now. The Ultra came pre-overclocked and is under warranty but i don' t want to screw the rest of the kit up so perhaps it' s best to just read about it and try it further down the line!?

Anyway, the box the tower came is was freaking huge. This photo doesn' t really give a good sense of scale but i struggled to get it through the door. It contained the tower, the mouse & keyboard and the free Alienware shit (t-shirt, mousemat etc...) ...



The tower itself...







The G9...



And Crysis...
























Check out the fucking bees in the next 2 screens!

Nitro, quick question about Crysis on your system. To keep a smooth frame rate in the game I have to keep the screen resolution at 1024x768. It still looks great at that resolution (which is weird since I' m running it on a 22" Samsung that runs natively at 1680x1050... should look all blurry and sh*t) but I' d prefer to run it at the full resolution. Have you gotten the game to run smoothly at 1680x1050? We have basically the same setup except mine is the XPS (which is actually a lot cheaper than the Alienware. You basically spent extra money for the case and the name. I realized that after getting my laptop) except I have the quad core processor which should run the game even smoother than the duo. If you do have it running at the higher resolution let me know. I' m wondering if there is anyway to tweak my system for better performance in the game.

Well I just check my frame rates in game. At 1680x1050 my frame rate hovers around 14-20fps (everything on very high, no AA). If I drop the resolution to 1600x900 I get a solid 20-22fps (everything on very high, no AA). Dropping it down to 1024x768 if runs at +30fps (everything on very high, 4xAA).

To check yours just open up the active script (" `" button) and type in " r_displayinfo = 1" (without the quotes obviously). Let me know what you get at the same settings.

You posted just as i posted

Yeah i' m running at 1680 x 1050, but no i' m not running a Core 2 Duo. It' s technically a quad... in that it' s 2 Core 2 E6850' s @ 3.0GHz on one chip. And as i said, i already swapped out the GTX for an overclocked Ultra.

Since those are the only real differences i' d probably say that it' s the CPU that' s giving me the performance increase. I' m not sure how the stock GTX stands up against the stock Ultra or my overclocked Ultra though... i guess if a game was GPU bound then the faster clock rates would make a noticible difference.

You could force DX9 and apply some of the DX10 tweaks to get a boost or you could just try lower the physics, volumetric, post processing or particle effects qualities.

Obviously the textures, objects and shaders need to be as high as possible but most of the one setting only make very minimal differences and i' m considering dropping them all down a notch to high to keep everything as fluid as possible. I' m averaging about 27fps with everything maxed out @ 1680 x 1050 and AA disabled. AA is a serious performance killer, much more so than the resolution.

Check out this pretty indepth Crysis tweak guide... and see if it helps. I haven' t really had time to go through it properly but it was recommeded to me by a guy who said it was really helpful.

It would be cool to see your whole setup Nitro. Nice phone BTW, and awesome rig I wish I could afford that.

ORIGINAL: Torr

It would be cool to see your whole setup Nitro. Nice phone BTW, and awesome rig I wish I could afford that.

Setup?

No offense Nitro But I hate the look of the Alienware pc' s.

Setup?

Like your entire pc on your desk with your monitor and keyboard and all of that.

ORIGINAL: Torr

Setup?

Like your entire pc on your desk with your monitor and keyboard and all of that.

I' ll take a pic just as soon as i have the keyboard, though it' ll probably be the weekend as i' m working late tonight

So you finally got the machine :) what games are you looking forward to on the PC? i dont really pay much attention to PC releases these days, wihch is weird since iv always been a pc gamer!

No actually, i' ve never been an audiophile, but i do need to get some sort of 7.1 speakers... I' ll probably be looking this weekend. Are there any weekly computer fairs in west yorkshire?

Really, sound' s one of the main things I like about some games. Certain games with EAX and OpenAL etc have some really immersive surround sound, calculating changes in reverb and tone bouncing off and passing through walls etc. FEAR and Quake 4 were two of the best, and probably half the reason I loved them on PC, but hated them on consoles.

I can really recommend Logitechs high end stuff, they seem to be some of the only ones designed around PCs and home theatres. I' ve got the Z5500s. A good pair of headphones will achieve the same result as well.

As for computer fairs, I haven' t a clue. I' ve got some semi-decent Creative Inspire 5.1 speakers I want rid of though.

Btw, I' d also recommend holding off the RAM upgrade. Not worth the money.

Longcase is loooong.

That thing looks positively enormoose. It' s not liquid-cooled is it? I don' t mess about with high-end PC rigs often, so I don' t know how commonplace that is now.

Got the diNovo Edge keyboard and some Creative Gigaworks T20 speakers...



...and i' m considering getting a Logitech MX Air Mouse for non-gaming tasks...



...i don' t suppose anybody here has used one already?

No, but i thought they seemed cool. If you get one let us know how it is. Would be nice to use from the couch like a remote control when I watch stuff from my computer on my tv.

It looks nice and it would go with the rest of my stuff. I' ll see if i can find one in a store and check it out. It' s £100 though which is a bit excessive for a mouse

Speaking of mice/mouses, can anyone recommend a good mouse for someone with larger hands? Most regular mouses are just a bit too narrow for me. Working on animation for hours can become uncomfortable because my hand is bending a bit more around it than it should. ' So I need a mouse that' s wider... doesn' t have to be a gaming mouse although I would certainly get one if that' s what works.

I like the look of your setip though.... Your wire management is great, I could only spot a few from the pic.

This keyboard is very very nice. It cost a lot but it was worth every penny.

I was considering a Logitech Wave but didn' t like the feel of the curve. I considered the G15 too but the diNovo won out because it' s the nicest wireless keyboard i' ve seen. I love the fact that it doesn' t take batteries and just recharges using the dock.

Speaking of mice/mouses, can anyone recommend a good mouse for someone with larger hands? Most regular mouses are just a bit too narrow for me. Working on animation for hours can become uncomfortable because my hand is bending a bit more around it than it should. ' So I need a mouse that' s wider... doesn' t have to be a gaming mouse although I would certainly get one if that' s what works.

Most of the logitech ones are decently sized. On my other PC I' ve got an MX510 which is quite large but comfortable. So I' d say any current logitech mouse that starts with " MX" would be your best bet. Gaming ones are just wasteful unless you really are an enthusiast.

Is that netgear router?

I used to have that same router and I had to return that piece of shit 3 times because they kept dieing.