Dell uses Ageia physics chip for gaming machine

[danrok]

HARDWARE giant Dell said it is taking orders on what it describes as an ultra-high performance games machine which will use the Agea PhysX processor.

It previewed the XPS 600 Renegade desktop at CES in January and said the machine is available now in limited quantities and including a 30-inch monitor at a price only $70 short of $10,000.

It is also cranking up the Pentium 965 Extreme Edition to 4.26GHz, with dedicated support for the overclocking community.

However, Dell will also offer these machines with quad SLI options. µ

Source:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30474

[Pitch]

Dell... Ultra-high performance games machine... Dedicated Overclocking support....

Did I miss something?!

[danrok]

Yes, it costs $10,000. But, don't worry the boss and some guy called Mike will sign it for you.

[tiamat63]

Look, its on fire. I wonder if this is a sign of whats to come?

[danrok]

Your credit card would be on fire after buying that.

[hoinar]

I've read these day somewhere that Dell is about to acquire AllienWare? ..myabe here on AOA..don't remember really. maybe this is the side effect.
though...10k $? I don't know what to say....(It's painfull... )

[Favu]

10K isn't bad when you consider you won't need to pay for a seperate central heating system

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Favu

10K isn't bad when you consider you won't need to pay for a seperate central heating system

Yeah, but think about the air-conditioning bill. Unless you live north of the arctic circle, it's gonna cost a bundle to cool in the summer.

[cadaveca]

Alienware has added Ageia to the bill as well....seems now that the boards are out that allow proper lane-configuration for additional pci-e16x slots, the card has some followers. About bloodly time, I say, although i DID know that this was going to happen since November last year.


Gigabyte's 4x16 pci-e slotted board makes sense now to some, as the SLI can be run on one set, while the Ageia can be run on the second...wasn't meant for 4 videocards...EVER!!! nVidia released dual-pcb versions of the top card to go with Ageia...now those dual-card-on-one-pci-e connector 7800/7900's make some sense, as do the dual-chip-on-one-pcb vidcards, EH?

[madcatmk3]

agh this is getting overwhelming. and 10K s way to much for a PC, I don't care how much you have.

[Favu]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Yeah, but think about the air-conditioning bill. Unless you live north of the arctic circle, it's gonna cost a bundle to cool in the summer.

No no! In summer, you move it into a little log cabin, and install an open-bath watercooling solution - Hey presto! SAUNA!

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

Alienware has added Ageia to the bill as well.

Would competition from this be the reason that nVidia has suddenly gotten interested in offloading physics processing to the GPU?

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Favu

No no! In summer, you move it into a little log cabin, and install an open-bath watercooling solution - Hey presto! SAUNA!

D'oh! That is such an obvious solution that it completely passed me by! LOL

[Favu]

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Would competition from this be the reason that nVidia has suddenly gotten interested in offloading physics processing to the GPU?

That's a farce built upon by the addition of Aegia support to the nVidia SLi driver framework. nVidia is not porting off physics to the gpu...thier gpu is only capable of processing physics for lighting conditions, and not collision physics, and thier current memory-control scheme does not allow for the sort of caching nessecary to make ANY sort of physics calculations feasable.

Next-gen cards, however...

[Toastmaster]

Wow, very impressive computer, too bad it's a Dell...
Even with a physics processor, 4.26 gig CPU, 30 inch monitor, and all that extra stuff, there's just no way it's worth 10 k. That's insane :P
It will be interesting to see what happens once these physics processors become more common. I can imagine games finally being able to do away with disappearing ragdolls.

[Aedan]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

nVidia is not porting off physics to the gpu...thier gpu is only capable of processing physics for lighting conditions, and not collision physics, and thier current memory-control scheme does not allow for the sort of caching nessecary to make ANY sort of physics calculations feasable.

Tell that to those who are using their GPUs to crack triple DES then. I seem to remember that distributed.net found that the Geforce 2 cards were pretty good for breaking 3DES.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Áedán

Tell that to those who are using their GPUs to crack triple DES then. I seem to remember that distributed.net found that the Geforce 2 cards were pretty good for breaking 3DES.

I'm no expert on this, but it would seem to me that cracking 3DES and handling full-blown physics calculations are in completely different realms memory-wise?

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Áedán

Tell that to those who are using their GPUs to crack triple DES then. I seem to remember that distributed.net found that the Geforce 2 cards were pretty good for breaking 3DES.

I understand, however the "techdemo" was centered around the geforce7 series only, and no other.


They also said that the card doing the physics would hand of the info to the DX9 driver...with NO cpu intervention. Uh, what?

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

They also said that the card doing the physics would hand of the info to the DX9 driver...with NO cpu intervention. Uh, what?

You caught that too? I was practically rolling on the ground when I read that....