Hi guys! The following is a note my friend sent to several editors of gaming magazines as well as PC review magazines, and also to gaming computer stores online such as Falcon Northwest, Alienware, etc. I had a very long discussion with him about the following, but neither of us could come to any conclusions.. please help!!
What is it that companies like Alienware, Hypersonic,
Falcon NW, or Voodoo do to accelerate the performance
of their top machines besides over clocking the video
card? You'd think that that would be an easy question
for them to answer. Not so. It was all ether and no
specifics when I called and asked them that question.
One said, "we know the best setting for each part."
Another alluded to "commercial know-how."
Unlike previous times, there are now non-hobbist
companies like ABS or Adamant that will configure a
computer with the identical components as gaming
manufactures for $500 to $1,000 less (not counting
Voodoo where the difference is much more), but offer
no over clocking or performance tweaks. I know
customer service is an issue with less well known
companies, and that is important to me, but I can over
clock my own graphics card and save some money if that
is the major tweak they make. What else exactly do
they do for the additional money it takes to purchase
an "Area 51", "Sonic Boom" or a "Mach V"?
We both know that these "settings" include video card overclocking, memory overclocking, and at worst, CPU overclocking - what other settings can there be? I've also heard of a very few handful of people that talk about overclocking the motherboard - personally, I've never heard of that, and if anyone knows anything about it, could you please post comments about the performance boost? Comments about any part of this post will be fine.. thanks again!
This is not a Highly Technical topic.
AnandTech Moderator
What is it that companies like Alienware, Hypersonic,
Falcon NW, or Voodoo do to accelerate the performance
of their top machines besides over clocking the video
card? You'd think that that would be an easy question
for them to answer. Not so. It was all ether and no
specifics when I called and asked them that question.
One said, "we know the best setting for each part."
Another alluded to "commercial know-how."
Unlike previous times, there are now non-hobbist
companies like ABS or Adamant that will configure a
computer with the identical components as gaming
manufactures for $500 to $1,000 less (not counting
Voodoo where the difference is much more), but offer
no over clocking or performance tweaks. I know
customer service is an issue with less well known
companies, and that is important to me, but I can over
clock my own graphics card and save some money if that
is the major tweak they make. What else exactly do
they do for the additional money it takes to purchase
an "Area 51", "Sonic Boom" or a "Mach V"?
We both know that these "settings" include video card overclocking, memory overclocking, and at worst, CPU overclocking - what other settings can there be? I've also heard of a very few handful of people that talk about overclocking the motherboard - personally, I've never heard of that, and if anyone knows anything about it, could you please post comments about the performance boost? Comments about any part of this post will be fine.. thanks again!
This is not a Highly Technical topic.
AnandTech Moderator
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