Crysis Warhead $699 Gaming PC from EA Details
EA has released the final specifications of its specialized “Crysis” machine that it intends to offer for those looking to get into PC gaming’s most demanding title.
In late July, we reported that EA was planning on releasing special Crysis-branded PCs that would be both affordable and well-equipped to handle the most graphically demanding game of today. Details of this machine are now hitting the Internet, just in time for the release of Crysis Warhead, the next installment to the series, on September 16.
The Crysis Warhead PC will carry with it the following specifications:
- Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB
- Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66 GHz
- G31 mATX motherboard
- 2 GB DDR2 PC6400
- 250 GB hard drive
- 16X DVD-ROM
- Integrated LAN
- Integrated audio
- Keyboard and mouse
- 500 Watt PSU
- Ultra X-Blaster ATX mid-tower
- One-year parts and labor warranty
All of the above will cost only $699 and will come with everything except a monitor and headphones or speakers. The Crysis Warhead PC is the result of ideas from EA, Crytek, Nvidia and the company who will build the machine – Ultra PC.
Crytek’s originally supplied the specifications to EA as recommended system requirements, but Nvidia stepped in with the idea of selling it as a pre-built machine.
Crysis franchise producer Bernd Diemer explained the concept to Chris Remo’s blog, saying, ”When we started working on Warhead, we decided performance was a big issue. So we said, ‘Guys, we’re going to build a PC which has a maximum price of six or seven hundred dollars, and it has to run Warhead in high spec at an average framerate of 30.’ We built that PC—Crytek in the Budapest office [where Warhead was developed]—and we put it in the middle of the studio, and every review was on that machine. All the milestone presentations we did for EA, for the Yerlies [founding brothers Cevat, Avni, and Faruk], for the team, all the new prototypes, we showed on that machine.”
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The hammered out specifications allowed the development team to borrow a little bit from the console-mentality of optimizing towards a certain platform.
“For us, it was really helpful, because we sort of had a hard cap,” Diemer added. “You couldn’t say, ‘It works on my computer, looks great on my machine.’ No no no, this is the benchmark, guys. If it sucks on this, the whole thing sucks. For us as a team, that was really valuable. We had a tangible border we could bump our heads into.”
Interestingly enough, the Crysis Warhead PC will not come packed with Windows Vista and its supposed gaming prowess. Instead, according to GameCyte, the system will be preloaded with Windows XP Professional with the latest updates and Service Pack 3.
Online retailer TigerDirect already has a campaign paged advertising the $699 system. Slightly confusing, however, is that the machine won’t come pre-bundled with Crysis Warhead or the original Crysis – making the special Crysis machine just sensibly put together gaming PC.
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psychobob What a rip. I just built a similar PC from newegg for $500 including rebates and shipping. Of course, I used the cheapest components available which i'm this 'crysis' system has done.Reply -
jamesl its not a ripReply
it looks like a evga video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130380
that's pretty good
and it does include an operating system, keyboard and mouse
that's at least $140 you would have to spend just on the os if you were building it completely from scratch
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116515
so its not that bad -
boomhowar I think this is great. This is what the PC gaming industry needs. Some standardized gaming platform that console players can easily transition to.Reply
Building pcs for yourself will always bring about more bang for ones buck, this is just a given. I hope we see more of these machines as I am tired of playing poorly ported games. Mercenaries 2 sucks on PC 1280x720 only.
I hope we see more standardized pc platforms and perhaps more of a hardware grading tier.. as if hardware manufacturers could ever agree on this. -
psychobob Well, my quick $500 build includes gaming mouse and keyboard. But yeah, I didn't include an OS. So you would save a bit over $60 building it from scratch with the XP pro. That's not as bad then.Reply -
nerdnic Yeah, for a non techy, that's a great buy. Go configure a similar machine on dell or hp and see how much it is.Reply -
EXCEPTReply
what i love about this article... is no where does it say what resolution they want it to be playable at... if its like 1024 by 768... its such a rip... if its like 1680 by 1050... thats awesome
but it's more than likely a very low resolution that few people use anymore... even 1280 by 1024 is pushing it in my opinion... sure thats what most people have... but what does that say about optimization? currently older cards such as the 8800 gt and 9600 gt can play crysis on all high at over 30 fps at that res... so it better be a higher resolution other wise the whole optimization spiel they're throwing around is crap -
hairycat101 I looked twice and I didn't see that the Crysis machine has an OS listed. What OS comes with it? Are we to guess Vista?Reply -
ahslan I will admit its a good pc for a person that wouldnt build their own gaming rig...but for must of us here, we could easily put together a better rig with a quad core, 4gigs of ram, and an HD4850, for about the same price..lol...(just put together something on newegg real quick, just to double check :) )Reply