backtop

Hardware Commodore's Gaming PCs Revealed
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - March 15, 2007 7:47 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 73 comment(s) - last by exanimas.. on Mar 18 at 9:12 PM

Ghost Recon 2 painted Commodore xx
Commodore is indeed back but it's no different from everyone else this time around

DailyTech previously reported that Commodore was expected to make a splash back into the gaming scene by introducing computers targeted specifically towards gamers. The company left the scene more than two decades ago after launching the famous Commodore64.

Today Commodore confirms the reports after it launched its new website and revealed upcoming system specifications. Officially called the Commodore xx, the new flagship system will be based on current off-the-shelf components.

Official specifications include:
  • Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core processor QX6700: 2.66GHz 8M Cache
  • ASUS P5N32-E nForce 680i SLI motherboard
  • 2x 150GB 10000 RPM SATA Raid 0 and 2x 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Raid 1 hard drives
  • 4GB Corsair Dominator 2xTwin2x2048-8500C5D memory: 1066MHz
  • Philips DVD-RW optical drive
  • 1000W ICE Cube power supply
  • Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
  • 2x NVIDIA 8800 GTX 768MB graphics cards
Commodore will be offering three other models of its gaming PC called the GX, GS and G, stepping in down in specifications respectively. The Commodore G system will ship with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.86GHz, 2GB of memory and an NVIDIA 7900 GS.

Despite hopes that the new Commodore system will ship with a brand new version of Amiga OS, the Commodore PCs will ship with Windows Vista Ultimate. However, Commodore indicated that its systems will ship with a Commodore64 emulator with more than 50 classic games preloaded.

Customers who purchase can fully customize system components such as illuminated fan colors and case art work. While all this initially sounds exciting, Commodore is stepping into an industry that is very much different from two decades ago. Today, companies such as Alienware, Falcon Northwest and Voodoo PC offer everything that the Commodore system has and more. At this time, systems cannot be ordered and so there are no details on what system components can be customized beyond the cosmetics.

According to Commodore:
These machines come packaged in a specially designed, heavy-duty yet stylish casing, capable of withstanding our revolutionary painting process. Choose from our library of artwork to personalize your high performance gaming PC and express your own taste and style.
Commodore indicated that systems will be ready for order sometime in mid-April of this year. No prices have yet been defined.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RAID
By rmaharaj on 3/15/2007 8:01:28 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
1x 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Raid 1 hard drives

How can you have a RAID array with only 1 disk?




RE: RAID
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/15/2007 8:06:30 AM , Rating: 5
Yes, that seemed a bit odd to me. I think he meant 2x 500GB's in a Raid 1 Config.

On a side note, this is like an Alienware. Sure the case looks spiffy and all, but your paying mostly for name and looks, not whats under the hood. Better off buying parts and building yourself..... now if Commodore wants to sell cases for say $200, I might be interested, otherwise they can stick it just like Alienware.


RE: RAID
By TSS on 3/15/2007 8:24:46 AM , Rating: 2
it seems they used the commodore name for another product totally unrelated to the commodore memory or trying to recapture anything from the old commodore glory.

just a name for money now, like the last time it failed. too bad.


RE: RAID
By cheetah2k on 3/15/2007 8:26:03 PM , Rating: 2
And.... while i love the Commodore classic games, only 50 of them are preloaded?? why not preload the entire collection??

Apart from the case (which looks like something from Antec - but with a coat of paint) it would be cheaper to BYO (build your own)


RE: RAID
By Mitch101 on 3/15/2007 8:37:06 AM , Rating: 2
Dont laugh too hard but I had to work with a guy who we caught trying to create a raid with 2 partitions on the same drive. (Wachovia of all places) I see this a lot and with people who just wont ask for help and try to hide the problems they create or just blame Microsoft or a lesser tech (Pfizer).

The sad part is I have seen a lot of this. Companies wonder why thier servers constantly have performance or stability issues and the first thing they do is run out to buy more stuff to monitor the stuff for problems.

I seriously think companies that have stability and performance issues need to look internally sometimes at the staff as being a possible problem. Its not Microsoft thats the problem and third party applications dont fix stupid.

The Best is Blackberry monitoring. I cant tell you how much money companies are quickly throwing away at monitoring Blackberry with third party applications instead of just developing the stuff inhouse. It took me all of 2 days to create a monitoring application that actually repaired the problems instead of sitting there and announcing the Blackberry server has a problem and Im not a professional developer.


RE: RAID
By FITCamaro on 3/15/2007 8:46:46 AM , Rating: 2
I agree. I remember interviewing for an IT job and the guy was asking me simple questions like "What is RAID?" and "If I have 2 250GB discs and 1 160GB disc and do a RAID 5, what is the end usable drive size?" When I answered them all right he told me "I've interviewed a lot of guys with years of experience that didn't know that stuff." Scares me...


RE: RAID
By themadmilkman on 3/15/2007 8:48:55 AM , Rating: 2
Did you get the job?


RE: RAID
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/15/2007 9:02:24 AM , Rating: 2
That's a good question, 320GB should be the answer but that's just me offhand. I could be wrong. I think its the number of drives -1 (Parity) and multiplied by the smallest of the disks (Thus why its generally preferred to have all disks the same size, maximum usable space).


RE: RAID
By FITCamaro on 3/15/2007 12:12:22 PM , Rating: 2
Lol. No. I got a better job now though.


RE: RAID
By Mitch101 on 3/15/2007 9:35:36 AM , Rating: 3
The sad part is they hold most of the Employee Jobs and very talented guys are busy working as Contractors being interviewed by these idiots. There is nothing worse than being interviewed by a company with Idiots asking the questions or ones asking the wrong questions (TIAA-CREF) not to mention they dont hire the talented ones because they fear they will look like the idiots they are. So companies IT departments get worse over time because the dumb hire dumber to keep themselves looking somewhat talented.

Seriously I have seen this a lot. A mild-mid level technical persons wont hire anyone better than themselves because they fear the new guy will outshine them and the new guy will get moved up and the old guy let go or wont look as good giving them poor pay increases over time. This seems to be the new trend in IT. The talented ones eventually leave the field because stupidity has taken over or start thier own companies.

I think HR departments at a lot of companies need to be restaffed also. HR is a fast growing area that just isnt getting the right people for the job. But I guess this is every job now. Auto Mechanics are an area I have to say probably has a worse idiot to talent ratio than IT.


RE: RAID
By fic2 on 3/15/2007 12:46:52 PM , Rating: 2
There was an article/study done several years ago that basically came to the conclusion that incompentent people don't know that they are incompentent and can't recognize people that are incompentent.


RE: RAID
By arazok on 3/15/2007 3:48:09 PM , Rating: 2
I read that auricle, or at least on similar to it. It was about competent people vs incompetent people.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/he...

To summarize:

Competent people think they are incompetent, because they always worry they are making a mistake.

Incompetent people think they are competent, because they never bother to ask themselves the question.


RE: RAID
By arazok on 3/15/2007 11:42:05 AM , Rating: 2
After hiring (then firring) a string of 'senior programmers', who had clearly never used a computer in their life, we came up with a simple screening test:

Write the code to output the following string in reverse order. You may use any language you like.

The brown fox ran up the hill.

Expected output: "hill the up ran fox brown The"

Only about 10% of the candidates we bring in can successfully write the code. The rest just talk the talk, and submit fake resumes.


RE: RAID
By FITCamaro on 3/15/2007 12:15:00 PM , Rating: 2
string input = "The brown fox ran up the hill."

int i
int end = length(input) - 1

for(i = length(input)-1; i >= 0; i--) {
if(input[i] == ' ') {
print input[i+1:end-1] " "
end = i
}
}
print input[0:end-1]

Or did you want the period and forgot about it? :)


RE: RAID
By Mitch101 on 3/15/2007 12:21:01 PM , Rating: 2
Nice 10 lines and 6 seconds before I summarized how I would do it.

You just found out your at least in the top 10%. Now he is going to have to change the interview question because all the poor developers are going to nix your little snippet.

Too bad he clarified any language. Now do it in Commodore 64 basic. ;)


RE: RAID
By FITCamaro on 3/15/2007 12:45:15 PM , Rating: 2
Lol. I was too young to use and my parents too poor to afford a Commodore 64.

If you have a CS degree or any computer technology degree for that matter and can't do that, you should go play on the freeway.

*DISCLAIMER*
This statement is meant to be taken literally. But if you're stupid enough to actually do it, don't blame me.
*END DISCLAIMER*

:)


RE: RAID
By Fritzr on 3/16/2007 2:25:18 AM , Rating: 2
Not the neatest code, but it will run on all versions of Commodore 8bit BASIC :)

Spaces outside of quotes included for readability.
(For those unfamiliar with this BASIC Line 95 is a comment line :P )

10 i$="The brown fox ran up the hill."
20 for l=1 to len(i$)-1
30 a$=mid$(i$,l,1)
40 if a$=" " then i=i+1
50 if a$<>" " then o$(i)=o$(i)+a$
60 next
70 j=i to 0 step -1
80 print o$(j);
90 if j then print " ";
95 remove rem in line 100 if final period is desired :)
100 rem if j=0 then print "."
110 next
120 print


RE: RAID
By Fritzr on 3/16/2007 2:28:48 AM , Rating: 2
Grrr ... dropped the FOR when copying the code to the comment. Corrected version below...

Be nice to be able to edit ... oh well


RE: RAID
By Fritzr on 3/16/2007 2:27:09 AM , Rating: 2
Not the neatest code, but it will run on all versions of Commodore 8bit BASIC :)

Spaces outside of quotes included for readability.
(For those unfamiliar with this BASIC Line 95 is a comment line :P )

10 i$="The brown fox ran up the hill."
20 for l=1 to len(i$)-1
30 a$=mid$(i$,l,1)
40 if a$=" " then i=i+1
50 if a$<>" " then o$(i)=o$(i)+a$
60 next
70 for j=i to 0 step -1
80 print o$(j);
90 if j then print " ";
95 remove rem in line 100 if final period is desired :)
100 rem if j=0 then print "."
110 next
120 print


RE: RAID