The system is built with two ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards

Mar 6, 2008 09:49 GMT  ·  By

The CrossFireX is officially supported with the advent of the brand-new Catalyst 8.3 driver pack from the ATI laboratories, so boutique PC manufacturer Alienware has just introduced its newest killing machine: the Alienware Area-51 ALX. The computer is touted as world's first quad-GPU gaming solution supporting DirectX 10.1.

The Alienware ALX CrossFireX is built around two ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics cards introduced earlier last month. The graphics cards feature two graphics cores each, as well as 1 GB of dedicated graphics memory, which means that the system will take advantage of two full gigabytes of video RAM. The new multi-GPU configuration allows the user enjoy four times more graphics power than any other configuration.

"Alienware is extreme high-performance PC gaming," said Marc Diana, Product Marketing Manager for Alienware, "and expectations are never higher than when dealing with the ALX CrossFireX, our most sophisticated desktop system. Adding the awesome power of a quad graphics solution like CrossFireX to the ALX desktop is just one more way Alienware strives to deliver the world's best PC gaming experience."

More than that: should the tremendous graphics horsepower not suffice, AMD's Catalyst software allows users to override the GPU controls and manually set the engine and memory clocks at higher values for spectacular significant boosts.

"CrossFire? is another example of AMD's continued commitment to technology leadership. With CrossFireX driving the graphics capabilities of such an acclaimed system as the Alienware ALX CrossFireX, together we're driving The Ultimate Visual Experience? for PC gamers," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, AMD's Graphics Product Group. "CrossFireX allows for more immersive gaming than before, giving gamers the ability to play at high resolutions and settings with great performance, along with leading multimedia capabilities for the HD world we live in."

There is no info about pricing or availability yet, but just in case you managed to snatch an unit and lack the necessary Catalyst 8.3 drivers, here are the shortcuts you can use to get your copy:

Download Catalyst 8.3 Software Suite for Windows Vista 32-bit Download Catalyst 8.3 Software Suite for Windows Vista 64-bit