@cobrax25: Yes but not very well. Maybe at 800x600 like people say, but who wants to play it like that. Plus Warhead is graphically toned down anyway. :/

Rhaedaw

@RaptureScientist: It can definately run most 360 games that ported to PC at a higher res and framerate.

Strange that they went with mATX, but the good thing with this is, if you can play crisis maxxed out, you can DEFINATELY play just about every other game maxxed out at an even higher resolution. Can't wait to be seeing you guys on the TF2 servers!!!!!

Also, hate to nitpick, but there's no soundcard, it's integrated.

PATSCRU

Its pretty beefy for the price. The cpu is a bit of a slacker, but the gpu can definitely pick up the pace. Great all around hardwares.

800x600?, give me a break, probably 1280 on highest setting without a hiccup.

PsycheE

@fonz:

yes...thats kind of the point.

cobrax25

But can it play Crysis?

fonz

It's not that impressive of a system.. Must be the price point that matters most.

Dr.H

@chemical_eng_mx: Just look into building your own. If you have 700$ to spend you could probably build the same machine or better for the same price. Not saying this is a terrible machine or anything just trying to save you some money :P

Detre

That'd be like £350 in the UK if you go by conversion rates, but of course, they won't. Even if they did sell it here, it'd be at least £1000.

Ah well.

Kaonazhie

Weren't they just trying do optimize Crysis to run on most PCs not long ago?

DavidFU

I've been wanting to buy a new PC for a while, but haven't because nowadays almost any PC you buy comes with Vista, which I don't want, if it weren'tfor gaming and my need to run some simulation programs I'd go Mac, but this sounds like a sweet deal, a decent computer, with XP and it can run Crysis, I'd finally get some serious PC gaming done, not just indie games (which I still love), and around $700 US is what a plain computer goes for here in Mexico, might pick this up.

chemical_eng_mx

Able to ruin Crysis maxed out at 60 fps or not, you still have to admit it's a great setup for a great price. I wouldn't nitpick about the benchmarks.

RavenGT

What I like about this PC is that it can reasonably compete with the consoles.

RaptureScientist

wow. prices on technology really do drop fast. the computer im on now was purchused 3 years ago for $1300. I had it custom made, so i had basically selected upgrades for almost every piece of the p.c., as well as each of my choices, "usually" being a high end choice.

my purpose in upgrading everything was simply to run games, so i got my pc, but surprisingly, i ended up dropping pc gaming for awhile and got A LOT more into console gaming (i had always consoled gamed, just not as heavily as i started to around this time) by the time i decided to return to my pc and found an interesting game a year and a half later, EVERYTHING WAS ALREADY OUTDATED!!!! seriously!

i couldnt beleive it. At the the time, i got a 512MB radeon grpahics card which was top of the line, about 2 years later, it was obsolete... i got 1gb memory when 2gb was the highest there was and extremely expensive and 2 years later, it was the a requirement for miniumun settings... the only think that has held up over the years was my processor, a dual core.

the point is. im just saying thats pretty cheap. lots of people dont realize that like 2 years ago getting 1gb memory cost $150 bucks, and now its almost a downgrade to pcs with 2GB becoming default...

so yea a sweet deal

the_grimace

800x600 indeed or maybe they dont included AA in their "Max settings description". Even with AA I find it hard to believe that this rig can run Crysis at max with a 30 fps average at 1280×1024 much less 1680x1050 or 1920×1200 .

fraudbrand

It's a pretty damn good machine for that price. I still have doubts that it can run it smoothly at the highest graphic levels. I'd have to see it to believe it.

Shteve

30FPS? Maybe the Wii has spoiled me, but if it's not 60 then I'm not gonna drop my drawers over it.

mikethespike9

I still don't understand why they would use a mATX mobo.

Graphics card isn't horrible, but still kind of crappy.

Log1c

Do want!
Also, every time I go to Fry's, and sometimes when I go to Best Buy, I see some pretty nice monitors for at or below 200 bucks.

The-Blur

Huh. Kinda surprised that it ships with XP instead of Vista.

Simple_Man

2gb DDR? Shouldn't it have more RAM than that to run Crysis well?

DavidFU

@Allcars: it's called volumetric light scattering...

DanoruX

I haven't really heard many great things about Crysis, so really I'd only buy this to play other games. :P

Bigfoot

@Detre: Actually, I don't. My precious old 19" CRT (which i got quite a long time ago, and had always served me well) finally died out last week. I'm still in mourning, and using my laptop for all internetting purposes.

Still, it's quite an empty argument - it's the same thing as consoles with them thar HDTV thingies.

Grive

But then it'd be outdated in 19 months, right?

DariusEnigma

@Detre: That's a great point!

magictroll

Well given that crysis dx10 stuff is fake and does the same graphics in xp with some tweaks. Microsoft is full of lies. dx10 doesn't really have that much cool stuff. physical particles is the only thing that is truly new. Gods raise are just a little light mod.

Allcars

and before people start crying but thats still alot of money for a gaming PC realize this is a actual pc as well. Then compare it to what youd spend at say Best Buy for your home pc.
@lantus: Yeah but who doesnt have a monitor :P

Detre

@Wildarms7000:

That's pretty much what every PC gamer is saying anyway.

Marlor

Good deal.

Ragdoll_

So they're ditching one of the main aspects of Crysis the begin with. Makes me think their "Guaranteed 30FPS" is probably at 800 x 600 resolution.

_woLf

I have to say, for the parts included, very nice price.

My PC has a quad core and an 8800GT, and it cost me $900.

ArtemisFei

That's pretty awesome. Still, you have to get a good monitor to go along with it.

lantus

@Wildarms7000: Pretty much

Ahsayuni

So basically that's like saying "Screw you DirectX10"?

Wildarms7000

@Detre: that is not alot of money for a gaming pc, period. great price! "I want one"

if_deez

Damn... I spent $1,200 on my Dell XPS Gen 5 (Back in Summer of 05 lol) and it was a beast at the time. Ran HL2 at 80+ FPS (According to the graph), and that was with an Nvidia 6800. Only upgrade I've made since then is my GFX card to a Nvidia 8500 512mb ram. Im thinking about just building a pc from the ground up this time around. I'm also thinking Arby's!

SilentAssassn87

@Simple_Man: Its not surpriseing that this pc claims that it can handle the highest settings really as the highest on xp is lower than vista cos of the DX#. Also vista is more of a memory hog than xp and on vista DX10 would be enabled which would be the new highest setting and this rig would struggle to cope with that.

Either way im not saying this rig is bad, for the price is brilliant and would certainly simplify the pc gaming market for someone who wants to start but just doesnt know where to begin.

It would certainly interest me if i did not already know how to build my own rig.

necrozim

I'd also like to point out the fact that Crysis is hands down THE best looking game I have ever seen and I am a huge graphics whore. Nothing compares to the way it does foliage destruction and procedural motion blends. The amount of environmental destruction and interaction is pretty incredible. Also it has one of the most advanced lighting models ever seen on the market complete with sub-scattering and full on dynamic lights that can be scaled accordingly. The engine can push incredibly high textures with added parallax maps. It really is a great engine overall and I am extremely excited for Warhead to come out. Crysis is really about putting our tech to the test and pushing it as far as it can go.

nitromic

It's just cool that they offer something like this for the non-tech savvy gamer. EA did something (borderline) thoughtful. How many of these do you really think they'll sell, you know?

TheMurderer

Mmm, its not exactly a deal, you can build a pc that would perform the same or even a little better for at least $200 less...

TOCATL

@Allcars: Dx10 on vista looks much different than the "ultra high" dx9 settings by the way. It's more than just the lighting. The actual number of objects that is possible on screen is increased substantially. People were spouting the same shit about dx9 when it came out that we didn't need it. Well i gotta tell you we do need dx10 and it is alot different than idiots like you seem to think. Stop buying into the internet hate machine and do some research.

That1GuyNess

Hmm i wonder how many people will pick this up.

bighit006

@the_grimace: Prices on technology may drop fast but if you took that $1300 today you would get a comparable machine at the same tier as the tier you bought at 3 years ago.

placebofud

err, 1280x1024 is what I meant there

Ubersoldat19

bah! Oh well. I guess I'll see if my PC can put up with a 4870x2. It was built about 4 years ago for HL2 but if I was going to spend 700 bucks for a game I might as well get a new graphics card. It's a great deal for beginners that are getting into PC gaming. It's about as good as console prices.

Hmmm... A console priced PC that can play all the games of this generation at max. I smell a new business model that could revitalize the PC gaming market.

Netnavi

I don't doubt it could handle Crysis at 1280x768 maxed out. Its on XP, so its max settings would be HIGH and not VERY HIGH (DX10), which is very doable on most machines. Its when you turn on the DX10 effects is when Crysis goes to shit, even on high end rigs.

Ubersoldat19

@Rhaedaw: It's not graphically toned down it just runs better. This rig'll do crysis at high perfect. 30 fps probably being the minimum. I get 30+ fps so this pc sure can.

That1GuyNess

Ha, anyone who doesn't think that this machine couldn't play Crysis at those settings with a decent framerate and good resolution is a fool. If you have never ran the game don't crap on it, since Crysis scales pretty damn well. It is a good engine that gets shit all the time for it, even though the game looks better than most console games even on medium settings.

nitromic

Firstly, this PC is optimized to play the game 1280x1024 with "Gamer" (aka High) settings at 30fps. It will not max out Warhead as the highest settings ("Enthusiast") will still bring the most powerful rigs out there to their knees.

Secondly, the resolution used to test and optimize the game for this PC is 1280x1024, not 800x600.

cqdemal

Tempted to add on to the sucker and see how much of a beast one can make it.

Reminds me, I've been using the same processor for six years now. That's gotta stop.

Paul Soth

@Kaneda: I've been building a computer and it has those exact specs, though i'm not going all out on the HDD. Im stoked that it makes crysis beautiful. Oh, and that EA machine is a good idea, good job EA.

pisseddog

I am extremely happy with the new direction that Crytek is going with the WarHead game. A PC like this ago, as mentioned many times, could have cost much more. To me, this looks like a very decent rig to play many of today's game on, and not bad at all for 700 USD.

Good job Crytek, I applaud your efforts.

RtFusion

No monitor. :(

Mobus

@TOCATL: Agreed, and u can get a decent case too. An Ultra case? come on, thats just being cheap.

lancaster1

Today I bought my first computer in almost 7 years. I built one myself for the first time and made a decent one. (Then I saw this article and realized it was a great one!)

I got the 9800GT, an Intel Core 2 Duo 3.00GHz, 2GB of good ram and lots of HDD space. I'll get more ram if(when) needed, but I sure as hell hope this will last me more than a year. I can't believe people complain about the price of the PS3. That good a PC was really expensive, even if I ordered the parts from a really cheap place. The only reason I got this PC was because mine was ridiculously obsolete, I need a PC for work, and I thought once I should finally get a "good" one.

So I played the Crysis demo tonight for the first time and liked what I saw. Swimming in that water is just glorious. Still, I think I still prefer my good old PS3 and its non-FPS games.

Do you guys think I should get Fallout 3 for PS3 or PC? And Mirrors Edge?

Kaneda

My pc's specs are very similar, even a bit lower and i was playing crysis on high custom settings by cuban...

last_emp

@boopadoo: well they say they might patch crysis so that it would run as well as warhead on lower end machines

chickdigger802

...but this is optimized to run Warhead, not Crysis. As far as I know, Warhead was tweaked to run on "mainstream" PCs. I would still like to see an affordable machine that can run Crysis with full settings. I mean, I played Crysis on a Blackbird, and even that couldn't handle max settings.

boopadoo

Okay okay, I know this is going to sound so anal it hurts. But it includes a Realtek HD audio integrated chipset, not a card.

'Also included is a Realtek HD sound card'

ratticon

@lhfan04: meant to say e8300.

lhfan04

I don't know where you are getting the notions of this being a great deal. Just by a quick glance I can match this PC (actually 1UP it with a E830) for under $500 just stick a 9800 in there and that would make it $100 less.

lhfan04

@lhfan04:

Yes but its the convenience. Alot of people cant be screwed making their own machines and wouldnt mind paying that bit extra to have everything assembled already.

bighit006

@Detre: You may be able to build the computer, but you won't be able to build it an get that OS for the same price.

@nitromic: I've tried running Crysis on my Q6700/8800GTX/4GB DDR2-800 machine at all "high" settings with no AA. At a "high-def" resolution (read: 1920x1200, which is what I play at), it does NOT work at a playable framerate. Of course, I'm running in DX10.

In DX9, I can almost play at all high settings with 2x AA.

The game doesn't scale well. At all.

QuietStorm

Here is a review of a 9800GT, factory OC'd, in a system that is much faster than the one on offer here. Note that during Crysis, the only time the FPS stay above 30 (on average) is at 1280x1024 or lower, with settings on "High" and 2xAA enabled.

This PC might be able to run Crysis at 30FPS or higher guaranteed, but only at a very modest resolution, not in DX10, and with AA turned off. Even with a 19" monitor @ 1440x900, expect to start cranking those setting down to get a playable framerate.

regnez

@fonz: Lol.

@cobrax25:
fwoosh <---- Joke

(O_O)<---- Your head.

Anyways yeah, this seems like a pretty good deal, but if a company is selling it for that price, you can probably do it yourself for cheaper, amirite?

(I don't know if I'm right, that wasn't rhetorical.)

LastFace

if i were in the market,
this would definitely be
on my radar.

gratified to see it ship with
XP instead of vista.

if this was crytek's target
computer, it makes sense because
85 per cent of gamers still use XP,
according to steam anyway.

to ship this with vista
would make about as much sense
as making warhead a vista exclusive.

Sullyville

Sweet, now I can play Crysis on LOW settings for a mere $700...

Xero_Azmea

@Bigfoot: Crysis was awesome - huge open world, long-distance shooter with destructible buildings and the biggest weapons ever featured in a FPS (I think I spent more time just throwing grenades at things and punching trees than I did on the story, and that was before I discovered the nuclear weapons), but it also requires a lot of hardware to run fast enough to be fun to play - the controls get very mushy as the frame rate drops. As a result, a lot of people dump on it out of spite that they either aren't able to play it, or that it played poorly on their system.

CryTek really should have learned from FarCry that poor support for mid-range systems wasn't a good idea, and pumping up a game as requiring tons of hardware pre-release and being designed for an OS that no one wanted to use is a good way to get everyone to pirate it rather than risk it not running well.

Kral2

@Kaneda: I would wait until the recommended specs for those games come out, but i would wager that your PC would be able to run those games at higher resoultions/framerates than their PS3/360 counterparts.

PATSCRU

Yes you can build it yourself cheaper but that's missing the point.

Building a PC from scratch depending on your experience can take a couple of hours, then it can take 90 minutes to install XP, drivers, etc.

This takes away that hassle (some people find the prospect of building their own PC too intimidating to attempt anyway) and gives you the advantage of the increased support and warrentee you get from pre-builds.

You can't get a gaming PC specced like this from anywhere I've seen. Almost everywhere skimps on the graphics card, providing the cheapest possible option and charing a fortune to upgrade.

Only place this setup skimps on is the lack of Wifi (although a bigger hdd would be nice too) and the fact that a micro ATX board/case can have cooling issues for gaming setups

abigsmurf

The realtek HD audio isn't bad at all. Definitely far superior to the AC97 version.

This whole PR promotion is a great idea. I'm surprised is wasn't done more often.

Cell9song

Hmm I may seriously pick this thing up. My old PC is already pretty much shit anyway.

AzureD

Well, isn't the 9800GT simply a rebrand of the 8800GT GPU (G92?).

Why didn't they use the 4850? :/

tyranimo

Haha, I'm sure it's not the 9600GT, since I was reading a review of that a couple of days ago and all the reviews were raving about how it was the first real 9XXX chip.

I'm a little lazy to do a Google search atm :/

tyranimo

@tyranimo: No I believe the 9600GT is the one thats simply a rebrand of the 8800GT. I may be wrong though. That rigs actually not too bad and should run the game fairly well. Yeah you could build it for cheaper but not by much.

This should be done more often and by known brands! It would be great for the PC gaming industry if you could get pre-built, affordable PCs that were guranteed to run the latest AAA games. The consoles have become more like PCs, why should PCs become a bit more like consoles?

[www.joystiq.com]

Anaralia

This rig is said to run Warhead on MAX, not the original Crysis... Warhead has been optimized to run flawlessly on weaker hardware, but the original title won't be playable at high settings on this PC!

henri1kk

I think its very nice they sell it with xp pro instead of vista. My sister´s computer came with vista and despite the point i tried everything possible to ramp up its performance and stability it still runs way worse than my 3 years old pc with xp on it even though she has a massively faster cpu,way better motherboard and tons more ram.
Pro vista speakers can try to sell it any way they want (such as showing ads where people should be cheated into thinking its a different os) but yeah,having seen that performance and stability difference first hand vista is still a bad joke.
It runs OK on a nice machine but when one knows how good that machine should actually run its really weak.
This is also not meant as MS bashing at all, next to Mac OS and some Linux versions (though those don´t count for the mass market as they are too low on easy usability side) Win XP is still one of my most liked OS. They just messed up with vista, hope they do better again with the next one.
Regarding directx 10 it actually has some nice features but those will never be maxed out as while it was hot and new not enough people upgraded it so developers only added things into the games in most cases which could also work on directx 9 and now directx11 is already shaping up (and if at all developers will go for that right away or stick to what the masses have for a while longer).
So yeah, good on crytek for not making anything vista "exclusive".

tomsamson

@Anaralia:
You're thinking of the 9600GSO, which is, quite literally just an 8800GS with a different sticker.

regnez

This is actually a pretty good idea. It might be successful, especially if they keep pumping out Crysis games. However, for a couple hundred dollars more you can pick up one of those Gateway FX laptops either in 15 inch or the more expensive 17 inch. They also have the 9800 although it's the mobile version. Yeah, I'm sure people will point out my post and laugh at the idea of a gaming laptop, but back in college mine was so incredibly useful. There was no such thing as a bad or pointless lecture because I could just load up some game.

BigDragon

@tomsamson: (such as showing ads where people should be cheated into thinking its a different os)

I absolutely hate the Mojave Experiment. It's pretty damned pathetic when the only way you can promote Vista is by fooling people into thinking it's a new operating system that's beyond Vista.

Admittedly, I run Vista Ultimate. But I don't game on my PC. Nor would I running Vista. I'm MCTS certified on Vista so I've had to learn all the tips and tricks for OS optimization; Even with all of them the performance pales on MOST games compared to a system of equal specs running XP Pro. Yay Microsoft for getting rid of the perfectly good Hardware Abstraction Layer and replacing it with bloated crap!

The sad thing is, I'm running Kalyway Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.2 on my Toshiba laptop Hackintosh and the more I use it the less I want to sit behind my Vista machine.

As for this machine in question, would I recommend it? It's a good price for a solid machine that can game (and run apps) well. Ignoring the Crysis claims (I don't honestly believe it would run Crysis as well as they're saying, not on High at 1440x900 or higher), this rig could play most recent releases very well and also be ready to play most upcoming releases very well. It also appears to be fairly expandable with current and future CPUs, so if someone asked my professional opinion, I'd tell them to go for it.

Captiosus

Hehe, I'm seeing the annoying "Games for Windows" logo there. More like "Games for Windows XP" now. Sweet justice.

lumpi

The 9800GT is a rebranded 8800GT.

This is a great price for a PC and I can build an equivalent for around $600 shipped, so the profit margin isn't that high (expect probably bulk sales on parts). Go Crytek!

Looks my first build of my PC, even, but I have an AMD 6000+, 2GB RAM and 8800GT SLI. Please, PLEASE let Warhead and the subsequent patch to Crysis make the game love and roll around in complete bliss with SLI.

Ken

@fraudbrand: My old X2 5000+ with a 8600GT ran the original Crysis at 25-30 FPS average on medium-high settings at 1280x720. The 9800GT is at least twice as powerful as that card and plus, Warhead is supposed to be better optimized.

I'm sure this can run it at 30FPS on 1280x1024, maybe even 1440x900.

I'd still build my own though... this is a good price compared to OEMs like Dell, but I could build one with a Q660, 4GB RAM, and an HD 4850 for $600-ish. Granted that wouldn't include the OS.

x3sphere

This is a good deal
It will run games very well
No more excuses

arcum

I dunno, I like my Vista box, runs Crysis at highest settings, even though Crysis is the STUPIDEST GAME EVER, and I didn't have to tweak it to get it to look good.

I upgraded to Vista a year after it came out, pre-sp1. I did it when I realized that for the first year, the only time we EVER got a Vista box in for service, it usually ended up being a hardware problem. I'd say 19 out of 20 systems I check in at the office are XP systems with Virus problems running some kind of scanner that's usually setup correctly, but still failed to catch whatever the person got.

I don't know I'm sure those who don't like Vista will never be convinced, but from a computer repair POV, it'll be a cold day in hell before I load up XP onto another one of my systems.

And hey, now I don't have to "tweak" the hell out of my games to make them look just as good as they do on Vista. Because I already have Vista. A-doy!

-A

p.s.-F*ck Win XP SP3, that "upgrade" s*cks balls.

Android8675

Haha...what a crap PC. There will be so many bottlenecks in that system, that Mobo is craptastic and will be the first part to fail.

DevCo

This will definitely compete with console sales.

neoraul20

I've been needing a new PC for a while... and now I might just get one!

...that means I'm buying this Crysis PC... just in case you didn't understand.

taduman

Used pricewatch and google to price these components, looks to be roughly $455 BEFORE OS, shipping, keyboard, mouse, and whatever support costs. Definitely well-priced for a gamer that wants to buy a machine to play games well on, that doesn't cost a fortune, and isn't building their own.

Cocytus

For that price I bet it wont play Crysis... Oh wait.

Abyss123

The new x200 cards from nVidia can run this with 1920x1200 resolution at 60 FPS.

And they can be had for less than $300 now with rebates.

EnigmaNemesis

Yet another shitstorm released by a blessingly ignorant console crowd. I said that with love. I told the same thing to my fiancee here other day.
Those are the specs you can get for about 500 US dollars if you know what to buy. Cheaper than the X-box or a PS3 in some countries.

Aeryss

@DavidFU: You don't need more than 2 gigs of ram to run Crysis flatout in XP, its only in bloatware Vista that 4 gigs will save you....as long as DX10 doesn't crash it first...

Motardboy

crysis is so boring, it just looks pretty but that doesnt really matter when ur game is watered down KAKA.

SPitFyRe666