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Yup, very early Alienware were Chieftec cases with a spray job I think. Then they started getting bigger so could afford injection moulding.
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May 2, 2022 17:05
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yeah they started out a little garish for the time but that's about it https://www.bestbuy.com/site/alienware-aurora-ddr-desktop-with-amd-athlon-xp-processor-2200-black/4835879.p?skuId=4835879   2005 poo poo's got a lot of plastic  there's this thing from 2014 - at this point it's all - "bigger is better so we're gonna take up space"   Anyway - RTX 4090 is supposed to be a 450 - 500W device, so if they still stick with the case design, ah. well. I'm surprised they weren't water cooling their GPUs already - especially for a Cost-No-Object brand. Coffee Jones fucked around with this message at 17:42 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 17:16
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Coffee Jones posted:there's this thing from 2014 - at this point it's all - "bigger is better so we're gonna take up space" God, that's just awful, though. The only intake is pointed at the back of the GPUs?? GN implied that they're reviewing another big OEM soon, I think maybe an HP Omen. I wonder how that performs these days. Hardware Canucks reviewed the 2020 one and recorded thermal throttling on the GPU, but their reviewer didn't understand the numbers and thought it was normal GPU behavior lmao. That was with a 2080 Ti, so a 3090 could be a disaster. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 17:42 on May 2, 2022 |
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May 2, 2022 17:39
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they stole that look from chieftec:
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May 2, 2022 17:44
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The ones I was specifically thinking about were the 2nd generation of alienware cases, these hideous things: They were pretty normal cases underneath the extra plastic. OTOH there were plenty of other hideous gamer cases in that era, many of which tried to be different using awful plastic panels with curved or angled bits all over. Every dang review started with "forget your old bland beige box from the 90s, this case has attitude!"
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May 2, 2022 17:46
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Coffee Jones posted:yeah they started out a little garish for the time but that's about it I guess I'm a middle aged IT guy because that case still looks pretty good to me quote:2005 poo poo's got a lot of plastic And that case is peak alienware to me. Normal full ATX tower with a bunch of swoopy plastic on it.
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May 2, 2022 17:50
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Klyith posted:The ones I was specifically thinking about were the 2nd generation of alienware cases, these hideous things: the full tower is cute with its alien eye vents
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May 2, 2022 17:50
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Klyith posted:The ones I was specifically thinking about were the 2nd generation of alienware cases, these hideous things: I unironically wanted one of these in that era. I was also like 13 years old and didn't know better, but still.
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May 2, 2022 17:53
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Warmachine posted:I unironically wanted one of these in that era. I was also like 13 years old and didn't know better, but still. Same and tbh its not like there was a ton of info out there on how to scratch build a PC, so you could very easily come a cropper loving up part selection. Like, it's not like it's meaningfully less difficult than it is today but the sheer volume of info out there to help newbies is orders of magnitude larger.
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May 2, 2022 18:02
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It wasn't an Alienware but I had a laptop in that exact same garish green in like 2008
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May 2, 2022 18:06
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Charles Leclerc posted:Same and tbh its not like there was a ton of info out there on how to scratch build a PC, so you could very easily come a cropper loving up part selection. I built a retro system with a pentium 3 and tried looking into water cooling an old slot 1 system, the information and products out there at the time were *terrible*.
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May 2, 2022 18:08
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mewse posted:I built a retro system with a pentium 3 and tried looking into water cooling an old slot 1 system, the information and products out there at the time were *terrible*. Lmao water cooling was hilariously janky looking back. I remember those Zalman Reserators being baller as hell.
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May 2, 2022 18:09
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gradenko_2000 posted:It wasn't an Alienware but I had a laptop in that exact same garish green in like 2008 Apple sold iPods in something very similar. It was the style in the day, when you carried an onion on your belt.
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May 2, 2022 18:20
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gradenko_2000 posted:It wasn't an Alienware but I had a laptop in that exact same garish green in like 2008 I unironically bought one of these lol 
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May 2, 2022 19:56
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Charles Leclerc posted:Like, it's not like it's meaningfully less difficult than it is today but the sheer volume of info out there to help newbies is orders of magnitude larger. I think it is definitely easier to build PCs today in ways other than good info on the internet, but it's a lot of small things: 1. You almost certainly have fewer parts to put together. 2. Physically putting stuff together is less frustrating in a lot of small ways. 3. You have a 2nd computer in your pocket to consult the internet / look up error codes. The damnedest part of building / upgrading a PC back in the day was often that step 1 was to make your current PC inoperative. (But for a lot of people, the biggest difference is that they're 15-20 years older than when they built their first PC, and just generally more patient. Impatience is the biggest fuckup producer of all.) Charles Leclerc posted:Lmao water cooling was hilariously janky looking back. I ran water cooling in the mid to late 2000s using an automotive heater core as the radiator, mounted outside the case. It was the most goddamn janky thing. Had a real swiftec pump rather than a converted aquarium pump though. And as I said in another thread: Klyith posted:The first modern tower heatpipe heatsinks came out less than a year after I bought all that poo poo. I kept using water for many years after out of sunk cost, but feeling increasingly stupid the whole time.
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May 2, 2022 20:02
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Charles Leclerc posted:I unironically bought one of these lol I had the non-Ferrari Centrino version of that, and it was a piece of poo poo. The specs were good but the build quality was appalling.
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May 2, 2022 20:08
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:Hardware Canucks reviewed the 2020 one and recorded thermal throttling on the GPU, but their reviewer didn't understand the numbers and thought it was normal GPU behavior lmao. That was with a 2080 Ti, so a 3090 could be a disaster. In so far as you can call a video sponsored by the manufacturer a review.
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May 2, 2022 20:49
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True, though in this case I don't think the reviewer was even aware he was BSing. He just thought that a steady 83C on the GPU core was normal, and buddy, that's the stock thermal throttle point for Turing GPUs (and Ampere). The frequency graph was going crazy too, as expected.
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May 2, 2022 20:55
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:they stole that look from chieftec: I had the Antec version of that case, it was a beast.
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May 2, 2022 21:16
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Thanks Ants posted:I had the non-Ferrari Centrino version of that, and it was a piece of poo poo. The specs were good but the build quality was appalling. The Ferrari version was as Ferrari as you would expect lol
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May 2, 2022 21:17
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LGR did a fun video on one of those: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9dlwebb04Y
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May 3, 2022 00:00
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I was in the Military, living in the dorms in 2002 and a guy I knew that played EverQuest got an Alienware machine and I thought it was the hottest poo poo ever. It was so loving cool. He could raid NTOV with particle effects on and not have to stare at the floor to get a good frame rate.
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May 3, 2022 02:05
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CitizenKain posted:I had the Antec version of that case, it was a beast. I'm still using a big Antec case. I built my PC in 2012. Yes, I'm poor.
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May 3, 2022 05:38
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BlankSystemDaemon posted:they stole that look from chieftec For what they were, at the time they were pretty good cases. As mentioned they were tanks. All steel. The case alone was pushing 25-30 pounds. Made going to LAN's a workout. Size wise, they were advertised as a "server tower", however by modern standards they are just a bit shorter than modern mid to full ATX cases. Plus they are a touch narrower (no cable management area). You would think the room inside would be easy to work with, but they ended up a mess due to no cable management. The removable hard drive cages were nice, for a bit. Since they came out inside the case, instead of sideways to it, your video card would interfere with one pretty quickly. It also didn't help that only one of the cages had a fan in front of it. Speaking of fans, it had 4, which was nice. They were all 80mm, and no dust filters at all. It didn't take long for everything to be coated. I ran one for a good 10 years though, but wouldn't consider something like it ever again.
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May 3, 2022 14:28
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The specific chassis is a Chenming, they were the OEM for Chieftec, Antec, and on and on. Lots of system integrators (like Alienware) used them back in the early aughts. I owned one (Antec SX1080 Plus, IIRC) and was happy to ditch it. Loud, lousy air movement, weighed as much as a boat anchor, and a pain to work in. A few weeks ago I found a brand new in box Lian Li PC-6077 for a very cheap price. This chassis, with a few mods, could easily be used for a modern build, because all of the bays are 5 1/4. Very easy to install 120mm fans on the front with no blockages, replace the two 80mm fans with Noctuas, and use a modular power supply with a minimal number of cables. Only downside is you can’t really fit a radiator into it without serious modification, but large tower air coolers should still be viable. Only real flaw is the utter lack of cable management, but it can be mitigated. Wish I had this case back in the day versus my stream of no-name steelies.
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May 3, 2022 14:51
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I wish Akasa (or whoever bought the trademark) would reboot the Eclipse 62. That chassis loving owned.
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May 3, 2022 15:40
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now's your chance, goons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLnNq-08giI live your dream job of running benchmarks for 40 hours a week.
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May 7, 2022 07:14
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I had a huge boner for the IBM aptiva desktops when I was a kid because it was the first non-beige PC case I can remember ever seeing
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May 7, 2022 11:48
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Why did the color beige get so big, anyway? I know one person who likes beige, the rest hardly ever think about it.
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May 7, 2022 13:00
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I think it's because it's close to white and white is notoriously difficult to colour match. These were machines for business so they were designed to be boring and functional.
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May 7, 2022 13:36
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It's actually because Germany and some other European countries mandated light-colored equipment in offices, and economies of scale kicked in and made it the only color you could get: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1skbgEGEn80
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May 7, 2022 13:46
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Mr.Radar posted:It's actually because Germany and some other European countries mandated light-colored equipment in offices, and economies of scale kicked in and made it the only color you could get: Even still, not all beige was the same. I remember beige cd-rom or 5.25" drives being off color to the beige of the case. When you could find them. Generally were white or black even though there really wasn't a matching case for it in most people's homes.
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May 7, 2022 14:09
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Mr.Radar posted:It's actually because Germany and some other European countries mandated light-colored equipment in offices, and economies of scale kicked in and made it the only color you could get: Huh, interesting! Though that doesn't explain why the particular, and very pervasive, shade of beige was a thing. "Light-value colors" could include a lot of other options. My pet theory for that particular shade of computer beige is that it's a good color to hide dust and cigarette smoke. The color pre-dates the PC by a long time -- minicomputers like a DEC VAX and terminals in the late 70s and 80s were that color of beige. This was when people smoked in the office. A white or cool grey shows that smoker tar way faster than the slightly-yellow beige color.
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May 7, 2022 14:16
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I always assumed beige was just the natural color of the plastics and companies didn’t want to waste money on dye.
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May 7, 2022 15:29
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I assumed a lot of companies just copied the shade IBM used.
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May 7, 2022 17:30
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I read something a while ago that said IBM chose the color to match what the corporate aesthetic was at the time and everyone else just ran with it.
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May 7, 2022 18:37
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Klyith posted:Huh, interesting! Though that doesn't explain why the particular, and very pervasive, shade of beige was a thing. "Light-value colors" could include a lot of other options. I worked IT in 2000. One of the offices what we did stuff for still allowed employees to smoke in the office, I loved it because I smoked so I could smoke while I was working but goddamn did I hate working on those loving gross rear end computers.
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May 7, 2022 19:09
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Mr.Radar posted:It's actually because Germany and some other European countries mandated light-colored equipment in offices, and economies of scale kicked in and made it the only color you could get: I had no luck finding independent verification of it ~5 years ago when I tried to back it up then, and similarly I've had absolutely no luck backing it up ever since, up to and including talking with people who were working in the IT industry. Mainframe-wise, West Germany universities had access to either IBM System/370s (which were the standard IBM mainframe black that they are to this day), or something like a Zuse Z23 (which was all over the place, color-scheme wise), or DEC systems like the PDP series that Unix was developed on. Micros, like the BBC Micro and the Commodore, similarily came in all shapes and colours, well into the 80s. By the time the PC rolled in during the mid-80s, with brands like Triumph-Adlers Alphatronic (not based on the Alpha architecture) and Olivetti as well as IBM PC were being sold (and at least one is an Italian brand, which is (still) a completely sovereign country and not in fact part of Germany). So I'm tempted to say that unless someone can find me this (West?) German workplace standard and quote it verbatim, I'm inclined to believe it about as much as I do the tooth fairy. I suspect it's one of those things where Tom Hardy either misremembered, or made up something that sounds vaguely plausible to a primarily-American audiences perceptions of Germans. EDIT: I sent Tom Hardy an email. BlankSystemDaemon fucked around with this message at 21:06 on May 7, 2022 |
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May 7, 2022 20:46
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Romes128 posted:I read something a while ago that said IBM chose the color to match what the corporate aesthetic was at the time and everyone else just ran with it. That fits, 1970s IBM had a loosened tie and a bottle of booze in the design office:   bring back the corporate aesthetic with the disco porn groove background track
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May 7, 2022 20:49
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I expect James Bond to bust through the ceiling, tear that place up, and
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May 8, 2022 00:07
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