Alienware: Gaming PCs Are Hitting a Performance Wall

The last place I would expect to hear even a glimmer of doubt about the performance potential of gaming PCs would be Alienware. Yet Alienware’s Marc Diana spills that 32-bit machines just aren’t cutting it at the pure performance level anymore, saying that faster chips with more cores aren’t the solution: 64-bit systems are the real fire. He castigates the rest of the industry for not stepping up, noting that Alienware doesn’t actually offer 64-bit systems because driver support sucks, at best.

For one, it’d let Alienware do things like offer more than 4GB of RAM (32-bit systems only support up to 4GB). Speaking of RAM, something else I wouldn’t expect out of Alienware’s performance-at-all-costs mouth is that high performance DDR3 RAM actually isn’t worth the premium pricepoint: “It is the highest-performing memory now on the market. But I’m not so sure it’s quite there yet. The cost is very high… Six months from now it will start making a lot more sense (economically) than it does right now.” And that’s why PC gaming sales have been dropping precipitously vs. console sales over the last few years. It just costs too much to stay ahead. [CNet]