Alienware announces dual-core Pentium EE 840 PCs

Miami (FL) - PC maker Alienware announced that it will be "soon" offering performance PCs based on Intel’s fastest dual-core Smithfield processor, the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840. The company expects the processors and PCs to be available in limited quantities initially.

Shortly after Dell’s Dimension XPS Gen5 announcement, Alienware now also has confirmed that it will be shipping performance PCs based on Intel’s dual-core Extreme Edition "soon." The companies as well as Intel declined to specify "soon", but according to media reports, an announcement for the dual-core chips and the PCs could be expected by the end of May.

Alienware will offer three different desktops, the more mainstream-like Area-51 5500 desktop, the MJ-12 5500 workstation as well as the Area-51 ALX enthusiast system. Alienware promises buyers of the new systems "breakthrough performance for gaming, digital content, and other demanding applications." Alienware however conceded that the new dual-core system won’t outrun the fastest single-core systems, as long as multithreaded applications are not available.

The systems are built on the 955X chipset and the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 840 (3.2 GHz) with 2 MByte L2 cache and 800 MHz FSB. The systems will be offered with supporting technologies such as DDR-2 667 memory. Alienware said that it will follow the dual-core transitioning path set by the processor manufacturers and expects to be dual-cores to be available in limited quantities at their introduction.

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