Crysis Warhead PC explained: pic, specs, price (updated)
[Update: EA has sent out final details on the PC. The full specs are as follows:
- CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 @2.66GHz
- Video card: Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB
- Motherboard: G31 mATX
- RAM: 2GB
- Other components: 250GB 7200RPM hard drive, 16X DVD-ROM drive, network adapter, integrated Realtek audio, keyboard, mouse, Ultra X-Blaster ATX Mid-Tower case, one-year parts & labor warranty
Prospective buyers can sign up for updates over here.]
Original story: About a month ago, I reported that EA was planning to market a Crysis Warhead-ready PC. I have now learned that the machine—which, at least among the Crytek staff that specced it out, is called the “Warhead PC”—will be officially announced next week.
In my original post, I pegged the price to be between $600 and $800; as it turns out, it’s almost exactly in between, at $699, and it will apparently be coming in a single SKU. It will be sold by UltraPC, and unveiled by EA. Crytek, Nvidia, EA, and UltraPC were all involved.
I spoke with Crysis franchise producer Bernd Diemer, who explained the history behind the machine. ”When we started working on Warhead, we decided performance was a big issue,” he said. “So we said, ‘Guys, we’re going to build a PC which has a maximum price of six or seven hundred dollars, and it has to run Warhead in high spec at an average framerate of 30.’ We built that PC—Crytek in the Budapest office [where Warhead was developed]—and we put it in the middle of the studio, and every review was on that machine. All the milestone presentations we did for EA, for the Yerlies [founding brothers Cevat, Avni, and Faruk], for the team, all the new prototypes, we showed on that machine.”
Eventually, they began referring to it as “the Warhead PC,” and used it as a way to force efficiency and optimization: if frames were dropping on the Warhead PC on a high graphics level, the team would tweak the game to better scale to the hardware. (I can attest to the results, having played through a full level today and being impressed by the consistent framerate and visuals, before being told it was a “Warhead PC.”)
“For us, it was really helpful, because we sort of had a hard cap,” Diemer told me. “You couldn’t say, ‘It works on my computer, looks great on my machine.’ No no no, this is the benchmark, guys. If it sucks on this, the whole thing sucks. For us as a team, that was really valuable. We had a tangible border we could bump our heads into.”
The Crytek team originally planned simply to give the Warhead PC’s specs to EA to use for the recommended requirements, but eventually Nvidia got involved and it became clear that there was no reason that such a machine couldn’t simply be sold straight to consumers looking for an easy entry (or re-entry) into PC gaming.
Though I don’t have every nitty gritty hardware detail, I did get the machine’s most important specs:
- CPU: Intel Core Duo e7300 (@2.66GHz)
- Video card: Nvidia 9800GT
- RAM: 2GB
I snapped a picture of the Warhead PC I used today. It had no external branding, and it wasn’t clear whether the final version (which can be preordered next week and will ship alongside Crysis Warhead on September 16) will, although a Crysis-themed desktop background will be preloaded. It’s a visually conservative rig, but I appreciated that there weren’t a dozen obnoxious blue neon lights swirling visibly through a plexiglass window—we’ll see what the shipping machine brings.
As Diemer was sure to point out, ”EA’s not getting into the hardware business, and Crytek isn’t either.” Rather, the companies are trying to practically combat the idea that to play high-end PC games at high levels of detail, you need to spend in excess of a thousand dollars. “The biggest thing for us is convenience,” Diemer added. “We want to make PC gaming convenient.”
Tags: crysis, crytek, electronic arts, pc gaming, warhead pc
September 6th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
What resolution were they running the game at? That sort of thing would be good to know considering how many people out there are using LCDs and would presumably want to play at its native resolution.
September 6th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
MAXIMUM price of six or seven hundred dollars
September 7th, 2008 at 3:53 am
[...] [Update: For the full scoop on this story, including final price and specs, check out this update.] [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 6:05 am
[...] (source) [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 8:14 am
[...] “For us as a team, that was really valuable,” franchise producer Bernd Diemer told Chris Remo. “We had a tangible border we could bump our heads [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 8:16 am
[...] with that ultra shmecksy Chris Remo, Crysis producer Bernd Diemer explained the positives of working on a game with a specific PC in [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Hmm been looking to buy a new PC for a while now, one that plays Crysis at high would be excellent. Will these be available in the UK? If so you’ve got at least 1 customer. I love this idea of actually telling people what systems will run your game at a decent level. I’d say a majority of games have no real clue how to navigate the sea of confusing specs and requirements. I know a guy who pirated a game once just to see if it worked on his PC, it did so he bought it, no harm done :)
More of the same Crytek!
September 8th, 2008 at 11:43 am
So as the owner of a Q6700 and a 9800 gx2, this tells me that this game is a waste of my money because the graphics will have to suck to be able to play on that low end of a machine. I bought Cysis when it came out and I had to turn the graphics down to run it well. When I got my gx2, I turned the graphics up. So what good is Warhead if it has last generations graphics?
Can run Crysis at full? Turn the settings down, stupid. How hard is that?
B
September 8th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Bernie, clearly you don’t know what the work ‘optimization’ means.
They didn’t say they were scaling back on the graphics, merely they went back and optimized their code…
September 8th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Is there any word on if this computer will include either game? Seems like that would be the sensible thing to do, but then that might be too good to be true…
September 8th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
“They didn’t say they were scaling back on the graphics, merely they went back and optimized their code…”
It doesn’t say that either, it says they ‘tweaked the game”. It remains to be seen (for those of us who haven’t played it yet) what compromises have been made to image quality in order to achieve their performance goals.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I played the game at PAX, and it’s every bit as beautiful as the original was.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
[...] Source [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
[...] Chris Remo Blog vía Joystiq addthis_url = [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
[...] some point. With Warhead’s release only a week away, it looks like the involved parties are finally ready to talk specifics, along with some history about how this idea came [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I’d really like to know what other parts are in this thing and what it will come with before I make my critique.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
[...] computer. To prove this statement they are going to release a $699 computer called the Warhead PC. The rumor is this machine will contain an intel dual core chip and a Nvidia 9800GT video card. [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 6:15 am
[...] Ynt: CrySis: Warhead Crysis Warhead’i High’da oynamak i
September 9th, 2008 at 6:58 am
[...] the team used this computer as dev kits when working on the game. More info can be found here. And here are some basic [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 9:45 am
[...] Chris Remo followed up this week on his report from July that Electronic Arts was developing a desktop to coincide with [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 11:23 am
I bet I could build a Crysis “High” capable PC for less than that. You can buy 8800GTs now for $130 and that card was more than acceptable for getting “High” settings on the original Crysis.
I ran my year old 8800GTX at Very High from start to finish with no problems and a very playable framerate of around 30 FPS at 1280×1024. That game played VERY well at that framerate. I still don’t get what all the indignation is about over that game and the system requirements. Yeah, it takes more juice than most games but it is very playable even on contemporary $150 graphics cards. Do you want games that are scalable or do you want games that are maxed out the day you buy them?
I also take issue with the idea that the game isn’t optimized. On exactly what basis are you saying that the code isn’t optimized? Given the amount of detail that they attempted with that game I don’t see how it is a big suprise that it is going to be a little resource needy. The draw distances and level of detail are incredibly ambitious. Of course they can and will improve, but I supsect that most performance increases in Warhead will simply be by reducing scene complexity in the least intrusive ways possible.
September 9th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
I think it is pathetic that they are using a micro ATX motherboard. The video card is from a mostly discontinued series, the processor is the E7300, which is about the same price as the E8200 now (price drops, remember), the RAM specs aren’t listed, but I bet it’ll be Kingston Value Ram or something of that sort.. the video card’s GPU will probably be from a chipset maker that is little-known, which offers a bad warranty (not lifetime = bad, doesn’t cover overclocking = bad), and will probably run hot.
Beyond those things, what OS will this thing be running out of the box? Will it even have an OS? Will it even have.. a box? O.O
On the non-pessimistic side of things, this is a neat idea. I just wish there were a few more details in the case which would appeal to the eye, or be easily customizable (a small window perhaps, or some decaling.. or a window with etching/decaling.. or even ‘custom’ fan grills with the crysis or EA logo or something).
September 9th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
[...] Read - Article on Warhead PC’s developmentRead - Tiger Direct content page [...]
September 9th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
[...] on an exact release date, but for $699 it’s not a bad deal — and hey, it plays Crysis.[Via CNET]Read - Article on Warhead PC’s developmentRead - Tiger Direct info pagePermalink | Email [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 12:04 am
[...] development: on his personal blog, journalist Chris Remo reports that “the Warhead PC” was used as a constant benchmark for the game’s [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 12:32 am
[...] Read - Article on Warhead PC’s developmentRead - Tiger Direct info page [...]
September 10th, 2008 at 3:53 am
[...] Read full article here [...]
September 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
[...]Raiden says:
I think it is pathetic that they are using a micro ATX motherboard. The video card is from a mostly discontinued series, the processor is the E7300, which is about the same price as the E8200 now (price drops, remember), the RAM specs aren’t listed, but I bet it’ll be Kingston Value Ram or something of that sort.. the video card’s GPU will probably be from a chipset maker that is little-known, which offers a bad warranty (not lifetime = bad, doesn’t cover overclocking = bad), and will probably run hot.[...]
If that’s the Warehead PC, then that would be incredible. Meaning that quite alot of us with Good PCs can actually run Crysis on high or very high, even with some AA :P
October 28th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Sorry, but even with that moderately spec’ed PC you’ll still have to play the game with a res of 1024×768 all medium to get decent FPS (25-32 average). It needs a 4870 or GTX260 to keep average frame rates in excess of 30 with some settings at high (still no AA).