Razer's "Project Christine" Combines PC Power With Console Simplicity

[An Ceannaire]

console simplicity. what a load.

pc building nowadays is already as easy as it can get.

you literally have to stick the corresponding components in the slots that they specifically can only fit in.
http://i.imgur.com/DlkEtqy.gif

its just a racket with stylish junk that will be most likely only function with the companies own endorsed hardware upgrades.

PC master race much? Some people who know very little about the internals of computers would find building their own PC to be a very daunting task. Also, setting a game up on a console is far easier than on a PC - it's just a case of sticking in the disk or clicking on the appropriate icon post-download, and you're away, with an almost guarantee that the game will work perfectly first time. Say what you want, but that's not the case with PC gaming most the time. Some people don't want to be messing around with files and graphical settings - they just want to play a game.

Source: I'm a Console and PC gamer.

 

[FalloutJack]

Of course it's going to cost a hell of a lot, it's from Razer, the masters of slapping lights on conventional hardware and jacking the price up to near-Apple levels.

"We'll sell you a mousepad for $15 because it has LEDs on it."
"Here's a $90 mouse because it glooooows!"
"This isn't a normal keyboard, it's GAMING keyboard. You can tell because it lights up."

Razer is becoming the new Alienware, which is sad because two of my friends shelled out for two of their mice ranging from £70-80, I can't see myself ever spending that much on a mouse let alone a keyboard.

Though the model does look beautiful and futuristic, there's no doubt that it's going to cost an arm and a leg so only a few are going to be able to afford such a thing, again which is sad since I could see a lot of us wanting a piece of that at affordable prices.

Speaking through an Alienware laptop, I should like to point out that I find my machine's performance dreamlike and ecstacy in compact form. One traditionally waits to see how a machine performs before speculating as such. All my friends recommended Alienware to me because in their experience it was worth having.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

console simplicity. what a load.

pc building nowadays is already as easy as it can get.

you literally have to stick the corresponding components in the slots that they specifically can only fit in.
http://i.imgur.com/DlkEtqy.gif

its just a racket with stylish junk that will be most likely only function with the companies own endorsed hardware upgrades.

PC master race much? Some people who know very little about the internals of computers would find building their own PC to be a very daunting task. Also, setting a game up on a console is far easier than on a PC - it's just a case of sticking in the disk or clicking on the appropriate icon post-download, and you're away, with an almost guarantee that the game will work perfectly first time. Say what you want, but that's not the case with PC gaming most the time. Some people don't want to be messing around with files and graphical settings - they just want to play a game.

Source: I'm a Console and PC gamer.

I'd also like to step in and vouch.

A close friend of mine couldn't for the life of him play battlefield badCompany 2 because his screen went black when he tried to play the game. He knew nothing of what to do and neither did I at the time, we looked around some forums and found next to nothing until we stumbled upon an obscure forum that instructs having to go into the games files and change the games support settings from Direct X11 to Direct X9.

The two of us had absolutely no idea that his GPU could not support DX11 and there was no clear indication given by what had happened. Fair enoguh after he'd changed the file it started to work fine, right up until he wanted to play multiplayer and found the servers had nothing to show, I tried the game and I found many servers up and running.

The third friend we had with us luckily pointed out if the 2nd friend had updated his "punk buster" software and the 2nd friend just looked at us in confusion, I will not blame him at all for feeling confused like that since I've been there many a time.

He downloaded the software from Punks website and after tinkering around after installing it he was eventually able to hop right into battle for the rest of the weekend.

Now I will say now that An Ceannaire you are indeed correct, it is much and far more simpler to just pop in the disc/download to play the game and I'm a console and PC gamer, I can understand what's simple and what's not, for my friends and myself.

hell I still need my thrid friends advice on my next build just to barely manage 2014's games since I don't even have nearly enough money to get what will be needed in order to enjoy the fruits of a good PC.

I'm looking at £400+ just for the current CPU+mobo+case my friend has, I'll be lucky to even wonder if I can use my spare RAM (if the sticks even work that is) to keep me up to date.

I will say though PC gaming/putting a rig together is not universally easy, not by a long shot, if any says otherwise then you're going to have a massive long life spanning journey ahead of you, a small number of stats is not good enough to imply simplicity if everyone isn't on board.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Of course it's going to cost a hell of a lot, it's from Razer, the masters of slapping lights on conventional hardware and jacking the price up to near-Apple levels.

"We'll sell you a mousepad for $15 because it has LEDs on it."
"Here's a $90 mouse because it glooooows!"
"This isn't a normal keyboard, it's GAMING keyboard. You can tell because it lights up."

Razer is becoming the new Alienware, which is sad because two of my friends shelled out for two of their mice ranging from £70-80, I can't see myself ever spending that much on a mouse let alone a keyboard.

Though the model does look beautiful and futuristic, there's no doubt that it's going to cost an arm and a leg so only a few are going to be able to afford such a thing, again which is sad since I could see a lot of us wanting a piece of that at affordable prices.

Speaking through an Alienware laptop, I should like to point out that I find my machine's performance dreamlike and ecstacy in compact form. One traditionally waits to see how a machine performs before speculating as such. All my friends recommended Alienware to me because in their experience it was worth having.

Basically the "don't knock it until you try it" approach is what you're saying here isn't it?.

It works for you like a dream so that means it's well worth it's price tag and as such would be well worth for me?.

My friends still recommend I buy a naga, I told them to go buy me one if they're up for spending £60 on me because I sure as hell ain't forking out for a mouse that costs more than £20.

I'll point out that I'm that guy that doesn't and won't want to spend more than £20-30 on Keyboard and mice peripherals, I see them as controls and controls only, nothing special and I don't need fancy lights or any bells and whistles no matter how amazing and futuristic they might sound.

 

[FalloutJack]

Of course it's going to cost a hell of a lot, it's from Razer, the masters of slapping lights on conventional hardware and jacking the price up to near-Apple levels.

"We'll sell you a mousepad for $15 because it has LEDs on it."
"Here's a $90 mouse because it glooooows!"
"This isn't a normal keyboard, it's GAMING keyboard. You can tell because it lights up."

Razer is becoming the new Alienware, which is sad because two of my friends shelled out for two of their mice ranging from £70-80, I can't see myself ever spending that much on a mouse let alone a keyboard.

Though the model does look beautiful and futuristic, there's no doubt that it's going to cost an arm and a leg so only a few are going to be able to afford such a thing, again which is sad since I could see a lot of us wanting a piece of that at affordable prices.

Speaking through an Alienware laptop, I should like to point out that I find my machine's performance dreamlike and ecstacy in compact form. One traditionally waits to see how a machine performs before speculating as such. All my friends recommended Alienware to me because in their experience it was worth having.

Basically the "don't knock it until you try it" approach is what you're saying here isn't it?.

It works for you like a dream so that means it's well worth it's price tag and as such would be well worth for me?.

My friends still recommend I buy a naga, I told them to go buy me one if they're up for spending £60 on me because I sure as hell ain't forking out for a mouse that costs more than £20.

I'll point out that I'm that guy that doesn't and won't want to spend more than £20-30 on Keyboard and mice peripherals, I see them as controls and controls only, nothing special and I don't need fancy lights or any bells and whistles no matter how amazing and futuristic they might sound.

Actually, I wasn't aware of their stylish appeal until I finally got down to the business of the buying. The recommendation was purely towards what I wanted: Performance. It's a laptop for gaming, it surfs the net well, it operates the utilities needed for my writing habits, and so on. Your friends might be trying to hit you with peer pressure, but I came to them, stated what I needed, compared with the equivalent Dell (same company, mind), and made a decision. The point is that you do what works for you and don't knock other people's choices when they're just fine.

 

[Weaver]

If only a company that wasn't Razer was doing this (like ASUS or EVGA) I'd be really exited. That, or we can slot in our own components in those little modules they have.

This actually kind of reminds me of that case Thermaltake made:
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00001903

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Actually, I wasn't aware of their stylish appeal until I finally got down to the business of the buying. The recommendation was purely towards what I wanted: Performance. It's a laptop for gaming, it surfs the net well, it operates the utilities needed for my writing habits, and so on. Your friends might be trying to hit you with peer pressure, but I came to them, stated what I needed, compared with the equivalent Dell (same company, mind), and made a decision. The point is that you do what works for you and don't knock other people's choices when they're just fine.

I'm not knocking them for wasting their money on what they wanted, I don't want to throw my own money at mice+keyboards that are as expensive as those, I know what I want from them and have for years, them trying to tell me the Nagas are amazing does nothing for me to want one and never will.

But I'll just say that last point of yours would do solid justice for those wanting to stick to consoles, even though you see a lot of people here throwing the "PC's are master race/easier to build/simple/better/superior" cards, my friends could say just that about the Naga and be wrong because my K+M work just fine for me just like a console will because I'd be content.

 

[FalloutJack]

Actually, I wasn't aware of their stylish appeal until I finally got down to the business of the buying. The recommendation was purely towards what I wanted: Performance. It's a laptop for gaming, it surfs the net well, it operates the utilities needed for my writing habits, and so on. Your friends might be trying to hit you with peer pressure, but I came to them, stated what I needed, compared with the equivalent Dell (same company, mind), and made a decision. The point is that you do what works for you and don't knock other people's choices when they're just fine.

I'm not knocking them for wasting their money on what they wanted, I don't want to throw my own money at mice+keyboards that are as expensive as those, I know what I want from them and have for years, them trying to tell me the Nagas are amazing does nothing for me to want one and never will.

But I'll just say that last point of yours would do solid justice for those wanting to stick to consoles, even though you see a lot of people here throwing the "PC's are master race/easier to build/simple/better/superior" cards, my friends could say just that about the Naga and be wrong because my K+M work just fine for me just like a console will because I'd be content.

Oh, I understand. I'm one of those console guys. I just branched out to get a good laptop. I can understand if you want to get a cheaper 'insert product here that doesn't necessarily affect performance' for whatever. The mouse I started with was just a hold-over from the old computer and the new one was a gift. The truth is I still find many PC games hard to control, the complaint that either side would have about its opposite. Funny, no?

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Oh, I understand. I'm one of those console guys. I just branched out to get a good laptop. I can understand if you want to get a cheaper 'insert product here that doesn't necessarily affect performance' for whatever. The mouse I started with was just a hold-over from the old computer and the new one was a gift. The truth is I still find many PC games hard to control, the complaint that either side would have about its opposite. Funny, no?

Oh i'd agree, at the moment I am in search of a mouse that's slightly bigger than mine with a slight simple yet enlarged middle button (it's mostly my knife key in most FPS games), I myself still find some games hard to control with a mouse (which was why I originally wanted to play BF:BC2 with my 360 gamepad but alas could not) and some games using K+M make me feel like I'm driving a tank which is why i'm thankful some games have gamepad support.

 

[Deathfish15]

I'll chime in and say that besides being from Razor -an incredibly expensive company-, the design is completely awful when it comes to true customization. You'd have to order parts specifically designed for the modules and no other company's would fit in.

Another issue is that there is no airflow design to this other than them being spaced separately (in tightly packed plastic thingies). My case right now has 2 front fans pulling air in, a fan out the back, a fan out the top, the PSU's fan out the bottom, the CPU fan out the side, and an extra side vent as well. That is cooling power....the crazy thing shown in the video looks like a freakish console with removable drives. It's a console I tells you! Don't let Razor turn the PC into consoles!

 

[J Tyran]

Speaking through an Alienware laptop, I should like to point out that I find my machine's performance dreamlike and ecstacy in compact form. One traditionally waits to see how a machine performs before speculating as such. All my friends recommended Alienware to me because in their experience it was worth having.

Whilst I don't doubt that you feel you are getting a good user experience at the end of the day Alienware are products are bad value, you paid top dollar for components that are subpar for the laptops price bracket. Alienware machines are repackaged Dell machines, you bought a Ford with a BMW badge and price tag, mutton for the price of lamb.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with a Ford and lamb can be perfectly tasty I wouldn't want to be ripped off, there are any number of ultrabooks by other manufacturers with equal or better performance where you will get what you paid for.

 

[Hoplon]

It looks like a bunch of prothean stasis pods.

Each component self contained and water cooled? The idea is a lot more compelling to me than that of a Steam Machine. Fully modular PC? Yes please. But it will cost an arm and a leg. So no, thanks.

I absolutely love the idea that you can have a motherboard that uses a PCI-e slot instead of a CPU socket. I'm surprised that we're only getting something like that now.

Not water cooled, oil cooled.

I have to admit i have no idea why you would think a CPU would be better off in a PCI-e slot give that just yet another gap between it and the hardware.

You want less gaps.

I'll chime in and say that besides being from Razor -an incredibly expensive company-, the design is completely awful when it comes to true customization. You'd have to order parts specifically designed for the modules and no other company's would fit in.

Another issue is that there is no airflow design to this other than them being spaced separately (in tightly packed plastic thingies). My case right now has 2 front fans pulling air in, a fan out the back, a fan out the top, the PSU's fan out the bottom, the CPU fan out the side, and an extra side vent as well. That is cooling power....the crazy thing shown in the video looks like a freakish console with removable drives. It's a console I tells you! Don't let Razor turn the PC into consoles!

Air flow is a non issue, it's oil cooled. The modules would be freakishly expensive though, probably twice as much.

 

[Yuuki]

I'd also like to step in and vouch.

A close friend of mine couldn't for the life of him play battlefield badCompany 2 because his screen went black when he tried to play the game. He knew nothing of what to do and neither did I at the time, we looked around some forums and found next to nothing until we stumbled upon an obscure forum that instructs having to go into the games files and change the games support settings from Direct X11 to Direct X9.

The two of us had absolutely no idea that his GPU could not support DX11 and there was no clear indication given by what had happened. Fair enoguh after he'd changed the file it started to work fine, right up until he wanted to play multiplayer and found the servers had nothing to show, I tried the game and I found many servers up and running.

The third friend we had with us luckily pointed out if the 2nd friend had updated his "punk buster" software and the 2nd friend just looked at us in confusion, I will not blame him at all for feeling confused like that since I've been there many a time.

He downloaded the software from Punks website and after tinkering around after installing it he was eventually able to hop right into battle for the rest of the weekend.

Now I will say now that An Ceannaire you are indeed correct, it is much and far more simpler to just pop in the disc/download to play the game and I'm a console and PC gamer, I can understand what's simple and what's not, for my friends and myself.

hell I still need my thrid friends advice on my next build just to barely manage 2014's games since I don't even have nearly enough money to get what will be needed in order to enjoy the fruits of a good PC.

I'm looking at £400+ just for the current CPU+mobo+case my friend has, I'll be lucky to even wonder if I can use my spare RAM (if the sticks even work that is) to keep me up to date.

I will say though PC gaming/putting a rig together is not universally easy, not by a long shot, if any says otherwise then you're going to have a massive long life spanning journey ahead of you, a small number of stats is not good enough to imply simplicity if everyone isn't on board.

Huh, I guess that would've been a bit of a nightmare to get working.

I personally would've figured most of that out in just a few minutes, but I've had my head buried in PC gaming for years. Troubleshooting and fixing issues is almost EXPECTED, tweaking config files and updating Punkbuster is quite common across many games

It's refreshing to hear to see an outsider's view on it :S

 

[iseko]

I never understood this pc master race thing. And Im a pc gamer. I think consoles have many benefits over pc's and vice versa. The reason why I play on a pc (laptop to be exact) is because I like rpg's, rts and fps. Guess which of the three sucks on consoles. One thing I do hate is franchises that start out as a pc exclusive and the next installment is also on console. Controls man controls. I fucking hate radials.

Also I like being able to do everything on one piece of hardware. Work and play. Also I can easily take it everywhere with me. This is only true for a laptop mind you.

As for assembling... Im not a pc specialist but I know the basics and I learned them myself. The hardest part is picking out the parts. Assembling is easy as fuck. Its literally idiot prove. Your cpu only fits in one slot. The same goes for ram and gpu. Everything can only fit in one kind of slot in one particular way.

Picking out the parts is hard Ill give you that. A lot of people say: just look at the benchmarks. Benchmarks only say so much. What other hardware was used in them for example? A lot of people say: just go for a last generation i7 processor. Yea... No thanks. Give me the i5 any day. And since its on a laptop I like it at a low cloacking speed. Give me a hd chipset for when Im just working and a gpu that switches on for gaming. The problem is which gpu? I ended up with the 750m. Most importantly for me: it needs a ssd drive. Regular 5400 rpm hard drives are slower then a turd making its way through a funnel. Lastly: full hd is a must.

With all these requirements I searched the internet and I found a laptop that caters to MY specific needs. However this will be total shit for someone else.

Conclusion: pc's give you more freedom to have just what U need depending on yhe budget you have. Consoles are easy, simple and completely uncostumizable and good for only one thing. Pick whatever floats your boat

 

[Jaximus Decimus]

I bet this thing would be insanely quiet. If it can truly do what they're saying it will be able to and the components aren't ridiculously marked up it would probably save me money over the long-run.

Every CPU upgrade I've ever made has required a new mobo. This generally persuades me to just build an entirely new rig. I don't know why, I just figure if I have to rebuild the entire thing anyway I might as well get all new/better components. What should be a $300-400 upgrade turns into a complete $1500+ machine. Happens to me every time.

If, for say, the next 10 years all I ever have to swap out are CPU's and GPU's, maybe add some RAM and storage, this would almost have to save me money. Even if it ends up costing about the same, it looks really cool and I'm easily swayed by such things.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well it certainly looks good and seem like a good idea at the outset.
But when you go into the details things aren't so peachy, because one thing Razor isn't known for is reasonable pricing and this PC being so unique it means the only component provider will ever be Razor, as in they will be controlling what you buy, when and at what price... absolutely no other options.
Also while CPU on PCI-E is modular and certainly very welcome with Intel switching sockets every time there is a week in the month, at the same time it moves your main production factory 10 miles down the road of all support structures, which adds massive latency to all communication.

Doesn't hurt to have in on the market for others to catch on but until such a time comes this for anything other then show-boating is a bad purchase.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

Huh, I guess that would've been a bit of a nightmare to get working.

I personally would've figured most of that out in just a few minutes, but I've had my head buried in PC gaming for years. Troubleshooting and fixing issues is almost EXPECTED, tweaking config files and updating Punkbuster is quite common across many games

It's refreshing to hear to see an outsider's view on it :S

It was for him and while I've had my fair share over the past few years I can't say I've enjoyed any of them, I'm the type that doesn't want to tweak and tinker since I expect what I buy to function.

If I run into a hardware related problem of course I'll try to look up the best solutions I can find but damn skippy am I going to be grouchy as hell trying to fix certain problems and I never really feel that "wow I just fixed the problem I feel the achievement" kind of guy =P.

My friend wasn't too happy about those two slight problems either but you'd think in this day and age we'd have less and less faults and more automated fixes (not hardware related of course).

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Wait, individual liquid cooled modules? Sounds incredibly expensive and more painful than just running water blocks to every hot running component. Either you'd have to drain the thing to change out a component or they will have some quick disconnect couplings that seal when removed, which are kinda pricey and still would drip a little juice that was between the two seals. Also, if they use an oil for the coolant, like what someone above said, it's gonna add more to the price since the seals, tubing, and pump have to deal with its chemistry and density. I've read build logs of guys making awesome oil cooled PCs, but they had to find materials that the oil didn't eat away and pumps that didn't burn out pushing the heavy liquid. I also wonder about signal errors and latency on things like the ram and video cards. Unless they are making proprietary ram sticks and video cards, I don't think what looks like basically a lot of riser cables can be really good at system stability.

This thing isn't a Steam Box or a console replacement. It's a rich boy toy for the posers that say they build their own when they just order it ready made from those custom built pc sites. Razer does make decent budget gaming mice, but everything else they make from keyboards and high end mice to that dumb tablet with the weird controller add on costs way too much for the build quality that goes into them. It would be nice if companies agreed on a standard for this system so prices could drop and more people got into pc building. But for now, I'll stick to saving up for some water cooling parts to put in my TJ-07.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

-massive snip-

I was wondering when I was going to tango in the eventual retort.

I don't require the use of a "build it yourself" website, I've seen many a video on youtube to build your own desktop and a lot of them have not interested me (should they?, am I supposed to want to by common thought shared through some hive mind?).

I've already got the mobo,CPU and Case sorted, what I should have said is that I have money issues at the moment of having to pay rent,feed both myself and pets along with all the other bills, I already have RAM and all the other pieces currently that are still of use.

I'm not willing to go for anything less because if I'm to upgrade my rig further it has to go further not what you'd personally think is the way to go, nor a video on youtube.

I know PC's can be put together in many a different manner but you seem to think we're thinking from the middle ages.

I would love to ask you to personally fly all the way to my island to teach my would be interested folks on how to build their own while at the same time making sure they know 100% on what they are doing (I'll throw the hint that build it yourself websites won't help but confuse them more, trust me they are confused as high hell when they visit Amazon).

As for my GPU updates I have Geforce taking care of that, once again I see what you're trying to do for me but I already know this but not everyone does, not everyone will accept this as simple but by all means go ahead and continue.

I think my having this odd tango (either I'm a lying heathen heretic or I'd struck a personal quirky nerve) has left me wanting to bow out since I've said all I have to say and I know which route this is going (debated all the way down until there's one clear only winner of course per the Escapist).

Thanks for trying to be of assistance though, I'm covered on what I'm doing and I teach my folks day by day about computers and help manage theirs but it's not an easy feat when they don't care much and can't take it all in and I know they're not alone because I've been there before.