WidowPC Gaming Computers - Awards and Press

Lately we have received a lot of attention in the press. However, before the press picked up on us we were providing extreme performance computer hardware for many well known institutions and elite individuals including (in no particular order):

Dansko Shoes
Sony
Naughty Dog Studios
Flying Lab Studios
Penny-Arcade
Impending Studios
Nicholas Labs
Lockheed Martin
Northrop Grumman
Department of Defense
Defense Computer Investigations Training Program
Hewlett Packard
There.com
Multiple U.S. Army classified "black ops" programs
U.S. Marine Corps
Atomic Games
Jonathan Davis, lead singer for Korn
The Heinz Family
and many more, to whom we are equally thankful for choosing WidowPC.

Within the past year the press seems to have noticed WidowPC. Below are some examples. Please contact us if you notice other members of the media mentioning WidowPC.

WidowPC Recent Awards & Press

A huge thanks to Stephen, Michael, Bill, Kyle, Shaun, Doug, Greg, Mike, Ryan and everyone else on Team Widow who helped get this system to PC Gamer Magazine. With only a couple days to get it out the door, several people worked on Saturday to get it out on time.  This was a big effort by the whole team and resulted in a big win and showed the magazine what kind of work we do for our customers on a regular basis.  We received an "Excellent" - the highest possible score - on their chart.  This is a big win and the score publicly highlights the excellence Widow delivers! 

The 64 bit architecture of the processor, combined with the multiple threads of native 64 bit instruction sets, layered on top of the 64 bit operating system allowed us to bake a gaming system that proved its a tasty treat for gamers. With gaming performance scores that were out of this world, record breakers for PCGamer, what kind of gamer would order up anything different. I mean 32 bit is so 2006!   Most modern games are now programmed for a 64 bit instruction set.  This means that Vista 64 bit will run the game much faster than the 32 bit flavor.

You can read more about this award here.

Laptop Magazine Editors Choice Award 03.06 Product: Sting 517M Gaming Laptop

The WidowPC Sting 517m is designed for gamers who need all-out performance in a design they can take out of the house without getting a hernia. For $2,395, you get a system that plows through any 3D title, thanks to Nvidia's latest and greatest graphics card, plus a stunning 17-inch display.

At 9.4 pounds and measuring 15.6 x 11.6 x 2.1 inches, the 517m isn't as light as the 8.6-pound Dell XPS M170, but it's a lot more portable than many other gaming notebooks that tip the scales at 13 pounds. This silver system is pretty sleek, with a brushed metal cover and a design that tapers towards the front. The one-touch CD controls on the front panel (for music playback without booting into Windows) and a bright orange display that displays basic track information add to this system's appeal.

Our MobileMark 2005 tests revealed this notebook's power. A score over 200 is very good, but the 517m nearly reached 300. Whether we were rotating images in Photoshop, recalculating spreadsheets in Excel, or encoding audio in Windows Media Player, the Sting 517m didn't break a sweat. With 2GB of 533-MHz dual-channel DDR2 memory at its disposal, the 517m was able to simultaneously perform all three of those tasks fairly effectively.

The 7,200-rpm 100GB hard drive provides plenty of capacity and performance. The hard drive is complemented by a double-layer DVD recorder with LightScribe technology for burning professional-looking monochrome text and graphics on compatible CD-Rs and DVD+Rs.

With a 256MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7800 GTX, the 517m flew through games. We've never seen Far Cry look so good on a notebook, showing incredibly fine detail that moved very smoothly as we sprinted across the beach with guns blazing. 3DMark03 was similarly impressed, generating an incredible score of 15,063.

To keep any of that graphics performance from being wasted, WidowPC outfitted this notebook with a stunning 17-inch widescreen display. With a native WUXGA resolution and a glossy surface, its images are remarkably crisp with vivid color, which is perfect for playing 3D games or watching DVDs.

If you spend $75 to get the optional internal TV tuner, you can watch your favorite shows on that bright screen. Outputting the picture to a TV or LCD is handled by the DVI port, the DVI-to-VGA adapter, or the S-Video output. Other interfaces include four USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire connector, an IR transceiver, and an S/PDIF audio output for hooking this notebook up to a surround sound system. If you stick with the two stereo speakers on either side of the keyboard, you'll be pleased with the clean and loud sound enabled by SRS WOW technology.

The keyboard is very comfortable, with all of the keys placed in intuitive locations. Its spacious size even allows for an integrated numeric keypad. We like the touchpad's wide aspect ratio that matches the display, making for more intuitive pointer control. The four-way directional pad is a nice addition.

The 517m uses the Centrino platform, but we weren't very impressed with the system's battery life. With the Wi-Fi adapter on, we saw less than two hours of endurance. That Wi-Fi adapter offered only mediocre performance, offering 6.6 Mbps of throughput at 50 feet.

A welcome amenity in the 517m is a Webcam embedded above the screen. We launched the pre-installed BisonCam application and the screen instantly showed our image in real-time (perfect for video conferencing). Other installed software includes InterVideo WinDVD Cinema and NeroVision Express 2 SE. A standard black carrying case is also included.

If you have the cash, the WidowPC Sting 517m will reward you with incredible performance and a stylish design that�ll make you the envy at LAN parties.

AMD DUAL-CORE LAPTOP OFFERED FIRST BY WIDOWPC

NEW 'Sting 917x2' LAPTOP Rivals Desktops in Performance

AUSTIN, TX, November 31, 2005 - WidowPC, a leader in cutting-edge PC hardware, today announced the availability of the long-awaited, dual-core notebook, the Sting 917X2. Featuring the Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor by AMD (NYSE:AMD), the system is fully customizable and upgradeable and features a choice of leading graphics cards including the 256MB NVIDIA 7800 GTX.

( photo: http://www.widowpc.com/press/photos/sting917x2.php  )

Dual-core processors accelerate performance by assigning different processing cores to different compute-intensive tasks such as gaming, business applications, digital content creation, 3D image rendering, CD burning, and many other background tasks. Although dual-core technology has been available in desktops for some time, it has not been available in a laptop computer until now.

"Our goal was to ensure zero lag time between the performance of a desktop and laptop, and with the Sting 917X2, we have accomplished just that," said Joshua McClure, Director of Operations at WidowPC. "Due to the demands and pedigree of our customers, we build each computer to their exact specifications, and back each one with fanatical customer support."

Many technology sites and ezines have written about our dual core laptop. Here are a few of them:
- Engadget
- SoftPedia
- Gizmodo
- The Register
- DesignTechnica

[ Full dual core laptop press release here. ]

"Gamers will be pleased with the performance of this expensive rig, and multimedia mavens will like the built-in TV tuner and Media Center OS."

"The black-and-silver exterior of the Sting 917 has every part under the sun, including S/PDIF for hooking this system up to surround sound speakers."

"The fact that the 917 is a speed demon shouldn't come as a surprise, since its stuffed with the most powerful components available. The 3.6-GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor is one of the brawniest CPUs on the market. Having 1GB of memory, which can be upgraded to 4GB, and a zippy 7,200 rpm drive helps..."

[The following quote is using NVIDIA 6800 ULTRA6800 which we replaced with the even faster NVIDIA 7800 GTX - WidowPC Editorial] "It's 11,625 score in 3DMark03 is phenomenal, and we can count on one hand the number of systems we've tested that were faster. Playing some of the most resource-intensive games on this hardware produced results that would outclass most desktops. The Sting notched a score of 82.5 frames per second in Far Cry, which is better than the Alienware Area-51m 7700 we tested last month..."

"The Sting's other great asset is the integrated TV tuner...and Windows Media Center operating system, which makes access your favorite shows, music and pictures a snap using the included remote control."

"Warranty and support is more of an urgent concern for a high performance system like this, since it always has to be running in top condition. The good news is that WidowPC offer lifetime toll-free phone tech support in addition to its one year parts and service..."

Oh my freaking whatever....AWESOME!. I barely had a chance to even view the text as is it was powering up. Cool looking - you bet. "Feels" like a real machine - oh yeah. I'm so jealous - some little techie gets to play. I've got our tech department drooling. - Tony Haugan

The Sting sports a rock-solid Clevo Chassis notebook chassis, ... D900T Intel i915P Grantsdale PCI Express Motherboard, Intel's Pentium 4E 3.6MHz LGA 775 processor, 2GB of Apacer Technologies 533Mhz DDR2 RAM, a Fujitsu 60GB SATA HDD, and plenty more bells and whistles... [Compared to Dell] What you're getting for that extra money is WidowPC's excellent support...that support is the best... - Raphael Liberatore

"WidowPC will be providing the machines for the PC room, and they sent us one of their gaming laptops to bang on for a while. To say that it met our specifications doesn't even begin to describe it, and sending it back to them caused me physical discomfort." - Tycho

Thanks once again for the cool gaming laptop that allowed us to capture the footage outside our 'studio'. The last time we did this for the Halo 2 launch I had to haul my 50 lb desktop with me. I think I just figured out how I ended up on the TSA watchlist. - Burnie, Rooster Teeth Productions

... ran Half Life 2 flawlessly, with every character and object rendered in crisp detail. ... pushes the graphics pipeline with its DirectX 9.0-friendly Pixel Shader Model 3.0, UltraShadow II, and CineFX technologies, where vertex, shadow, and pixel shaders boost the performance and quality of images on the screen, as aptly demonstrated again in Doom 3. ... Simply put, the performance bar for notebook gaming just rose. - Raphael Liberatore, Computer Gaming World

"...know what it takes to put together a high performance audio PC."

"When someone gets a tech support call, they can talk with someone who actually built their computer, not some service desk in India." "Now gamers can give up the desktops like everyone else and, in particular, new laptop video card [like that found in the Sting 9096] are making this possible." - Jeff Green, Editor-in-Chief, Computer Gaming World

Compare our 93% customer satisfaction rate to those of Alienware (67%), Dell (37%) and Gateway (2%) tracked below, at independent consumer watchdog site, ResellerRatings.com. These screen shots were taken on February 16, 2006. We encourage you look at their live reviews of our company and others you might be looking at right now, by clicking on the image below.

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