Quakecon 2005 – Day 1

Welcome to one of the largest LAN gatherings on the face of the planet. Quakecon 2005 is in full effect and Bjorn3D is there to cover it all. Check out our daily updates as we take you inside the madness that is Quakecon!

Quakecon 2005

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Welcome one and all to Quakecon 2005 from the beautiful and enormous Gaylord Texan Convention Center and Hotel in Grapevine, TX. Well over 6,000 are expected to attend one of the largest LAN party and gaming expos in the world. I can tell you first hand that it is definitely quite the show once again this year.

Already several thousand people have packed themselves into what is basically a room the size of…oh….4 football fields. Monitors glow in every direction, and the gaming is in full effect. Oh yeah, and this lasts for the next three days too.

Sponsors this year include id Software, nVIDIA, Intel, Activision, Creative, Alienware, GameStop, Linksys, Newegg, and Razer. Each of the sponsors is showing off their goods at the vendor section directly across from the BYOC section (aka Bring Your Own Computer).

 

 

Now Quakecon isn’t all about gaming 24 hours a day for 3 days; there is also a whole bunch of stuff going on in the technology world today with nVIDIA announcing the 7800 GT video card at an opening event that was filled with a little extra craziness than expected.

 

 

Julie Stoffer, you might know her as the Julie from the Real World series on MTV, was the MC for the nVIDIA event. What was a very calm, cool, and somewhat collected event last year announcing the 6600 GT video cards and celebrating the release of Doom 3 turned out to be a Fear Factor fiasco of contests and entertainment by some crazy audience members. Two ladies actually shaved their heads for a couple of 6600 GTs. Two guys danced the macarena for over an hour and a half for a mobo and a 6800 GT. Worst of all were some of the things that people ate for some new hardware. Would you eat butter popsicles for 2 6800 GT vid cards? Some guy did it, and did it in style. Another person actually chugged a milkshake made of fish, milk, whipped cream, and hot sauce for a Dell Inspiron 9300 laptop. Mmmmmmmmmmm, yummy indeed.

 

 

Back to that 7800 GT that nVIDIA announced. Yup, you all knew it was going to happen, and of course it did. Now you can get the 7 series of nVIDIA goodness for a mere $449. Yeah, using the word mere with a nearly $500 card is a little insane, but it’s a whole lot better than the $600 or so for a 7800 GTX.

(GTX’s can be found for as low as $479 now and most are under $530 while GT’s are on the street for around $420. -Ed.)

 

 

John Curley, Director of Dell Dimension Marketing, also showed off the new XPS SLI PC with 2 7800 GTX video cards, a terabyte of storage, and two gigabytes of RAM. Looks like Dell is making a huge mark on gaming PC goodness. Look for the new XPS systems showing up for about $3,400 US.

 

 

So there is plenty more to come from us here at Quakecon 2005. Make sure you check out our live webcam here and see what we are up to in the BYOC madness. We will be keeping you updated on the latest news from Creative and their X-Fi sound systems, AMD, and we will even give you a taste of the new Quake 4 being developed by the people at Raven software. Check back with us every day through Sunday to see the latest and greatest happenings at Quakecon 2005!!