Reactions ranged from anger towards Nvidia to anger towards the press for covering something that for all intents and purposes seems to be a PR stunt.
Rahul Sood, CTO of VoodooPC had the following answers to our questions - in italics.
When did you first become aware of the possibility of Quad SLI?
A few months ago.
When did you first become aware that NV was bringing Quad SLI to the market?
When a customer sent me the press release from Dell and Nvidia.
What was your initial reaction to the announcement?
I was taken aback when I learned about the Quad SLI announcement through the media rather than our partner.
Now that some time has passed, has your opinion changed?
I hold Dell in high regard, however, throwing Quad SLI at an Intel based gaming system is much like putting lipstick on a pig.
Will this affect how you deal with your partners in the future?
We'll see how this plays out. History tends to repeat itself.
Another industry source that wished to remain anonymous indicated that Nvidia was acting like the 'Soup Nazi' of Seinfeld fame.
On the other side of the coin, Kelt Reeves, President of Falcon Northwest, offered a different perspective: "Dell's Renegade announcement looks like more of a PR stunt than an actual product launch. "The biggest question you have to ask yourself is that if the Renegade won't even be available until April, won't there be another graphics refresh coming soon that would make paying this much for quad G70s pointless?"
I posed several questions to Kelt in response to his statements. Again, our questions are in italics:
Do you feel that it is fair to the public to announce a product that for all intents and purposes is not available?
Unavailable parts have been ATI's high-end product for over a year now. Manufacturers can announce them sure, but it's only unfair if the press gives them the publicity for it they're seeking.
Considering Nvidia's very public stance on paper launches, do you feel that NV has let down the market with a product that is available in such limited quantities as to make it impossible to get?
Let down, no. Teased - absolutely. Nvidia did set the new bar on no paper launches, so obviously they felt doing something special with Dell was worth lowering that bar again. They've already heard what the other system builders think of that, what remains to be seen is if ATI will be viewed as raising that bar up again on their next product.
If you were a high end computer peripheral vendor, who would you choose to partner with to bring a cutting edge, potentially unstable technology to market?
I wouldn't limit it to one. The only reason to give a manufacturer an exclusive on anything is if what they bring to the table outweighs what will be lost from everyone who doesn't get the exclusive. Obviously, when people think cutting edge parts, overclocking experience, and custom paintwork - they think small, edgy, custom shops like Dell.
In your opinion, which processor currently is the best choice for building a high end gaming rig such as this?
If you're asking me this on Monday, it's the FX-57
Based on the little that is known about this system, do you think that the Intel processor is the biggest bottleneck in this system?
Absolutely, but there's no need to take my opinion. Here's how a heavily OC'd intel-based Dell stacks up to everything else. Given that everyone's graphics card setups were identical, Dell must've done something else wrong to come in last on every single benchmark.
As this is such a boutique product, how do you think driver support will be after launch?
An excellent question, and one that hopefully the customers that pay a lot of money for these systems will get a good answer from Dell & Nvidia for. I speak from experience when I say that clients that spend a lot on their PC expect and demand better support. It's one thing to sell it, it's another to care for it for years.
One of the things that came clearly through from Kelt was his frustration that the media bought the stunt hook, line and sinker with few people stopping to actually dig into the announcement. Nvidia was unwilling to discuss the exact number of machines being made, but when I asked them, "About twenty?" They responded "That number sounds about right."
At the end of the day, the announcement of Quad SLI should be taken more as a proof of concept than anything. It was fairly well known that the ability to run four cores was there, but this demonstrates that the drivers are there also. What remains to be seen, and has always been a thorn in Dell's side is how well this product will be supported. Dell is often criticised for mediocre customer service and spotty technical support, and someone willing to drop $10,000+ on a machine like this is not going to accept that. Another problem that enters the equation is the actual hard cost of each unit. Because of the limited quantities of boards being made, the fabrication costs on the daughter boards must be astronomical on a per card basis. The custom paint on each case will take a tremendous amount of time and money to apply.
The launch of the Quad SLI system should be viewed for what it is - a paper launch of a product that is very unlikely to see the light of day, and by the time it is made available the next generation of Nvidia product should be hitting the shelves. If Nvidia managed to get Dell or Intel to pick up the entire development costs of this platform, good for them. Regardless, Nvidia has succeeded in irritating long-standing partners and potentially alienating the press, which is tired of paper launches.