Report: Crytek arms $699 Warhead PC

As reported by game journalist Chris Remo on his personal blog, Crytek, Nvidia, and EA have teamed to create the "Warhead PC," a prebuilt machine that will be available for purchase alongside Crysis Warhead through UltraPC next week. Although the PC's exact specifications aren't expected to be announced until next week, Remo noted that the build will feature an Intel Core2 Duo e7300 (@2.66GHz) processor, an Nvidia 9800GT graphics chip, and 2GB of RAM.

As noted by Crysis franchise producer Bernd Diemer, EA and Crytek aren't attempting to make a move on the hardware space; rather, the goal of offering the PC is to prove that high-end gaming doesn't require thousands of dollars in investment.

"When we started working on Warhead, we decided performance was a big issue," said Diemer. "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 frame rate 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... For us, it was really helpful, because we sort of had a hard cap."

A pseudosequel to the acclaimed 2007 shooter Crysis, Warhead offers a storyline parallel to the original game as well as a greatly expanded emphasis on multiplayer combat. For more on Crysis Warhead, check out GameSpot's previous coverage.