Hasta La Gadget!

Origin PC kicked things off on Friday by shoving NVIDIA’s latest and greatest into its Genesis desktop, and now a few more in the custom PC game have upped the ante by offering a similarly delectable taste of Fermi. NVIDIA’s new GeForce GTX 470 and 480 have been all the rage over the weekend, and if those raucous benchmarks have you convinced that the time to buy is now, a trio of system builders are here vying for your attention. Digital Storm’s Black|OPS rig can now be ordered with a GTX 480 (starts at $2,891), while CyberPower is giving prospective customers the ability to add the latest Fermi GPUs into a smattering of towers. Maingear’s formidable SHIFT supercomputer is also seeing the update, but it’s really asking for trouble with a triple GTX 480 configuration that demands a minimum investment of $6,199. In related news, ASUS, Zotac and a slew of other GPU makers are cranking out new boards based on the minty fresh core, so you shouldn’t have a difficult time finding one if the rest of your rig is a-okay for now.

CyberPower, Digital Storm and Maingear add NVIDIA Fermi GPUs to flagship gaming PCs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 01:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Digital Storm, Maingear, CyberPower, Zotac, ASUS  | Email this | Comments

Surely you recall that snazzy new Alienware Area-51 desktop that popped up last week with Intel’s flashy Core i7-980X Extreme Edition within, right? The benchmarking gurus over at Hot Hardware have since put the stratospherically priced ($4,569 as tested) rig through its paces, and suffice it to say, there’s hardly a machine on the planet that’s faster than this rig today. Put simply, the test machine — which was equipped with a pair of ATI Radeon HD 5970 cards — bested every other gaming desktop they’d seen, with the only shortfall coming up in the HDD tests. Naturally, SSD-equipped rivals were a good bit faster there, but nothing’s stopping you from swapping out those traditional platters and installing a bit of NAND yourself. Ah, why bother with the details — if you’re looking for “quite literally the fastest desktop PC on the earth,” this can definitely be it with the right configuration. Hit that source link for the mind-boggling benchmarks and a hands-on video.

Alienware’s Core i7-980X-infused Area-51 desktop gets reviewed, puts other rigs to shame originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Hot Hardware  | Email this | Comments

If you somehow held off on buying a Core i7 rig as soon as they popped out last year, you’re in luck — and your poor Pentium II system is flat out of it. Just about everyone has updated their gaming desktop lines this week with an option to splurge on Intel’s 3.33GHz (or more) Core i7-980X Extreme Edition processor, and iBuyPower is no different. Said PC builder is now offering the chip within four of its Paladin desktops, and given that the stock clock speed is far too sluggish for your own greedy self, the Paladin XLC V3 ships in an overclocked configuration that promises a 30 percent boost in performance over the stock silicon. The rigs also ship with 6GB or 12GB of DDR3 memory, the latest and greatest ATI / NVIDIA graphics cards, an optional Blu-ray burner and a fresh copy of Windows 7. The lowest-end rig gets going at $2,159, while the aforesaid XLC V3 will set you back $4,409; the whole gang is available to customize as we speak.

iBuyPower crams Core i7-980X Extreme Edition into Paladin desktop line originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 13:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Hot Hardware  | Email this | Comments

Intel’s six-core, twelve-threaded Core i7-980X Extreme Edition has turned the hardcore gaming community on its head, and just about everyone is scrounging around in a (mostly futile) attempt to locate $999. For those in dire need of an entire system replacement, it seems that today’s the day to start looking. Shortly after we heard that this 32nm Gulftown chip would be landing with Alienware and Origin PC rigs, a veritable plethora of other outfits have shown up to make similar announcements. Digital Storm has popped an overclocked (4.4GHz) version into its Black|OPS machine (which conveniently starts at $5,642, while CyberPower is now offering the silicon in its Black Mamba, Black Pearl and Gamer Xtreme 3D machines. Maingear’s also sliding said CPU into its world-beating Shift “supercomputer,” and anyone shopping a high-end Velocity Micro system will also see the option. We suspect most every other PC maker in existence will be following suit soon, so if your prefab PC builder hasn’t yet jumped on the bandwagon, just hold tight. Real tight.

Intel’s Core i7-980X Extreme Edition hits a slew of new gaming desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 20:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Maingear, Digital Storm, CyberPower, Velocity Micro  | Email this | Comments

The hallowed Think branding finally spread out to the land of AIOs earlier this year and we just had to wrap our paws around some of that signature matte black plastic to see what’s what. The ThinkCentre A70z represents Lenovo’s most direct assault on the eco-conscious office manager’s checkbook, coming as it does with minimal packaging, built out of recycled and recyclable materials, and significant energy savings relative to orthodox desktops. In our time with it, we found the A70z to be a well built and capable little rig, but the question you most probably want answered is whether the premium branding we associate with the tank-like ThinkPads can be trusted to deliver a similar superiority in hardware and construction in the all-in-one arena. Click past the break for the answer.

Continue reading Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z review

Lenovo ThinkCentre A70z review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments