MAN is Tom's Hardware Popular!
At least it is with many of our past and future customers. We opened a small tech office in downtown Chicago two weeks ago, and between the fallout from that and the tremendous response we got from the latest Uberclok Reactor review in Tom's HW, there's been very little time left for the blog.
Anyway, here's what's new. The 9800 GX2s dump a lot of heat into the PC case, so we're having fun with our dual-GX2 orders. The heat doesn't seem to be an issue with our standard overclock settings, which is very good news, but we're going to test a dual GX2 Reactor in a hot room, just to be on the safe side. Triple-9800 GTXs still outperform dual GX2s for now, but I still expect that to change as the drivers improve.
Many of our recent custom orders have been for 790i-based motherboards, so I think we'll be offering them as a standard item soon. I didn't think peeps would warm up to DDR3 that quickly, as in my opinion it's still too expensive with little benefit over 780i/DDR2, but there is something to be said for future-proofing.
The Q9450 continues to be an elusive beast, with no hard ETA. I'm beginning to think Intel is orchestrating these delays and shortages according to a complex financial model, much like DeBeers (no not DaBears). The Q9300 is, I'll say again, available...
Cricket...cricket....
Yeah, I'd wait too. We haven't sold a single Q9300 yet. That 6MB cache and 7.5x multiplier look pretty weak next to the Q9450's 12MB & 8x for a mere $50 more, to say nothing of an extra .2GHz out of the box. On the higher end, I'm a little surprised at how many of you have been ordering PCs with the QX9650. We added it as a standard item, which is something I never though we'd do with a $1,000 CPU, but there is a LOT of allure in a quad core that OC's stably to 4.0GHz.
Also on the CPU front are sporadic sightings of the E8500 dual-core, which we should be able to get to 4.2GHz or so. Only Tiger Direct has them as of this writing, and they'll dry up soon. (We currently only offer them as on custom PCs, so shoot us an email or call if you're interested.)
On another note, we're currently favoring GSkill's memory for our DDR2-1066 needs in 2GB increments.
The Dominator chips of that type are no longer Micron-brand integrated circuit boards, and can't be overclocked reliably (at least, not the way we like). We'll still use Dominator chips where appropriate, but for now GSkill's memory is a better performer in that category.
Anyway, here's what's new. The 9800 GX2s dump a lot of heat into the PC case, so we're having fun with our dual-GX2 orders. The heat doesn't seem to be an issue with our standard overclock settings, which is very good news, but we're going to test a dual GX2 Reactor in a hot room, just to be on the safe side. Triple-9800 GTXs still outperform dual GX2s for now, but I still expect that to change as the drivers improve.
Many of our recent custom orders have been for 790i-based motherboards, so I think we'll be offering them as a standard item soon. I didn't think peeps would warm up to DDR3 that quickly, as in my opinion it's still too expensive with little benefit over 780i/DDR2, but there is something to be said for future-proofing.
The Q9450 continues to be an elusive beast, with no hard ETA. I'm beginning to think Intel is orchestrating these delays and shortages according to a complex financial model, much like DeBeers (no not DaBears). The Q9300 is, I'll say again, available...
Cricket...cricket....
Yeah, I'd wait too. We haven't sold a single Q9300 yet. That 6MB cache and 7.5x multiplier look pretty weak next to the Q9450's 12MB & 8x for a mere $50 more, to say nothing of an extra .2GHz out of the box. On the higher end, I'm a little surprised at how many of you have been ordering PCs with the QX9650. We added it as a standard item, which is something I never though we'd do with a $1,000 CPU, but there is a LOT of allure in a quad core that OC's stably to 4.0GHz.
Also on the CPU front are sporadic sightings of the E8500 dual-core, which we should be able to get to 4.2GHz or so. Only Tiger Direct has them as of this writing, and they'll dry up soon. (We currently only offer them as on custom PCs, so shoot us an email or call if you're interested.)
On another note, we're currently favoring GSkill's memory for our DDR2-1066 needs in 2GB increments.
The Dominator chips of that type are no longer Micron-brand integrated circuit boards, and can't be overclocked reliably (at least, not the way we like). We'll still use Dominator chips where appropriate, but for now GSkill's memory is a better performer in that category.
posted by Thomas Glen at
4:59 PM
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