Earlier today, the world started to turn around news coming from a fellow website that claimed that ominous TLB-bug stroke Intel’s latest baby, Core i7 series. Transition Lookaside Buffer erratas/bugs are notorious and took financial and reputational tool from Intel and AMD in the past. Hearing news about TLB bugs happening with Core i7 had the potential to become a story of the year, just like AMD lost huge chunk of market confidence 12 months ago with TLB-bug on Barcelona/Agena (Opteron/Phenom). Could it be that Nehalem architecture has a similar flaw? Well, prior to running my story, I decided to read the document in question
Noctua’s Core i7 adapter arrives
A while ago, I wrote a piece about Noctua, Austrian company that decided to give away LGA-1366 adapters to all owners of their products. Since I own NH-U12P cooler with adapters for AM2/AM2+/AM3 and Socket 775, I needed the adapter for LGA1366, for the last piece of the puzzle called Core i7 meets QuadFire over Smackover ;-). It took a week for a package to arrive, which is not so bad for a free adapter. This adapter allows you to do rotation to a multiple degree, and I can’t wait to bring you the pictures and the video of setting the system up. The video
EVGA debuts final version of its X58 motherboard
Today is Monday, November 17, 2008, the official launch and availability date for the Intel Core i7 platform. The whole platform is officially on sale, just in time for Black Friday/Cyber Monday madness. As revealed weeks ago, the motherboard itself is designed by ex-EPoX/now-EVGA design team, hand-tuned by K|ngP|n and Shamino, and manufactured by Jetway. This combo is responsible for (probably) the world’s first motherboard with limited lifetime warranty, and 90 Day Step-up program should be available for this motherboard as well (upgrading from, probably not upgrading to 😉 ). In Europe, customers will not get lifetime warranty, as that is impossible by EU laws
Deneb set to launch end of November, again in Channel
Roughly a year after the debut of AMD’s Spider platform, 45nm processors are coming in the frame. Under codename Deneb (Phenom) and Shanghai (Opteron), these babies are starting to appear from thin air. We’ve received word that the new Phenom is again repeating the history of original Phenom, and that is launching too late for major system design wins from the likes such as Dell, HP and others. So, AMD is going to launch Deneb in channel first, and you can expect those Black Edition processors appearing out of thin air. Overclocking results are really promising, and on 790 boards with SB750 Southbridge, you can
EVGA’s X58 motherboard is $299, not $399!
EVGA’s first non-Nvidia chipset motherboard brought a lot of attention and is currently #1 story on my blog with 836 souls that came to this site and read the piece. As the time of the launch approaches (Nov 17th), some e-tailers began to list the motherboard for 400 dollars. That would be all nice and dandy, but it is untrue. According to our sources, the motherboard is set to retail for 299 USD in North America, or around 280 Euro in EUrope. The $400 board will probably carry the name Black Pearl, and will come later. Hopefully this clears the confusion.
World, meet Nehalem e.g. Core i7 965 pixellated
This coming monday (Nov 3rd), Intel will officially unveil Core i7 line-up. The line-up is consisted out of i7 920, 940 and 965, which will retail as the “Extreme Edition” and feature a lot of overclocking-friendly technologies. I’ve just received word that a buddy of mine got his Core i7 in Croatia. He and decided to assemble a system for ultimate gaming and Photoshop action. The system will be consisted out of Core i7 Extreme 965, Corsair DDR3 memory kit, ASUS Rampage II Formula motherboard and EVGA GeForce GTX280. But for starters, this is his majesty, Core i7 965, formerly known as Nehalem: Also, this
Sapphire’s 4850X2 shows some promise…
Time for custom-designed X2 boards has come. Sapphire Technologies is getting close to release of its own 4850X2, featuring no less than four DVI ports for connection to four possible displays. My colleagues from VR-Zone got a hand on a review sample and published first scores. The board scored a index of P12741 and X5728 in 3DMark Vantage, but bear in mind that the test system was Intel Core i7, so naturally the scores are a bit higher than current Core 2 setups. All in all, another interesting product arrives. But unlike Sapphire Atlantis 2600X2, which featured quite similar layout, this time AMD/ATI is standing
Noctua proves its focus on consumer happiness
Friends at TechPowerUp! recently reported that Noctua, well-known firm in the cooling business decided to give a very pleasant present to the owners of their CPU coolers. With the arrival of Intel Core i7 processors, Noctua announced that the company is giving away free mounting kits for LGA1366 socket. Named SecuFirm2, this socket adapter is compatible with all Noctua coolers since the company arrived on the market, three years ago. As soon as Nehalem processors and motherboards reach the stores, you can go and visit Noctua’s website and file an online request. You have to give out proof of purchase of either Noctua cooler or
