If you’re a fan of Dell’s Alienware range of “bling-in-on” gaming desktops, you’d be happy to hear that the PCs now come with Intel’s top-end Core i7-3960X or Core i7 3930K six-core CPUs in Singapore.

On the new Alienware Aurora R4 desktop, the LGA2011-based CPUs are water-cooled, and factory-overclocked to between 3.9GHz and 4.1GHz as well, which seem alright, unless you’re the type who regularly pour liquid nitrogen into your PC for extreme speed. 

Among other goodies, the geeked out chassis packs in a motherboard with the enthusiast X79 chipset and up to 32GB of quad-channel DDR3 RAM.

Of course, we know graphics are the main thing for games such as Battlefield 3, so this Alienware lets you add on some of the most powerful options. Think of an Nvidia GTX 590 card, or two of AMD’s 6950s in tandem, pumping out the high-res eye candy on screen.

What we’d like, of course, is an option for a single AMD 6990 or two AMD 6970s in there as well. But for that, you’d have to build your own rig, instead of ordering Dell’s 20kg behemoth, because Dell Singapore doesn’t offer them as an option when we checked.

And prices? The basic S$3,499 version comes with an overclocked Core i7-3930K CPU, 4GB RAM (you’ll want more, really!), 1TB hard drive and an AMD 6870 graphics card.

We know you can get more horsepower for that price if you build your own geeked out rig from components at Sim Lim Square, but hey, not every gamer’s a builder these days.

Plus, you won’t get the bling, which comes in one of six impossible-to-miss colours. Or the trademark ALX chassis with an alien head at the front and “breathable vents” that open up.

What we really want is this particular model with the mirror finish (below), but somehow Dell’s website doesn’t have an option on this. We’ll check back and update this once we find out from Dell.

Asus and Acer may have been slightly earlier to the game, but the battle for the slimmest, lightest and most powerful laptop is just getting hotter with new arrivals like Toshiba’s new Portege Z830.

Shown to the media in Singapore last week, the latest in the Japanese laptop maker’s thin-and-light Portege line is just 15.9mm thin and weighs a feather-light 1.12kg. On that frame are a 13.3-inch screen and 128GB solid state drive, along with either an Intel Core i5 or Core i7 chip.

The Core i5 model will cost S$1,999 while the Core i7 model will go for S$2,599, when the laptop goes on sale at the Sitex computer bazaar on November 24, 2011 in Singapore.

As expected, Toshiba has pulled out nothing when it comes to connectivity. There’s USB 3.0, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet LAN and even a fingerprint sensor for business users. What’s also included: the stiff Honeycomb Rib design on the new Portege’s magnesium alloy cover that protects against abuse (for those rough users).

The only thing that seems to compare unfavourably, at least on paper, against Asus’ highly-regarded Zenbook rival, is that the 13.3-inch screen on the Toshiba machine comes with only 1,366 x 768 resolution instead of the Taiwanese firm’s 1,600 x 900 (on high-end models). Even with that sharper screen upgrade, Asus’ Core i5 offering costs S$1,498, while its Core i7 option goes for S$1,998 – S$500 to S$600 cheaper.

But take note that these prices are will likely come with free bundles, like RAM or other upgrades, during the Sitex show. They may even drop if the competition is stiff enough.

Either way, there are now lots to choose from – besides the MacBook Air – if you want a full-powered laptop that’s also easy to carry around. And that’s good news for anyone who likes choice.

Want the power of Intel’s Core i7 CPUs in a small “shoebox-sized” PC chassis?

One new motherboard to consider may be Asus’ Rampage II GENE, a “small brother” of the no-holds-barred Rampage II Extreme motherboard, which I used in my own watercooled PC as well as Digital Life’s Dream PC 2008.

The Rampage II GENE is a micro ATX board with the same Intel X58 chipset, and tri-channel DDR3 support. More importantly, it will support both Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire dual-graphics modes. That lets you squeeze two graphics cards onto a small shoebox PC – cool!

I’m not sure how you’re gonna dissipate the heat of two giant graphics cards in a rather tight shoebox PC, but at least this board lets you try!

I have to mention that there’s also the add-on SupremeFX X-Fi soundcard onboard, which gives you a “software” version of Creative’s X-Fi sound effects in games. All in, this is not a microATX board that stinges on features – it’s a full-blooded enthusiast part.

Notably, the heatsinks here are smaller and less elaborate than on the Rampage II Extreme, but that may be  done to ensure that the smaller board will fit into shoebox chassis.

If this follows on the excellent (though expensive) Rampage II Extreme, then Asus may have a winner here for users who want performance in a shoebox PC.

As a fan of Asus ROG series of boards (I also bought the X48-based Rampage Formula), I’m looking forward to fitting this in my lil’ Lian Li case. Now if only I got moolah left for a Core i7…

Right after I wrote the annual Dream PC article for Digital Life in Dec 2008, I felt an itch to upgrade my existing PC, which was actually doing well as it was. For the DL article, I had played with an Intel Core i7-965 chip, some Corsair DDR3 RAM and a nice Lian Li case, and I couldn’t help the urge to upgrade my own rig!

Thus began the an almost two-month long sourcing plus building process for a new, souped up rig.

Which parts of the DL Dream PC – essentially a showcase of the best PC components out there that PC buffs are nuts about – can I fit into my own machine, while adding water-cooling to the mix? Lots, apparently – from the Intel chip to a new Creative X-Fi soundcard with optical output.

In the end, the experience was as much fun as it was toil, building a rig called Machinegun v4 (Machinegun was the PC name I gave to my hostel PC when I duked it out with friends on Quake in NTU).

How else do you describe the labour of love? Of late nights, cut fingers, frustrating leaks in the water-loop (now fixed) and angry stares at my messy room from my wife… fortunately, the result was, of course, a much improved PC I could say was an one-and-only geek machine.

Anyway, here are the specs:
>>Core specs
-Intel Core i7-920
-Asus Rampage II Extreme
-6GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 RAM
-MSI Radeon HD4870x2
-Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB
-Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatality

>>Power + case
-Seasonic M12-700
-Silverstone TJ07 case

>>Water-cooling
-Swiftech GTZ
-Aqua Computer Aquagratix 4870×2
-Feser 360 rad
-Swiftech MCP355 + XSPC res-top

The result is far, far from the gurus at MDPC – and my photography skills are far, far from great, especially when being pissed off late in the night by a wonky screwdriver! But the PC’s good enough to be chumming along nicely below my desk now… and my room is back from being a warzone!

Here’re some “ghetto” pix of the experience… not touched up, (mostly) not cropped, and not glarmourised!

It’s been said that recessions come and go but life goes on at Sim Lim Square, that six-storey techie haunt in Singapore, for those unfamilar.

The best evidence comes from the way PC buffs snapped up Intel’s new Core i7s, as they hit the stores late last week.

So popular are these Core i7s that the supporting high-end DDR3 modules are near sold out. Popular retailer Cybermind, for example, now has stocks for only 3 x 1GB DDR3s from Corsair (S$255 with bundle). The 3 x 2GB packs (S$499 with bundle) are already sold out.

Not surprisingly, the most popular Core i7 chip is the entry level i7-920, which at S$493, compares flavourably against almost any older Core2 chips out there now. It’s also an overclockers’ favourite, as it is known to ramp up nicely with the right motherboard.

The top-end Core i7-965 Extreme, the king of the hill now, costs no less than S$1,685, and there are quite a few buyers, say Cybermind. The worst seller among the three new Core i7s is the i7-940, which is “neither here nor there” with a price of $945.

Among the equally expensive motherboards, the Gigabye X58 Extreme and MSI X58 Eclipse are, relatively speaking, the best deals around, with prices going between S$550 and S$620.

That’s when you consider that the excellent but pricey Asus Rampage II Extreme costs a whopping S$709. Yet you can bet there are crazies out there who’d whip out the money for that board during recession!