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!

The official word’s out – the next big leap in Intel CPUs will come next month, when the chipmaker launches its much-awaited Core i7 chips, also known as the “Nehalem”.

An Intel blog written by its PR folks confirm that the new chip will be out in November, just as supporting motherboards featuring the new X58 chipset start appearing.

These Core i7 babies are the biggest shift in CPU technology since the successful Core and Core2 series of chips started dominating the market in the past couple of years.

The new Core i7 is a “tock” in the “tick-tock” evolution of Intel’s processor roadmaps, with “tick” being a smaller improvement (usually in the manufacturing process) and “tock” being a whole new microarchitecture.

The news will come at the right time as new X58-based motherboards that support the i7 arrive in shops. These boards  will come with a new CPU socket and likely require new DDR3 RAM (most of us except the extreme mobo lovers are still using DDR2 I assume).

For hardcore PC buffs willing to splash more than S$500 on a mobo, I can confirm that Asus’ Rampage II Extreme featuring the X58 chipset will be out in a couple of weeks’ time, while Gigabyte’s X58 offering will also be out in Singapore soon.

Which all means that, if you are going to upgrade soon and are so tempted by cheap DDR2 RAM, hold out for a few weeks if you can. I am one such user – my Asus Rampage Formula (X48 board) is giving me unusual BSODs thanks to my extreme clocking and modding, but I may hold up my RMA until the Core i7 appears!

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Contest closes Nov 12, 2008.

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If you have been holding out for a new top-end graphics card, here’s a little bit of good news.

Sim Lim Square stores like Cybermind and Bell and online retailers like Potterhouse are (finally) selling some Nvidia GTX 280 cards for S$699 this weekend (down from S$799), reflecting the price drop that gamers in the US have been enjoying for weeks.

So far, Leadtek, Gigabyte and MSI have taken the lead in the price drops, though you’d expect Asus (still at S$1,000!) to quickly follow as well.

Singapore prices are still some way off the US$399 – US$449 (S$543 – S$611) that US e-tailers like Newegg or Zipzoomfly are selling the cards for after mail-in rebates. But at least, prices are finally moving somewhere here.

When the ATI 4870×2, which thumps the GTX 280 in performance,  comes to town in mid-Aug (delayed from earlier July date), expect even better deals.

For now, the best bang for buck may be the 4870 (S$399), which you can Crossfire later with a second 4870 (when prices are lower). But if you can wait, then wait for a few weeks more for the 4870×2 to come and spoil the market first, and for prices to be more consistent with performance per buck.