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!

Yeah, you read that right. MSI has come up with a mobo that has twice as many slots for memory modules than the average mobo out there.

Four slots on the P45-8D, dubbed “Memory Lover”, supports cheap DDR2 modules and the other four slots support newer DDR3 modules.

Okay, that means you only still have four slots at any one time. But MSI is touting it as a board that gives more flexibility to people transiting from one type of memory to the other.

It’s a nice thought, this mobo based around Intel’s P45 Express chipset. But you wonder if it is not cheaper to junk your old RAM and board when the time comes and just go with a new board when prices for DDR3 come down in future, and they are coming down faster of late.

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.

Now that’s a mch improved deal, if you consider that the cheapest GTX 280 you can get now in Singapore costs about S$899 at Potterhouse. Sure, the new $600 price is still higher than two ATI HD4850s (S$500+), but hey, there’s no worry about Crossfire scaling since the GTX 280 is a one-card solution.

Now, there’s only the wait for the price drops to come to SG, which will be swift, I assume. If you have been looking for the next best thing in a while, the GTX 280 suddenly looks great again… unless of course you want later versions with smaller die and things like DX10.1.

Now, this BFG-Dangerden GTX 280 monster would be a great replacement for my water-cooled 8800GTX now. (It costs more than stock GTX 280 of coz, but you can always buy the Danger Den waterblock separately).