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!

Got myself the MSI version, which comes with an overclocked chip and the Rainbox Six: Vegas game for S$792. Also, with an itchy backside, I picked up a pair of Corsair Dominator RAM modules (DDR2-1066) for  another $120+ at Cybermind.

Well, at least that brings my PC up to speed at breakneck speed, and I quickly sold off my trusty old GeForce 8800GTX to a friend.

That was on Friday, when the tally was already close to S$1K. Today (Sunday), I went down to Sim Lim again, but unfortunately for an unplanned purchase – a second HTC Touch Diamond.

Stupid me had dropped my phone the night before, and obviously my nice neighbours in my condo never felt the need to return a phone lying there on the floor.

After some bargaining with an ah beng shop at Sim Lim, I got my HTC Touch Diamond for a princely sum of S$930. That’s just painful, especially when I paid, what, $100+ back in July when I bought the original with a StarHub contract.

S$2K is too much to spend to spend on gadgets at one go. Enough of gadgets for the next month already!

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.