It’s been a long time since NCIX has seriously stocked any Shuttle SFF PCs for reasons unbeknowst to me, but the line has been rejuvenated, and we’ve got some pretty awesome little barebones PCs available now. One of the coolest ones is the X27, which includes the Intel Atom CPU that everyone’s been going nuts over.

There also a pretty good deal on some X38 crossfire ready ones right now. As far as I can tell the X38 model is the same as the X48 model, but cheaper and I think lower FSB support, but how many people actually OWN a QX9770? It’s the ONLY LGA775 CPU that uses a 1600MHz FSB, so I don’t think it’s a huge problem. Here’s a picture of that one.

Now all that’s left is for me to water cool one…..

These things are just hot. Bling in PC water cooling has finally arrived in a way that if people could do it they would probably put a water cooled computer on a chain and hang it around their neck.

The price is a little steep (these should be showing up on the site in the next day or so), but if you’re having trouble justifying it to yourself, remember that silver has anti-microbial properties, so you can run pure distilled water in an all copper/silver loop without worrying about any junk growing in it. Water performs better by itself than it does with any aftermarket additives, so this is a huge plus.

The gold ones just look awesome and you know you want them :p

The following new items are in stock and ready to ship:

GTX 280/260 nickel plated GPU blocks

Radeon 4870 X2 nickel plated GPU blocks (VERY limited numbers)

Plexi EK VGA Supreme GPU blocks

Multi-option res 100

Some other small thing

If you were thinking “Predator”, you weren’t too far off the mark. Acer has their product page up for the Aspire Predator, a gaming machine that they want to use to compete with the boutique builders.

It’s liquid cooled, SLI ready, features 8GB of RAM, and one of the funkiest cases I’ve seen in a long time. All of that said, who wrote the marketing materials?

NCIX will of course be carrying these machines, once they’re released, but if you want more information now, you can get Faster, Deeper, Harder, and Further here

Viper John has a new product out that could very well revolutionize the way we plumb our PC water cooling. It’s called a Viper Tight Bend. It sounds kinda dirty, and when I explain what it is, it may seem a little pointless, but let me tell you that it’s NOT.

A VTB is basically a chunk of tubing that is pre-bent to a 1.25″ bend radius in a “U” shape. What does this mean? It means that you can make turns that were previously impossible without kinking your tubing or using coils. It also means that if you are making that tight turn to something sensitive like a chipset block, you don’t have to worry about the coils and tubing putting pressure on the barbs and/or block which can cause leaks or damage to the fragile chips underneath.

This picture demonstrates how effectively a VTB thrashes the regular bend radius of Tygon R-3603.

Well another day another Tech Tips. This one was actually able to launch while I was gone. I realize we’ve done a lot of coverage on these sub-notebooks, but honestly I think it’s a very relevant topic because the product category is so new and exciting to many people.

We’ve got a lot of exciting things coming up for Tech Tips and we’re making constant efforts to improve our release schedule. Thank you for your viewing and the feedback that has allowed Tech Tips to keep improving.

Well day one of Fragapalooza is coming to a close…. Well the night is just starting, but yeah. I’ve made an NCIX corner in the Intel booth and so far the event has been great. We’ve had lots of people come up to check out this system I did up for Corsair.

It arrived safely via UPS and so did all of my other gear. The one thing that didn’t show up was my NCIX banner… Fortunately I have lots of NCIX enviro bags, so there should be plenty of NCIX representation around the show.

The venue is huge. I can’t even capture it properly with my G7, but this LAN is unlike anything I’ve seen before in Vancouver.

Here’s on of the Corsair guys gaming it up (with coaching from one of the kind LAN-goers) with Crysis on this crazy quad SLI system.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this. A Mac at a LAN party? It’s one of two that are here and the other is a notebook.

Here’s me with “FPS Doug” from Pure Pwnage. He was giving out signed posters. I got one that reads “Boom! Headshot!”. It’s awesome.

Well it looks like I’ll be attending Fragapalooza as an NCIX representative. I’m going to bring along the Tech Tips camera so if you’re wanting to make a guest appearance to show off a talent on Tech Tips and you’re going to be at Fragapalooza, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Well this is one of the coolest computers I’ve ever had the pleasure to see. One of our higher-ups (shrouded in shadow and mystery, so no names) won it through a contest sponsored by one of the North American distributors and AMD. It’s valued at well over $5000 is really is a remarkable piece of water cooled computer machinery. Here are some photos to give you an idea of how cool it is.

Here’s a couple close ups of the internals. this thing really is breathtaking in real life. These are just quick snapshots that I took at my workbench.

So why all the talk about how great it looks in real life? Well I’ve tested it, and I’m about to take it down to our Vancouver store to sit on display there for a few weeks. After that it will likely make the rounds to the other stores, so go check it out if you get a chance

As many of you know, I’m the water cooling product manager at NCIX, and besides being willing to bring in almost anything a customer asks for, speedy shipping times, and great customer service, (/obvious NCIX plug, hehe) I realize that there isn’t much that differentiates us from other water cooling shops. Then it hit me. We are different from other water cooling shops in that we carry an incredible amount of other PC hardware.

My next thought actually came into my head because of a conversation I had had with a customer who was not terribly confident installing a full cover water block. Full cover blocks are (for good reason) designed for a short life cycle, so things like detailed instruction manuals and accessories can be skimped on sometimes. He was worried that he would mess up his card and I said to him, “I’d love to do it for you, but we don’t offer a service like that”. Well, it’s about to start.

This week or next week NCIX will be launching a “custom water cooled video cards” page, which will allow you to choose your video card, choose a water block, choose your tubing size and add an assembly fee. The assembly fee is set right now to be at $100 to cover the time of an experienced water cooling tech (me in all likelihood for the first while) to install, double check, pressure test the block on your card, then pack it for shipping, as well as the extra risk that NCIX takes by offering water cooled video cards directly to customers.

Right now these water cooled video cards will be available on select eVGA and XFX cards only because they do not void the warranty for using aftermarket coolers. We will also include your stock cooler in case you need to send the card back to the manufacturer. This leaves you with a VERY unique solution. Right now you can buy water cooled video cards, but the cost is prohibitive, you rarely get the water block you want, and you’re stuck with the water block if you want to sell the card or move it into an air cooled secondary/girlfriend’s/kid’s/parents’ machine.

This way you pay less than a pre-water cooled card, you get to pick a high quality copper block from one of our suppliers, and you can go back to air cooling on the card if you want to. Oh yeah, and you aren’t stuck with a particular video card either. You can pick a stock card, an overclocked one, or whatever your heart desires. It’s about consumer choice and value. I’m confident that with our custom water cooled video card builder you’ll find the best choice and value for a water cooled video card.

Here’s a glam shot of the card we’ll be using in some of the ads. It’s an older 8800GTS 320 with an EK Water Blocks nickel plated full cover water block on it. Initially product offerings will be limited to 8800GT and 8800GTS 512MB card, but we’ll be expanding the program to cover 9800GTX cards shortly if all goes well.