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.

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.