Well this is a fun project. Corsair has asked NCIX to participate in building a couple of “show-off” systems that will accompany them to various shows and just generally impress people. Before I talk too much about the specs I’ll let you check out the goodies that arrived this week from Corsair and the other sponsors.

There are two systems and each will a liquid cooled monster powered by the following:

Corsair EPP 2.0 DDR3 memory at 1600MHz
Corsair HX1000W power supply
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 CPU (I’ll be overclocking these a touch just for giggles)
eVGA 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
2x eVGA 9800 GX2 video cards in quad SLI
Samsung F1 series hard drive
LG Blu-Ray/HD-DVD optical drive
Microsoft Windows Vista

Here’s a picture of one of them on the test bench (familiarizing myself with the board a little bit and making sure nothing is DOA), but unfortunately the really good pictures don’t come until I get the cases from Danger Den…

Well XSPC has launched a couple of new blocks. This company has been around for a while, but this is the first time in the last few years at least that they’ve been getting any attention in North America.

I’m looking into carrying their products, and so far they’ve been extremely receptive and the prices look great compared to competitors Danger Den and EK Water Blocks. The only thing that makes me apprehensive is the fact that we’re in a period right now where there aren’t really any single GPU graphics cards over $300-$350, so it feels like the market for full covers is a little bit less than it was when everyone and their dog was designing, releasing, and selling 8800 G80 blocks.

None of that changes the fact that these are some SEXY looking blocks. Please post in the comments if you want to order one and I’ll see what I can do about bringing them in sooner.

links to 9600GT and 9800GTX product pages

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.