Intel set to overhaul desktop CPU range with new models, lower prices

This might be about as shocking as sunny weather in España, but Intel appears set to slash some prices and bump some speeds in its desktop CPU portfolio this quarter. According to DigiTimes and its beloved motherboard maker sources, the desktop dominator intends to introduce a six-core Core i7-970 chip, at a $885 bulk purchase price that should bring the hexacore entry price down from the i7-980X's $999 perch, along with a 2.8GHz i5-760 priced at $205, and -- intriguingly -- a quad-core i5-870S designed specifically for small form factor machines and costing an appropriately inflated $351 a piece. Finally, there's word of a most welcome price tumble for the 3.06GHz i7-950, which moves down to the $294 slot currently occupied by the 2.8GHz i7-930. All this crazy talk seems to reiterate earlier suggestions coming out of HKEPC, so we advise hitting both source links and drawing your own conclusions.

CyberPower, Digital Storm and Maingear add NVIDIA Fermi GPUs to flagship gaming PCs

Origin PC kicked things off on Friday by shoving NVIDIA's latest and greatest into its Genesis desktop, and now a few more in the custom PC game have upped the ante by offering a similarly delectable taste of Fermi. NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 470 and 480 have been all the rage over the weekend, and if those raucous benchmarks have you convinced that the time to buy is now, a trio of system builders are here vying for your attention. Digital Storm's Black|OPS rig can now be ordered with a GTX 480 (starts at $2,891), while CyberPower is giving prospective customers the ability to add the latest Fermi GPUs into a smattering of towers. Maingear's formidable SHIFT supercomputer is also seeing the update, but it's really asking for trouble with a triple GTX 480 configuration that demands a minimum investment of $6,199. In related news, ASUS, Zotac and a slew of other GPU makers are cranking out new boards based on the minty fresh core, so you shouldn't have a difficult time finding one if the rest of your rig is a-okay for now.

Moneual pulls a 360 with its MiNEW M11 desktop

Some of Moneual's HTPCs may have gone unchanged in almost three years -- save for an unforgettable gold-plated, jewel-laden model at this year's CES -- but the company has now at least churned out a fairly eye-catching, if somewhat familiar-looking desktop with its new MiNEW M11 model. Unfortunately, while the M11 does slim things down considerably over the previous M10 model, it doesn't offer much in the way of upgraded specs, with this one packing just a 2.93GHz Pentium E6500 processor, 2GB of RAM, and NVIDIA GT220 graphics (in the base model, at least). Hopefully that also means it'll pack a similarly low-end price, but there's no word on that or availability just yet.

Origin PC stuffs 4.4GHz Core i7-980X, Fermi-based GTX 470 and 480 into Genesis desktop

Hope you didn't just pull the trigger on a new Origin PC Genesis, else you'll be forced to know that your rig was made obsolete in record time. Okay, maybe not obsolete, but there's precisely no doubt that you'd rather be rocking a new Fermi card than whatever you've got now. Right on cue, NVIDIA has launched its latest pair of powerhouse graphics cards, and as of right now, prospective Origin PC buyers can opt for either the GTX 470 or GTX 480 on the Genesis desktop. Better still, you can buy 'em in single, dual or triple SLI configurations, and in case you're down for paying the premium, a 4.4GHz overclocked Core i7-980X Extreme Edition CPU can sit alongside of it (or them).