Gearfuse

When it comes to laptop overclocking, there aren’t many choices beyond useless fan-type solutions. Finally, Intel and Embraco have teamed up to develop a cooling system that actually brings refrigeration to laptops.

Apparently, the device works thanks to what is being touted as the World’s smallest miniature compressor. Air is cooled before it flows to the bottom of the laptop and up through the intake openings. Naturally, this will result in a significant cooling of the computer’s internal components. In fact, testing showed that the cooler was able to lower the ambient temperature by 41% (23.1C to 13.6C).

Expect to see the Embraco Refrigrated Docking Station sometime around the holidays for around $150. No word yet on how much this beast weighs though. My guess is…a lot. More pictures are available after the jump.
(more…)

Anyone who has ever built and overclocked a PC knows that heat is a major obstacle.

There are plenty of DIY remedies out there, but few are as amusing as this cheap MacGyver-esque solution. — Sean Fallon

Link [via]

Mmm, more Computex stuff. The MSI GX600 is being dubbed the world’s first Turbobook. Why, you might ask, would they call it a Turbobook? Well, what about the neat little overclock button that kicks the CPU speed up a notch when your computer is in AC mode (and by notch we mean 20%) for when you really need your computer working overtime. The turbo button enables the GX600 to run smoothly when you need that extra boost of free memory space.

Other than that neat feature, the Turbobook is a pretty typical Santa Rosa configured notebook. The specs looks something like this: Core 2 Duo processor, 15.4-inch WXGA, Nvidia Geforce 8600 with 512mb of ram, a max of 250 GB of SATA HD storage and up to 4 GB of mind numbing ram. No price is announced yet, but that turbo button is sure to also kick the price up a notch as well. (more…)

Intel announced today their plans for a third Extreme processor, geared towards the enthusiast-user. The Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6800 is Intel’s fastest enthusiast featured processor yet, running with a clock speed of 2.93 GHz. According to the press release by Intel, the QX6800 is focused specifically for gamers, digital designers, and those who strive for maximum computing power.

Critics are quick to criticize that the 6800 doesn’t differ much from the 6700, which has reached native clock speeds of 3.2 GHz, though we say, lets not comment until we see this baby in some overclocking action. The QX6800 will cost an equally extreme $1200 and is available now through Intel. — Andrew Dobrow

Link [via]

Elitegroup Computer Systems recently announced their addition to their ATX motherboard family with the NF650iSLIT-A LGA775 (or the 650i if your keeping score at home). The 650i has tremendous external connectivity with support for 10 USB devices, along with gigabit LAN connections.

Also included with the 650i is two PCI Express x16 slots, arranged in a user-friendly x8 by x8 configuration. The 650i is a power house of connectivity. Enabled to be connected to four serial ATI II’s, three IDE devices, and three PCI legacy slots, despite the need for them. If your looking for eSATA slots you’re out of luck as thats one of the only things the 650i won’t house. — Andrew Dobrow

Product Page [ECS]

Asus has announced its Aquatank graphics card. A new option for cooling an overclocked GeForce 8800GTX card with a water cooling method. The new Aquatank is said to run 12 degrees cooler then a reference thermal module.

The Aquatank clears out warm water from an overclocking 8800GTX, enabling the GeForce graphics to be up to 11 percent faster then when its running hot. Testing showed an increase in performance from 575 MHz to 630 MHz. Quite a jump for a GPU clock.

No pricing or release date have been announced, but the release should please some GeForce hardware fan boys who love working their cards to their maximum power. — Andrew Dobrow

Asus ‘Aquatank’ Cools GeForce 8800GTX [ExtremeTech]

Late last year Intel released the Q6700, their brand new baby that was a Core 2 Quad (not duo) and had a clock speed of 2.66 GHz. So what is the difference between the Q6700 and the brand new Q6600, well, other than 100, there is a difference in clock speed of .26Ghz. The new Q6600 runs at 2.4Ghz intsead of 2.66. Also, the Q6600 is locked, meaning there is no option of overclocking this quad core monster.

The talk that quad cores are essentially two duos placed on the same chip is true, and the Q6600 is just two Core 2 Duo E6600 cores on a single socket with a pair of 4MB L2 caches and a 1066MHz frontside bus. So other than the locked state of the Q6600 and its clock speed, there is no difference between the two CPUs. So why is this new processor significant? It is really the first quad-core CPU to hit and be aimed at the mainstream market. While no solid price has been released by Intel yet, it will probably be priced a bit under the Q6700’s $999 price point.

(more…)