Thursday AVADirect announced that its portfolio of notebooks and desktops will now include Intel's new 2nd-generation Core i5 and i7 "Sandy Bridge" processors, bringing increased performance and more affordable configurations to both the enthusiast and cost-conscious consumer.
"What Sandy Bridge means to gaming desktops is easily achievable overclock speeds and improved physics performance," the company said Thursday. "Custom non-gaming desktops provide more multi-tasking and efficiency than ever before and lower costs due to the integrated HD graphics, removing the need for dedicated graphics card to drive the display(s)."
Customers purchasing Sandy Bridge-based notebooks will enjoy improved battery life due to the 2nd-generation processor's reduced power consumption and heat generation. "HTPC users can take advantage of the slim-streamed integrated HD graphics engine for viewing HD movies, digital TV, and streaming video making HTPCs built from Sandy Bridge the ideal solution for any media center requirements," the company added.
AVADirect is already offering Sandy Bridge-based solutions including the $1425.61 15.6-inch Clevo P151HM gaming notebook and the red-hot $1332.68 Custom Gaming PC Core desktop (DGS-I7-P67SLICFX ). The latter rig looks quite impressive just in the chassis alone, sporting a bright red outer hull, blue LEDs splashing the rig's innards and two purple LED fans mounted on the front. Under the hood, the PC offers up to 32 GB DDR3-2133 memory (2 slots), Nvidia SLI or ATI CrossFireX configurations, up to six SATA, SAS or SSD storage solutions, RAID 0/1/0+1/5 capabilities and more.
The Clevo P151HM notebook (left) is just as impressive (although not quite as flashy), offering a Full HD (1920 x 1080) Matte LED display, up to 16 GB DDR3-1600 SODIMM memory (2 slots), Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M 1.5 GB graphics, SATA 3 Gb/s HDDs or SSDs, 802.11 a/g/n wireless, custom painting and more. Of course, consumers can choose between Core i5 and i7 socket G2 processors, depending on their wallet.
Naturally consumers can custom-trailer their ideal configuration, sending the baseline pricetag steadily upwards. AVADirect said additional Sandy Bridge solutions should be arriving soon, so keep checking back.
