Microcenter: Sandy Bridge, i7 & i5 bundles

why don't any of these manufacturers set up their PCIe x16 slots so that three GPUs will fit in a standard case?

Seems like every mobo has the third PCIe slot at the edge of the board.
 
Do you guys think they will continue this deal after 1/30? I called the MC in Tustin and they were sold out of the Asus P8p67 boards but they had the regular ones.
 
I've been wondering the same thing. I plan on going to MC next weekend if the deal does persist.
 
Unknown-One said:
Great, so now we're not sure if it has issues with some PCIe cards or not... you never got that ATi card working?
Click to expand...

yes and no, i swapped the nvidia card out and installed the x1050 again.
booted up and all was well , loaded drivers for it and all. surfed a bit , then i rebooted.
guess what, red vga light again.
 
MrC4 said:
May want to check this out before buying a SB.

http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/story/10990097/1/intel-notes-chipset-issue-revises-outlook.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just saw the post about that in [H]'s news section.

Basically halted my plans to build a Sandybridge based system. No way can I trust any of the current motherboards if Intel themselves is saying the SATA controller might die at any time. It sounds like a full recall on anything based on their chipset is in the works.
 
Unknown-One said:
Yeah, I just saw the post about that in [H]'s news section.

Basically halted my plans to build a Sandybridge based system. No way can I trust any of the current motherboards if Intel themselves is saying the SATA controller might die at any time. It sounds like a full recall on anything based on their chipset is in the works.
Click to expand...

They are NOT saying that the controller might die at any time.
They ARE saying that the controller could cause the SATA devices to degrade over time. Intel estimates failure to occur 2.5-3 years into the product's lifetime. They also claim that it will affect between 5 and 15% of all Cougar point chipsets out there.

Also, issues can be completely avoided by using the SATA 6Gbps ports.
 
Anybody know if Microcenter is allowing Returns on these bundles due to the defective mobos?

If Im gonna hate to wait a month or two to use this, I may as well hold off and see what Bulldozer has to offer, then make a decision. I really shot myself in the foot by upgrading right now
 
stalkerte said:
They are NOT saying that the controller might die at any time.
They ARE saying that the controller could cause the SATA devices to degrade over time. Intel estimates failure to occur 2.5-3 years into the product's lifetime.
Click to expand...
They ARE saying that the failure might occur at any time. They estimate around 10% of the boards to fail over the course of 2.5 to 3 years, not after 2.5 to 3 years.

stalkerte said:
Also, issues can be completely avoided by using the SATA 6Gbps ports.
Click to expand...
I guess we'll all just buy new drives, then? :rolleyes:

And I don't know about you, but I need more than 2 ports...
 
Unknown-One said:
They ARE saying that the failure might occur at any time. They estimate around 10% of the boards to fail over the course of 2.5 to 3 years, not after 2.5 to 3 years.


I guess we'll all just buy new drives, then? :rolleyes:

And I don't know about you, but I need more than 2 ports...
Click to expand...

Actually, they are NOT putting any numbers on expected %age of boards affected. The press release again does NOT mention any time period either, just saying that the controller will cause drives to degrade over time.

Guess a lot of websites have been extrapolating from the press release to arrive at the number.

Why would need new drives? but the point of having more than 2 ports is pertinent I guess.

The press release does mention that people can continue using their boards while a replacement schedule is worked out.
 
stalkerte said:
Actually, they are NOT putting any numbers on expected %age of boards affected. The press release again does NOT mention any time period either, just saying that the controller will cause drives to degrade over time.

Guess a lot of websites have been extrapolating from the press release to arrive at the number.
Click to expand...
Actually, they ARE putting out numbers on expected percentages. The press release doesn't say it all. Anantech has been in direct contact with intel on this matter and has come up with quite a bit of additional information. Here's an expert:
Anandtech said:
On its [intel's] conference call to discuss the issue [...] Intel expects that over 3 years of use it would see a failure rate of approximately 5 - 15% depending on usage model.
Click to expand...
Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6series-chipset-begins-recall

So, like I said before, they ARE expecting a number of these boards to die over the course of 3 years; 5% to 15% (which I averaged to "around 10%" since I couldn't remember the exact figures at the time).
 
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cabech984 said:
Anybody know if Microcenter is allowing Returns on these bundles due to the defective mobos?

If Im gonna hate to wait a month or two to use this, I may as well hold off and see what Bulldozer has to offer, then make a decision. I really shot myself in the foot by upgrading right now
Click to expand...
Intel is almost certainly compensating retailers / etailers for the returns, and I have no doubt that returns/exchanges will be at no cost to the users (except time cost of course).

Unknown-One said:
I guess we'll all just buy new drives, then? :rolleyes:
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Perhaps I'm reading your sarcasm wrong, but SATA3 is backward compatible, so you should be able to safely move your HDDs over to the 6Gbps controllers without issue. Course, that doesn't help anyone running more than two HDDs.
 
Sorry, was a poor attempt at humor. "Just don't use the broken part of the chipset eh? Yeah, and maybe we'll all buy new SATA III drives to match those shiny new ports"

Anyway, I suppose you could always write off that first PCIe 1x slot and stick a SATA card in it so you can run more than two drives without fear. Still not the greatest solution...
 
My P8P67 Pro from MC is still in the box from Friday. I think I'll wait it out to see what Asus is going to do about it. If I return it to MC I'll lose out on the 25% off coupon I used to buy it with. Glad I didn't install it yet and sell my existing parts.
 
yossarian said:
My P8P67 Pro from MC is still in the box from Friday. I think I'll wait it out to see what Asus is going to do about it. If I return it to MC I'll lose out on the 25% off coupon I used to buy it with. Glad I didn't install it yet and sell my existing parts.
Click to expand...
good plan. I'll be shocked if they don't replace everything at no charge when the new boards come out. if that's the case, I'd say no rush on your part unless you have enough drives that you're forced to use the sata2 / 3Gpbs ports for HDDs.
 
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