Retail Edge 2007!

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...nother DA here.
I've got 11350 points so far - next month over 13k :D :D

I've got last years C2D6300 (1.86Ghz) running at 3.03Ghz (433x7) on a GA-965-DS3 rev1.3. Screaming fast and whisper quiet. I hope we get just as good an OC'er this year...

Edit - Last year I got my order only 6 days after I placed it. I'll probably just slap the new CPU into my current rig and take my time building the other. I've got 2gigs of fast RAM (w/tight timmings) and an OC'd X1950XT (Accelero X2 cooler) so there's not much my current system can't handle.
 
Last year I got my bundle in like 3 or 4 days, which actually seemed long considering they shipped it from a location less an hour's drive from my house.

Anyway, now I'm kinda stuck in a difficult situation. When I left for school I let my parents keep the desktop I built around last year's bundle and in return they contributed a fair bit to my spiffy new Vaio laptop. So now I am about to have the opportunity to buy another bundle, but that means building a whole new system. I've found that having a laptop is semi-pointless in my case because I've only taken it to class once, so it's basically just a desktop.

I'm thinking that maybe when the bundle becomes available I should sell my Sony and build a basic system around the bundle and then use the funds I have left over to buy something like an Asus EEE, that is of course if Asus ever releases them.
 
Modred189 said:
Got the same PSU and Case. Love both so far. I would recommend AGAINST going RAID. I did the same with the last bundle, and regretted the decision ever since. Too many errors. I will have to guess you are a fellow BlueShirt...
Anyway, here are the plans:
Antec 900(+1 side fan) with the Rocketfish 700w PSU. 4Gigs of Crucial Ballistix DDR2800, Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi/AP mobo, Zalman 9500 HS/fan, 2x150gb in RAID0 for data, Raptor X for OS, Win Vista Ultimate 64-bit. BFG 8600GTS OC, and a second one if the board they give us is SLI able.... doubtful of course.
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I love the 900, here is a great 900 mod thread for ya to check out http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126395 The PSU is great looking and lots o power (the emp cost was about a third of retail!) Maybe I will go towards a RAID1+0 or most likely a RAID5...Are you saying it not reliable running the OS from a RAID0? What kind of errors did you experience? I wear a white sleeveless dress shirt, black clip-on tie with a badge on my hip...lol I assume your PCHO? I want some Crucial Tracer (lights up) memory but I got the PNY stuff @ BBY on the cheap and it has chrome heat spreaders...I might get the GTS OC as I have a PS3 and don't want to spend another 6 on an Ultra or GT to play the same games...I run Win64ult on my Turion64x2 notebook with no problems and will "attempt" the same with the Quad. I've been looking at all the boards on Newegg, I read about all the horror stories with the high priced boards like the Striker Extreme and the like..Is the P5B a strong board? I think they are in the new Velocitys...
 
Yeah, gotta love that BBY employee discount and brands like dynex and rocketfish.
 
Bah, I assumed my company participated in retail edge. We don't, since there are not enough employees nationwide. Oh well!
 
AgentHubble said:
I love the 900, here is a great 900 mod thread for ya to check out http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=126395 The PSU is great looking and lots o power (the emp cost was about a third of retail!) Maybe I will go towards a RAID1+0 or most likely a RAID5...Are you saying it not reliable running the OS from a RAID0? What kind of errors did you experience? I wear a white sleeveless dress shirt, black clip-on tie with a badge on my hip...lol I assume your PCHO? I want some Crucial Tracer (lights up) memory but I got the PNY stuff @ BBY on the cheap and it has chrome heat spreaders...I might get the GTS OC as I have a PS3 and don't want to spend another 6 on an Ultra or GT to play the same games...I run Win64ult on my Turion64x2 notebook with no problems and will "attempt" the same with the Quad. I've been looking at all the boards on Newegg, I read about all the horror stories with the high priced boards like the Striker Extreme and the like..Is the P5B a strong board? I think they are in the new Velocitys...
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I actually used the PNY optimas at first too, when I was using the board from last year's bundle, but then I got an Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi/ap for $130 from a closing CompUSA. While the PNY stuff actually OC'd OK (from stock 333 mhz to 350), I wanted to go higher, so i got the Crucial Ballistix 2G kit for $60 form the egg after rebates. Like it alot.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146565

As for the RAID array, the errors it threw out were very strange. Kernel errors, driver deaths and missing/corrupt files. I know it was the array, as when I switched the OS over to a raptor, they all went away (I purposefully used the same driver set to test it out). So what I do is put the OS on the raptor (think about grabbing one of the perpendicular Seagates instead, cheaper and faster) and install my games/programs on the array. It eliminates the issues, and maintains the performance gains I wanted.

For the OS I am running Vista Ultimate 64, and have had few if any issues I could pinpoint on the operating system. Reliability has been great and drivers have not been an issue (mostly). The mobo is a great board ([H] liked it when they reviewed it), and can take the quad with a bios flash. good cooling on the northbridge and southbridge, though I've heard that it might be a good idea to re-mount those heatsinks as they use crappy paste. Plenty of room for bigger coolers too.
My only two design complaints are the same I have with a P965 boards:
1 only one IDE port, and it's all the way at the bottom of the board, so all your drives should be SATA. In some cases an IDE cable may not reach from the optical drive to the bottom.
2 Crossfire and not SLI. With Nvidia cards being as good as they are right now, SLI is very tempting, but unfortunately, this is a crossfire only board...

I do highly recommend the optical drive I got. I bought a LiteON SATA DVD/RW drive for $39 last year from ClubIT, and have been pretty happy. It's not too loud (though not silent) and burns at 16x, the max of modern disks.

A tip, don't get ram through emp discount, the discount sux.
 
there was rumblings from the intel rep that came in, said that it may possibly be one of the upper end c2qs
 
SN4p said:
there was rumblings from the intel rep that came in, said that it may possibly be one of the upper end c2qs
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JazzMang said:
I would think it would be a q6600... I hope.
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Are you serious? Did you read the first post? Did you read the Intel Retail edge website last month? It's been established that it will be a C2Q q6600...
 
Modred189 said:
Are you serious? Did you read the first post? Did you read the Intel Retail edge website last month? It's been established that it will be a C2Q q6600...
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All we know for sure is that there will be a C2Q but the model is still unknown.
BTW I have heard that to be guaranteed a package you will need 14,000 chips. Good thing that I will have at least that much by the end of the month. (currently at 12,975 chips)
 
[21CW]killerofall;1031491890 said:
All we know for sure is that there will be a C2Q but the model is still unknown.
BTW I have heard that to be guaranteed a package you will need 14,000 chips. Good thing that I will have at least that much by the end of the month. (currently at 12,975 chips)
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No it's not. Last month, the retail edge website named the Q6600 specifically.

And 14,000? When the MOST in the last three years was 12,000?

Are you making stuff up? What are your sources?
 
[21CW]killerofall;1031491890 said:
All we know for sure is that there will be a C2Q but the model is still unknown.
BTW I have heard that to be guaranteed a package you will need 14,000 chips. Good thing that I will have at least that much by the end of the month. (currently at 12,975 chips)
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damn 14000 :[ I hope it's not that much.
I kept procrastinating so I only have about 8000 right now.


there seems to be less chips available this year than last year.
 
Just remember that if 14,000 is the new number this year instead of the 12,000 it was last year, that is only the amount that you have to have to be GUARANTEED a bundle even when the supply runs out. Last year the minimum to qualify for a bundle was 8,000 and the minimum to be guaranteed was 12,000. I didn't know about retail edge until like October and I was able to get over the 8,000 in December and got my bundle in late December. My friend on the other hand was over 12,000 so he waited until late January to order his.

What I'm trying to say is that if you have the money available but you don't have enough points to be guaranteed a bundle but do have enough just to qualify, just order one as soon as you can.
 
they still havent updated for the october stuff yet.


when will they open it up for being able to buy the bundles???
 
Seriously Intel!!!! You're killing us...

One thing that I noticed though is that if you go to an event you are supposed to take a pay stub for pre-verification of eligibility for the bundle so if there are any events around you guys, that could hasten the process once the purchase program begins.


On a related topic, do you guys know of any other manufacturers with similar programs? I already use Microsoft's ExpertZone (Loved getting Gears of War for just $9) and I just won $25 from AMD through RetailAccess. Do any of the graphics card makers have programs like these?
 
JapaneseGorilla said:
Seriously Intel!!!! You're killing us...

One thing that I noticed though is that if you go to an event you are supposed to take a pay stub for pre-verification of eligibility for the bundle so if there are any events around you guys, that could hasten the process once the purchase program begins.


On a related topic, do you guys know of any other manufacturers with similar programs? I already use Microsoft's ExpertZone (Loved getting Gears of War for just $9) and I just won $25 from AMD through RetailAccess. Do any of the graphics card makers have programs like these?
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The AMD/Microsoft tech tour came through my area this summer and had a similar bundle, but not at nearly as good of a price. It was a better mobo, however.
Also, check out: http://powertogethertour.com/
 
In case anyone was wondering, Sent a reply to Retail Edge program and they responded with following today:

Thank you for contacting the Intel(R) Retail Edge Program team.

We sincerely apologize for the delay in announcing this year’s Purchase Program. There are some final details that are still being reviewed by Program Management which prevents us from giving specific details, however, we hope to make the announcement shortly.

We appreciate your patience and would recommend checking back to the site regularly for more updates as well as other training and Chip earning opportunities. Additionally, we will be sending an announcement via e-mail to all Program members who have opted to receive messages.

Regards,
Corey S.
The Intel(R) Retail Edge Program team
www.intel.com/retailedge

............dam lawyers :mad:
 
VIA2007 said:
In case anyone was wondering, Sent a reply to Retail Edge program and they responded with following today:

Thank you for contacting the Intel(R) Retail Edge Program team.

We sincerely apologize for the delay in announcing this year’s Purchase Program. There are some final details that are still being reviewed by Program Management which prevents us from giving specific details, however, we hope to make the announcement shortly.

We appreciate your patience and would recommend checking back to the site regularly for more updates as well as other training and Chip earning opportunities. Additionally, we will be sending an announcement via e-mail to all Program members who have opted to receive messages.

Regards,
Corey S.
The Intel(R) Retail Edge Program team
www.intel.com/retailedge

............dam lawyers :mad:
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Awesome update, thx!
 
Not a lot of chips? My friend there is plenty. I am at 21,700 prior to Octobers quizzes. Additionally, my store never sees the rep so I don't get bonus points unless I attend the 2 live events a year in my area. Going into November I should have 23,950 from:

1,000 monthly October quiz
250 from October article
1,000 bonus for a live event in October.

Hopefully there are two articles this month :). I'd like to shoot for 25,000 before I order...

The minimum amount of chips you can get if you attend no events and they only have 1 article per month is: 24,600 for the year, now thats a lot of chips...
 
erockem said:
Not a lot of chips? My friend there is plenty. I am at 21,700 prior to Octobers quizzes. Additionally, my store never sees the rep so I don't get bonus points unless I attend the 2 live events a year in my area. Going into November I should have 23,950 from:

1,000 monthly October quiz
250 from October article
1,000 bonus for a live event in October.

Hopefully there are two articles this month :). I'm going for 25,000...
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I only have 20,100 chips, weak.
 
i just went to login to the retailedge site and it's says they are currently updating the site and to check back soon....
 
amdmaxx said:
October & Purchase hopefully..
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yea... i only have like 17,650.. i hope they don't give me problems though b/c i'm at school right now so i haven't been working and my last pay stub is from like august but i'm still employed at the company...
 
You guys make me feel bad now. I only have like 10,500 chips. :(

I really hope I can get about 13,000 and go to a live event for a 14,000 total which will guarantee me a pack. If that won't be enough then oh well, looks like I'll be waiting day by day and ordering asap.
 
IT HAS BEEN UPDATED!

- Q6700 (YES!)
- Intel® Desktop Board DG33TL Media Series (a crappy board, what were we expecting)
- Vista Home Premium (yay...)
 
i will try to order only with 10k

if i dont get one i will just buy the pieces individually


hopefully they will update with the october stuff soon maybe midnight CST tonight
 
HOW TO PURCHASE THE INTEL® BUNDLE: Once you have received your unique Purchase Code via e-mail notification, you may proceed to purchase your bundle through the Shop Intel SM Web site (www.intel.com/shop) at a cost of US$219.00/ approximately CND$215.03 for the Bundle, US$249.00/ approximately CND$244.50 for the Premium Bundle. Purchase is subject to the following conditions:

INTEL® PRODUCT BUNDLE DESCRIPTION: A Qualified Participant with at least 9,000 Chips who has a Purchase Code has the opportunity to purchase one (1) Intel bundle (“Bundle”), which consists of one (1) each of the following three (3) items:
1. Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Processor
2. Intel® Desktop Board DG33TL Media Series
3. Microsoft Windows Vista* Home Premium Edition

Maximum value of each Bundle: US$849.00/ approximately CND$838.28.

A Qualified Participant with at least 12,000 Chips who has a Purchase Code has the opportunity to purchase one (1) Intel premium bundle (“Premium Bundle”), which consists of one (1) each of the following three (3) items:
1. Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6700 Processor
2. Intel® Desktop Board DG33TL Media Series
3. Microsoft Windows Vista* Home Premium Edition

Maximum value of each Premium Bundle: US$1,119.00/ approximately CND$1,099.66.
 
dvandentop said:
i just passed the damn test and it doesnt give me the points !!!

:mad:
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I too ran into the same problem, but I don't care as I already have enough chips.

Well, maybe the board isn't so bad, it has:
- DVI-out
- up to 8GB of RAM
- 12 USB ports
- Firewire

The killer is not having the option for Crossfire/SLI and the small amount of PCI ports (just one?!).


EDIT: Just by reading the Newegg reviews, it seems like memory problems still plague Intel mobos.
 
dvandentop said:
i just passed the damn test and it doesnt give me the points !!!

:mad:
Click to expand...

They always seem to have problems with the quizzes when they first come out. Give it some time; can't order the bundle til November 5th anyway.

Gotta love the "stellar" bundle... 12k chips should be fairly easy for just about anyone to get by December 31st. And Q6700... that's awesome.

I've got to take a moment to recognize some of the members of this board (you know who you are) that wanted to swear up and down that the ONLY processor that would be offered this year would be the Q6600. Even though intel NEVER said anything about the processor before this point, except that it would be quad-core. It's ok... I understand that theres a need to be seen as someone who's "in the know" about stuff like this, but sometimes you should just sit back and say "look, I just don't know what processor will be offered this year" instead of making up details about this year's bundle just to look cool.
/rant

As for the motherboard, here's the newegg link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121315&Tpk=DG33TL

As assumed, an awesome processor and a par to good board in this years bundle. We don't happen to have anyone who has dealt with the 1333/1066 intel motherboards (or even better, someone who has dealt with this motherboard in particular) who can tell us whether its any good?
 
See above. With the layout of this bundle, is it possible to purchase both the standard and the premium.
 
I stand corrected, I never thought they'd give us that crappy of a mobo.
At least we have the option of a Q6700 however. Are they worth it over the Q6600?
 
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