Mar 18, 2011 08:28 GMT  ·  By

iBuyPower just announced that the company has teamed up with Tiger Direct to enter the retail market with the Gamer Extreme 966 system that was built on top of the Intel's Core i7-960 processors and targets gamers as well as performance users.

The Intel Core i7-960 processor is based on the Nehalem architecture and packs four processing cores that work at 3.2GHz (up to 3.46GHz via Turbo Boost), 8MB of shared L3 cache memory and a tri-channel memory controller.

Power consumption is rated at 130W and the chip supports a wide range of Intel proprietary technologies such as Hyper-Threading and VT-x.

The rest of the system is made up of an Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 graphics card, 6GB of DDR3 memory, a 700W power supply and a 1TB hard drive.

All these are housed inside a Xion Echo case that was custom fitted so that it would allow for the installation of a water cooling system which is used to keep the temperatures of the processor in check.

“Our customers are hardcore gamers that expect a flawless gaming experience each time they sit down in to play,” said Darren Su, vice president of iBuyPower.

“We wanted to share that positive experience with new customers, allowing them to test drive one of our systems at a local Tiger Direct retail center.”

Until now, iBuyPower's system were available solely online, but, this way, the company considers that more users will actually get to see and get a feel for their machines.

The Gamer Extreme 966 system is available at all 33 Tiger Direct stores in five states and Puerto Rico for $1,159.99.

Customers with more specific gaming needs can still configure a customizable gaming PC on the company's website and opt for the hardware that best fits their needs.