The Velocity Micro Edge Z55 is an Intel Core i7-Based System With Many Configuration Options

The Velocity Micro Edge Z55 is an Intel Core i7-Based System With Many Configuration Options


Today marks the official launch of Intel's new core processor architecture, the Intel Core i7 family of CPUs. As such, we fully expect a plethora of new Core i7-based product announcements from systems manufacturers today and in the days and weeks to follow. We've already been privy to a few such announcements, as well as even being lucky enough to get our hands on three such systems from Falcon Northwest, Gateway, and iBuypower.

Velocity Micro is one the latest vendors to throw its hat into the Intel Core i7 ring with the Velocity Micro Edge Z55 mini-tower system. The base configuration for the Edge Z55 starts at $2,199. However, using the online configurator, we were actually able to get the system price down to $1,964 by downgrading the graphics card, removing the second optical drive, eschewing the keyboard and mouse, and taking advantage of the $100 instant saving (using Velocity Micro's "3 Days Sales Event Coupon").

The Edge Z55 can be configured with either a 2.66GHz Core i7-920, 2.93GHz Core i7-940, or 3.2GHz Core i7-965 processor. The price difference between the Core i7-920 and the Core i7-965 is a whopping $985. The system ships with 3GB DDR3-1333 SDRAM and an 850-watt power supply. The memory can be upgraded to 6GB ($200) and the power supply can be upped to 1,200-watts ($120). A wide range of ATI and Nvidia-based graphics card configuration options are available, ranging from a single ATI Radeon HD 4850 up to a pair of Nvidia GeForce GTX 280 cards using SLI ($745) or a pair of ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards using CrossFireX ($990). The default hard drive is a 500GB, 7,200, SATA-300 drive; but Velocity Micro offers many hard drive storage options that include traditional platter-based drives as well as a number of solid state drive (SSD) options.

Depending on how you configure the Edge Z55, Velocity Micro estimates that it will ship as early as November 24. We discovered, however, that adding certain components to the configuration, such as any of the SSD options, automatically shifted the estimated ship date out to December 4.