HP forum: HPE Pavillion Reviews?

Not sure what you mean about reviews on custom builds not being possible. CNet reviews plenty of boutique-vendor PC's, where every one is custom-built. Utilizing the same standards, they could review the 390t. The closest thing they've got right now (as verified by your Google search) is the 190t review from way back in February.

With the new generation of Intel's six-core processors, I sure hope to see some reviews of systems utilizing them some time soon. Then again, I'd be happy just to know how the interior of the case impacts upgradability.

True, there aren't any high-end graphics card options for the 390t. Then again, I'm looking for application performance (Poser, Photoshop, Sketchbook), not gaming, and I suspect that is the wheelhouse for this particular HPE model.

Here's what I've spec'ed out for a little $2k:
HP Pavilion Elite HPE-390t customizable Desktop PC
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-980X six-core Extreme Edition [3.33GHz, 1.5MB L2 + 12MB shared L3 cache]
12GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [6 DIMMs]
1.5TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 1TB
1GB ATI Radeon HD 5570 [DVI,HDMI, DP, VGA adapter]
No speakers (integrated sound)
Blu-ray writer & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner
Wireless-N LAN card
15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio, video (for TV Tuner)
TV tuner, ATSC-NTSC with PVR, remote

The HP monitors aren't priced particularly competitively, so why bother with'em?

I also knocked off the sound card. I'd rather use the card slot for something else, like a SATA card so I can add a couple of 60GB SDD's in RAID 0. And if I decide I want a sound card, they can be had cheaply enough later.

I lowballed the graphics card. Again, if I decide need one later, there are plenty of budget options. Anything more than $200 is an extravagant indulgence IMO.

Could knock off $200 by going with the i7-970, which is also six-core, but my understanding is that it's weak at overclocking.

Looking at other systems labeled by CNet as "budget performance" models--the Dell XPS 9000, the Maingear Vybe, the Velocity Micro Edge Z30--the 390t with the i7-980 comes off looking pretty appealing for its price.

The i7 chipset does that TURBO auto-overclocking. Allegedly, the 980X can hit up to 4.4 Ghz.

Using Google to dig up definitions of a term that is only defined by general consensus can't produce an authoritative result. You've certainly provided a commonly-accepted definition, but that's changing as technologies like turbo boost become the norm rather than the exception. Certainly you can also Google up plenty of folks using the term overclocking in reference to turbo boost's functionality.

You could say they're using the term wrong, but since the term is essentially just a bit of slang in portmanteau form, you'd simply be demonstrating a misunderstanding of the English lexicon, which is transformative, not tautological. If the defintion for a slang term doesn't match up with the consensus, then consensus wins and the definition must adapt.

However, I'm an accomodating sort of bloke, so I'll explain my previous statement without using the term "overclocking" explicitly. When turbo boost causes the clock speed to ramp up over its normal speed, the 980 chip will top out higher than the 970.

Perhaps being a bit playful with you, but no offense meant either.

A lot of the performance of the i7 chipset depends on what you're doing. I don't think there's a game out there right now that will do anything with all six cores. With video or photo editing, OTOH, an i7 with six cores should be sittin' pretty.

Do you think the reviewers take their emails to heart? I figure they must get swamped.