Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
best, the Phenom II X6 1090T—which was almost impossible to actually buy
when we built this system—and 50% faster than Intel's next-fastest model, the
Core i7-970.
Although plunking down a grand just for the processor may sound ridiculous
in this day of perfectly usable complete systems that sell for $500, what's really
important isn't cost so much as cost/benefit ratio. Robert typically works 7-day,
60+-hour weeks, most of it spent in front of his main office system. The differ-
ence in cost between the Core i7-980X and a less capable processor amounts
to less than a dollar a day over the expected lifetime of the system. If, say,
rendering a video clip or compiling a program takes 30 seconds on the $1,000
Core i7-980X and twice that long on a $300 processor, that may seem a trivial
difference. It's not. That's an extra 30 seconds that Robert has to sit twiddling
his thumbs, waiting on the processor. Every time. Multiply that 30 seconds by
many such events per day—often many such events per
hour
—and paying
that extra dollar a day for the Core i7-980X starts to sound like a real bargain.
Of course, not everyone uses a computer as heavily, or for such processor-
intensive tasks. A system doesn't need a $1,000 processor to qualify as ex-
treme. High-performance processors start at around $250 to $300, including the
slower quad-core Intel Core i7 models and the fastest hex-core AMD Phenom II
X6 models. For that price, you'll get a processor that's half as fast as the Core
i7-980X, but still noticeably faster than a mainstream processor.
Memory
Crucial Ballistix BL3KIT25664BN1608 PC3-12800 6 GB kit (2GB
×
3)
When determining memory requirements, it's important to remember that a
hex-core processor like our Intel Core i7-980X is effectively six individual pro-
cessors. Each of those processors needs as much memory as a single-core pro-
cessor does. We consider 1 GB per core the sweet spot, so we decided to install
at least 6 GB of memory in our hex-core extreme system.
Of course, each of the six cores in the Intel Core i7-980X can run two threads,
so we might have decided to install 1 GB per thread, for a total of 12 GB of
system memory. However, based on previous experience with Robert's earlier
extreme system—a four-core Intel Core2 Quad Q9650 running 32-bit Linux,
with only 3 GB of the 4 GB installed visible to the operating system—we de-
cided that 6 GB of total memory would probably suffice, even running a 64-bit
OS. Memory prices were very high when we built this system, so we decided to
install 6 GB initially with the intention of upgrading that to 12 GB, if necessary,
once memory prices had decreased.
The Intel DX58SO motherboard supports several different memory bank con-
figurations, but the fastest of those requires installing three matched PC3-
12800 memory modules in banks A, B, and C. Those modules can be 2 GB
DIMMs, for a total of 6 GB, or 4 GB DIMMs, for a total of 12 GB. We chose a fast,
low-latency 6 GB Crucial memory kit, because in the 20 years we've been using
Crucial memory we've never had a problem with it.
