Ultimate Developer Workstation 2009

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

Last fall, I put together a NewEgg wishlist for a new 64 bit machine that I built. I tweeted about it, but evidently didn't make a blog post. The main purpose of this machine is to run Server 2008 in Workstation mode with IIS7 and SQL 2008. The specs are as follows:

The NewEgg wishlist for the original parts I ordered are here: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=7107905

I had planned on using a case I had already, but the 240w power supply just wasn't enough for what I had planned. The case I picked up is this one from Apevia, however it is now discontinued at NewEgg. Now that I had all this room in the new case, I purchased a second 640GB hard drive (they are mirrored for SQL/Data redundancy), a 170GB Western Digital SATA 3.0 drive to be the system drive since the Raptors were out of stock at the time, a PCI to IDE card to mount up some old EIDE hard drives I had with old music/video on them and a 16x DVD ROM. I also picked up a PNY GeForce 9800 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0x16 video card to drive the two LG 22" monitors I already had.

I saw Steve Smith's Tweet about his blog post for the Ultimate Dev Workstation for 2009, so I updated my created a new list using the original build list as basis. Like his Ultimate Dev workstation build list before, I found that the motherboard, case, video card and DVD drive were all no longer carried by NewEgg just a few months later. Fortunately, there are newer, cheaper and faster components available. Do note that I could have gone with a faster quad-core processor, however to get to 3.0GHz was almost double the price, so I didn't think it was warranted. Feel free to make your own substitutions though.

The new systems has the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Processor
ECS P45T-A ATX motherboard (supports 16gb RAM instead of 8gb and has on-board RAID 0/1/5 and can support (2) PCI Express 2.0x16 cards.)
16 gigs (4 x 4gb) of DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM from Kingston
Western Digital VelociRaptor 150gb 10k RPM SATA 3.0 drive (system volume)
Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB Sata 3.0 Hard drives (x 2) (mirrored for SQL / programs / Data)
PNY GeForce 9800 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0x16 video card
ThermalTake 120MM CPU cooling fan

The NewEgg wishlist for that build is here: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=12168548 Total price for everything (without monitors) is $1,416.33 (plus shipping). Not too shabby considering the grunt this thing will have.

Note: I have not actually built this second machine yet, so I'm not 100% sure the components are solid, but since they are mainly based on my previous build, should be compatible. This was one of Steve Smith's requests for his list. I think I'll be putting this together after I get my tax return, so I'll let you know how it goes.

In transition...

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:06 GMT

I am in the process of moving all technical content from my personal site (http://dsaxman.com) to this site. I'll do my best to get it moved over as quickly as possible, so please bear with me. I'll do my best to create a permalink in the old post to the new post so that people will be able to find the content. Do note that I am not moving comments as the amount of work it would take versus the number of comments that exist (and that weren't spam) is very low.

StevePresley.net - general

Ultimate Developer Workstation 2009

In transition...