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:
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Processor
- ECS P35T-A ATX motherboard
- 8 gigs (4 x 2gb) of DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) RAM from Corsair
- PNY GeForce 9800 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0×16 video card
- Western Digital Caviar SE 170GB SATA 3.0 hard drive
- Western Digital 640GB Sata 3.0 Hard drives (x2)
- ThermalTake 120MM CPU cooling fan
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 2.0×16 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 2.0×16 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 2.0×16 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.