C7 Addin Possibilities – The ClarionMag Blog
Thanks Dave for the opportunity, I look forward to seeing the published version and to see what the reaction is. Hopefully the article will inspire some more love for the IDE 🙂 !
-brahn
(19th Nov 2010) * System is back up and running now but I have a bit of work to catch up on! I will add then “after” benchmark soon… things are looking pretty good so far though 🙂
It has been a pretty busy last few weeks with all the addins coming out. Thanks to both Dave from ClarionMag and Arnor from Icetips for the mention on their blogs! On top of that I am in the process of upgrading all the systems here as well as preparing for a visit with to the family (24hours on planes… yuck!).
Anyway, a quick explanation as to why things have been a little quieter… I noticed a while ago that some of my systems are not so cutting edge anymore. Not that I have ever been a fan of staying on the absolute bleeding edge of technology, that is just way to expensive for too little gain, but I certainly have a large enough of a geek streak to want to at least keep up 
.
It has been a little tricky sourcing RAM for my main workstation as the motherboard seems to be very picky about what you put in it. Eventually though I found on eBay some of the exact same memory as I currently have installed and for super cheap too. That along with some new CPUs and a Solid State drive I think we can keep up.
So I am going from this:
| Motherboard: | Tyan Tiger K8WE (S2877) |
| RAM | 4GB Corsair DDR400 |
| CPU | 2 x Opteron 252 |
| Storage | 2 x WD360GD Raptor 36.7 GB (RAID 0), 1 x WD5000 (500GB), 1 x WD2500JS (250 GB) |
| Cooling | Zalman Reserator 1 v2 (cooling both CPUs) |
| OS | Vista Ultimate 64 bit |
| Benchmark |  Large version here… |
To this:
| Motherboard | Tyan Tiger K8WE (S2877) |
| RAM | 6GB Corsair DDR400 |
| CPU | 2 x Opteron 285 |
| Storage | OCZ Vertex 2 SSD (120 GB), 2 x WD360GD Raptor 36.7 GB (no raid anymore but one drive each for my main VMs), 1 x WD5000 (500GB) |
| Cooling | Zalman Reserator 1 v2 (cooling both CPUs… I hope it can keep up with the new Opterons!) |
| OS | Windows 7 64 bit (hopefully it will work ok with this old chipset!) |
| Benchmark | coming soon… |
Total cost of parts: 310 €
At first it was tough trying to decide between upgrading or starting with all new components until I noticed that the Opteron 285s are ranked 100th overall on cpubenchmark.net with a “passmark” of 3089 (which seems to be equivalent of something like Intel Core i5 660). The current Opteron 252s get a rating of 733 with a rank of 599! I figured that having two of those babies at 80 euros for both was way better than some silly little intel toy (bah!) at well over several hundred euros (+ new motherboard, ram, case etc,etc!). As long as the cooling system can keep them for cooking themselves things should start running nicely again. Plus, I will have assuaged the hardware geek in me for a little longer
Stay tuned for more addin joy soon!
-brahn
Its going to be a bit slow here for a few weeks whilst we setup the new location. Five weeks for an internet connection seems like a bit too long to wait but it is very cheap and very fast so that should make up for it!
We currently have occasional access to a free local wireless signal but the connection is patchy. Once again, stay tuned.
-out