‘davinci’ up and running (like hell)

Friday, February 27. 2009

‘davinci’ up and running (like hell)

Two days ago I finished assembling my new workstation and set up a 64-bit Debian ‘lenny’ on it. When I decided to go for Intel Core i7 I wasn’t aware that due to Intel’s Hyperthreading technology each of the four cores is able to handle two threads at once, making it effectively an eight(!)-core system to the OS! Dig this:

$ grep MHz /proc/cpuinfo cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726 cpu MHz : 2672.726

I thought that the onboard Intel SATA-RAID controller provided a hardware RAID, but it’s just a software RAID in disguise, so I can well let Linux do the job. Then I had problems setting up WLAN with the Atheros card I built in, but thanks to the MadWifi project I got it running. What else? Yes, Memtest86 v3.5 didn’t boot on Core i7 and/or 6 GB RAM, but Memtest86+ v2.11 did.

I named the new system ‘davinci’, honoring the technological genius Leonardo da Vinci, what is consistent with the weapon-like appearance of the Cooler Master Storm Sniper case.

I proudly list the installed components here:

CPU: Intel Core i7-920 4×2.67GHz
RAM: OCZ Platinum 3×2GB DDR3-1600 SDRAM, CL7-7-7-24
Mainboard: Asus P6T Deluxe, 6×DDR3-1333 slots
GPU: Zotac GeForce GTX 260 AMP²! Edition, 896MB GDDR3, PCIe 2.0 ×16, 2×DVI
Harddisks: 2× Western Digital RE3 1TB SATA II, RAID-1
Optical drive: LG Electronics GH22LS30 SATA, 22×/8×/12× DVD±R/+RW/-RAM
WLAN: D-Link AirPlusXtremeG DWL-G520, 108Mbit, PCI
Case: Cooler Master CM Storm Sniper
Power supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro 700W
Monitor: Samsung SyncMaster 2693HM 26″ TFT-LCD, 1920×1200, DVI, HDMI, speakers, USB
Input devices: Logitech Cordless Desktop Wave

Currently I just use Intel’s boxed CPU cooler, so I haven’t done any overclocking yet. I’m having an eye on the Cooler Master V10 that’ll be available by April. With this I aim to overclock the cores to 3.2 GHz for the first time, what I might increase to a maximum of 3.8 GHz one day.

Posted by Stephan Paukner in Information Technology at 18:09 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (2)

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What a speed gain!
I complained about my old notebook being too slow at image processing. As I now run a new machine, it’s time to measure the performance increase:Old system: 1×1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAMNew system: 8×2.67 GHz CPU (by threads), 6 GB RAMTest file sizes: 11.

Weblog: Logbook of Stephan Paukner
Tracked: Mar 05, 21:45

What a speed gain!, II
The Cooler Master V10 was finally available and is finally mounted on my CPU. I could thus start my overclocking experiments. My first comparisons with my old notebook already revealed some nice performance gains with the Core i7-920’s default spe

Weblog: Logbook of Stephan Paukner
Tracked: Jun 26, 19:08

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