‘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)

Defined tags for this entry: hardware

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

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

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

No comments

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment	Phone* What is six minus five? Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (word), underscore are made via _word_. Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images. To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly. Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above: BBCode format allowed
	Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry