Sunday, February 1. 2009
Workstation #4 coming soon
Processing images with my current notebook (1.6 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM) finally is a real pain in the ass. Having the RAW converter render some JPEGs while the HDR software performs tonemapping, it becomes impossible to do image editing or even browse the web at the same time, as the mouse pointer only moves stutteringly like in those “good old days”. In addition, my 160 GB disk is almost full. My computer usage history documents the years where I got a PC (for the use as a workstation, not counting those few boxes for my server and firewalling experiments): 1995, 1998 and 2001; the notebook’s from 2004. So, it’s about time for an upgrade.
When I first thought about whether it should be a notebook again, I noticed that I don’t use my current notebook “on the road” anyway. And notebooks don’t have the computing power of dedicated desktop machines.
Nerds who buy a new PC every year are probably surprised that a Linux geek like me gets along with that few hardware upgrades. Well, my strategy is more like: Buy rarely, but wisely. I don’t feel well when messing around on a productive machine that is supposed to work; just a matter of experience. Thus, I select the components for my new PC carefully and according to my demands: Fast, multi-core, RAM expandable, good disk size, RAID-1, average good GPU, and—very important—silent operation. The price for the box should traditionally be around EUR 1,500 (formerly ATS 20,000). These are now my considerations:
- CPU: It should be a quad-core Intel, although AMD invented the multi-core CPU. First I decided for their Core 2 family, as the Core i7 brand is currently rather young and expensive, and its name seems to aim at Windows 7 anyway.
But then I thought it might be better to stick to the new generation when buying a completely new machine. I hope that the 4×2.67 GHz model (i7-920) drops in price during the next weeks. It will only be overclocked slightly, if at all, as I’d prefer to have it stable and alive for several years. - Cooler: I prefer a combination of a massive heat sink with a slow and silent fan.
- RAM: Another reason for choosing Core i7 is that it might be easier to find DDR3 SDRAM modules on the market in, say, 4 years, rather than DDR2. DDR3 has a higher data throughput as well, but I know that this is not really a matter in practice. The modules for Core i7 come in triples, thus 3×2 GB should be enough for the first time; I’ll extend them by another 6 GB in a few years.
- Mainboard: Besides the ability to support Core i7 and DDR3, it should have an audio chip onboard, as I don’t do professional audio processing or enhanced multimedia consumption. GBit ethernet onboard is standard anyway, and so is SATA II. It would be nice to also have WLAN, as I don’t have my internet router wired; but I assume that it’ll be a dedicated PCI card. USB 3.0 hasn’t hit the market yet, thus FireWire should be onboard, as I might buy a video camcorder soon.
- GPU: I don’t play games, but I leer at applications that use the power of current GPU technology for arbitrary computations. Choosing Nvidia ensures good Linux support and impelling the development of their CUDA technology. Thus I’ll go for a compromise between power and price, what leads me to a GeForce 9800 GT (or GTX+) with 1 GB RAM, or a GTX 260 with 896 MB RAM.
- Harddisks: I’ll place two 1 TB SATA II disks on RAID-1, as this is the compromise between an ever-booting system and a minimal number of disks. I might also buy an external 1 TB disk for backup. It is important to not buy them from Seagate, as they totally failed with their crappy firmwares recently.
- Optical drives: A DVD-RAM capable SATA DVD writer is enough. I don’t need the capacity of Blu-ray (25 GB) yet.
- Monitor: I used my 17″ CRT monitor from 1998–2004, until I got the notebook. I thus had the ultimate FOV shock at my employer when I got two 22″ LCD screens for twin view. I noticed then that I need much space for image editing and processing, what led me to a 24″ LCD screen. But I won’t take Iiyama, as they emit an annoying high-frequency noise in standby. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll take one with HDMI.
I’m already looking forward to giving the cooler’s heat sink bottom a mirror finish. 
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