A few months ago, I wrote about how there had been a big price break
in the
Ultimate Developer Rig presented by
Jeff Atwood and
Scott Hanselman. About a month
later, I went ahead and built my own version of this glorious box.
Since the
price had fallen so low ($1,503.88), I decided to increase the amount of ram
from 4GB to
8GB. This was due in part to a conversation that I had with my good friend and
DevExpress colleague,
Oliver Sturm. We were discussing the
well-known limits of ram in 32-bit Windows. Oliver made the point, "I'd rather
have 4GB on 32-bit Windows than 4GB on 64-bit Windows." The thinking is that,
while 32-bit Windows may not be able to fully access 4GB of ram, 4GB on a 64-bit
machine might seem cramped since applications use more memory due to wider
pointers. Besides, ram is cheap! There's no reason not to purchase a little more
elbow room—especially since the price of the machine had already
dropped by $400.
The final build that I settled on is below:
As you can see, the price has dropped even further, and the cost of 8GB of
ram is now around $200!
Full Disclosure: I had a negative experience with the
MSI P6N SLI Platinum
motherboard. It was dead
on arrival. After installing the CPU, RAM and a video card, the
motherboard refused to
POST. Newegg's RMA
service did a fantastic job of replacing the board. However, there's
nothing worse than removing a CPU, cleaning off the thermal paste and hoping
that it works the next time it's installed. Fortunately, the second motherboard
worked fine and has been running well for nearly two months.
The time I've spent developing with this machine have been nothing
short of pure joy. Builds are faster, multiple VMs don't drag
me down, virus scans occur without my knowledge... it's complete bliss. I can
even watch every episode of
Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, season 1 simultaneously without a hiccup.
I should also mention that my trophy wife, while OK with the initial
purchase, is grumbling a bit after seeing the current component prices. 