K. Scott Allen

That's down from almost exactly $1500 from when I priced it in late November, which is when it got affordable for me. I'm thinking another 6 months, and I'll have the Even More Ultimate Developer Rig 3. :)

Hey Now Ode,
This is a great post, good idea.
Thx 4 the info,
Catto

Ha!

This is the most interesting post in months ... What is the lesson here? Rent one?

Why two video cards for a development rig (the playing games benefit doesn't count)? Use the money on a faster processor or a second 500GB running in raid 1 to assure you don't lose ANY data. just my two cents...

Your memory prices seem high - I'm seeing 4 GB (2x2GB) for less than your price for 2GB.

@Kevin: good catch.

@mel: The idea (as Fritz explained to me this morning when I said two video cards might be overkill) is to hook up as many large display panels as possible. You put Outlook on one monitor, Visual Studio on a second monitor, some web browsers on a third, etc.

I'm currently using two monitors, but all the cool people have already moved to three or four.

@Harry: yeah, a business lease doesn't look too bad, actually :)

@Thomas: waiting is always an option!

The original rig is 4 GB RAM and it looks like the price you have for is for 4 also, right? I'm just about to pull the trigger on this and build one myself.

@Harold:

It looks like Scott spec'ed out only 2GB. As Kevin pointed out in an earlier comment, 4GB is now a lot cheaper. So cheap, it should be illegal to go with anything less!

*sigh* If only I had the extra cash...

I just built this machine this past weekend to replace an old one that died after 4 years. Oh well.

These are the prices I paid Newegg:
- Memory: Kingston value RAM KVR800D2N5K2/2G (4G total-2 X $49.99) $99.98
- Motherboard: MSI P6N SLI PLATINUM NF650ISLI $129.99
- Processor: CPU INTEL|C2Q Q6600 2.40G 775 8M R $277.99
- CPU COOLER: SCYTHE|SCNJ-1100P RTL $39.99
- Video: 2 X VGA MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC R (2 X $139.99) $279.98
- CASE: ANTEC|P182 BK RT $149.99
- PSU: CORSAIR|CMPSU-520HX RT $124.99

Total: $1102.91 + $9.30 shipping = $1112.21

The cooler is a different model because the one in the post was out-of-stock. I prefer the original one; it is more compact because the fan doesn't hang off of the side.

I scavenged the hard drives and DVD/CD drive from the dead machine: 2 Raptor drives in a RAID 0 array became my boot device and another 300G drive for additional storage. I also scavenged a floppy drive in order to load up the RAID driver for XP (not ready for Vista yet--long story).

Note: There is a known problem with the MSI P6N when loading 4 X 1G of memory. The machine would not boot into the BIOS (i.e. "black screen") unless I loaded just 2 X 1G. I built the machine using this configuration, flashed the latest BIOS (1.5), and then re-populated the memory. Voila!

I've only been using it for a couple of days, and haven't run through the burn in or overclocking that Jeff describes--yet. The machine "rocks" so far, and it is quieter than the machine I replaced even without the egg-crate foam.