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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
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Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC

By | March 15, 2010, 1:42pm PDT

Want to put together a super fast desktop system using the latest components? Here are the plans for a system that will give you the top-dog bragging rights … for a while at any rate! Oh, and you’ll get the cutting edge performance at the best price possible.

This system will be built around Intel’s latest CPU - the six-core Core i7 980x Extreme Edition.

Note: At the time of writing, these CPUs aren’t generally available for retail sale, but review pieces are making the rounds. These CPUs should be hitting the shelves shortly.

The CPU

As I’ve already mentioned, the CPU that I’ll be using here is Intel’s first six-core (or hexacore) Core i7 980x Extreme Edition. This is a 3.33GHz part that can be Turbo Boosted up to a whopping 3.6GHz. It has six cores, which when combined with Hyper-Threading makes a whopping 12 threads available. Add to this 12MB of L3 cache, triple-channel DDR3-1066 memory interface, 130W TDP, and a brand-new stock cooler.

Six cores/12 threads offers an insane amount of power, more than the average user can hope to utilize. But having more power than you can use has never put off hardcore enthusiasts in the past!

Price: $999

Motherboard

Technically, the 980x “should” work with any Socket LGA1366 motherboard that’s had a BIOS upgrade to make it “Gulftown” compatible (if you’ve not updated the BIOS in the last few weeks, go look for an update). That said, if you’re putting down $1,000 on a CPU, you should look for a motherboard that offers you the best possible performance.

The motherboard I’ve chosen for this build in Gigabyte’s GA-X58A-UD3R, which is not only robust and reliable, has a tweakable BIOS, and complements the 980x well, but also has advanced features such as USB 3.0 support.

An excellent board to go with your 980x!

Price: $210

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Topics

Performance, PC, Power Supply, Motherboard, CPU, HD 5970, BIOS, Performance Management, Processors, Hardware, Components, Semiconductors, Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
AndyPagin 27th Jul 2010
Look, why not just buy an 8 core 64 thread UltraSparc box & have done with it.
View in thread
0 Votes
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Dude when you are going to build this?
DTS, Linux Advocate 15th Mar 2010
nt
0 Votes
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I will build it when the cost of the components
Snooki_smoosh_smoosh Updated - 15th Mar 2010
are about 1/3rd of that or less.

Edit: So that will be in about 6-8 months.
0 Votes
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Absurd pricing and for what to get 10FPS more?
unredeemed Updated - 15th Mar 2010
Those prices are out of control. Here when the
trend for
the last few years has been commoditization, and
lower
hardware costs... Intel goes ahead and decides
to charge
even more of a premium for their products.

Of course you could trim much of your price to
be sub
$2k, with no SSD, a cheaper pwr supply, and more
realistic vid card, etc... It's still a $1000+
system
when only talking the MB, CPU, and RAM!
0 Votes
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Law of diminishing returns
Cayble 16th Mar 2010
I'm just a little surprised at the reaction about cost. Always keep in mind that with computers, as is the case pretty much with most, if not all technologically based things, there is the law of diminishing returns in regard to comparing the amounts of money spent to the increase in performance gained. Simply put; if you want to go ultra on anything, your going to pay ultra on price but you can almost always save ultra by just lowering the performance margin a couple notches.

Whats the use in complaining about costs when you start looking at anything in the "ultra" category? Its like anything, you shouldn't be at all surprised if ultra cost more then its worth to you. Ultra in many products is often reserved for those with more money then they know what to do with, or reserved for those who simply want ultra bad enough that they do whatever it takes to get the funds together. But complaining that ultra seems overpriced is pointless.

Of course ultra is overpriced as compared to the performance increase you get from moving up from sub ultra. Thats why they call it ultra, its where the law of diminishing returns hits home.
0 Votes
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You don't complain about the price of a Bugatti Veyron. (nt)
shadfurman 16th Mar 2010
.
0 Votes
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bugatti
ff4.nz 16th Mar 2010
Hey where I live this is $5583.00. If you can ,buy. If I could I would but for now the ol 6600 p5k and 8800gt will keep me in the game
0 Votes
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Bleeding Edge
deanders 16th Mar 2010
This is more a bleeding edge phenomenon than the law of diminishing returns. The first PC I bought was a 486 33 Mhz with a 15" EGA monitor, a 80 Mb HDD, a 1.4 floppy, and a keyboard. Oh, and MSDOS 5.0. Cost me $2,500 (probably around $5000 in today's money) and I considered it a bargain.
0 Votes
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See you 1st PC and raise you one
seamountie 18th Mar 2010
OK, my first PC was EGA too, 4.77 Mhz CPU, no hard drive and two 5 1/4 floppy drives, no math co-processor, DOS 2.?? and a 9 pin dot matrix printer. Damage = C$3,000. Oh yah, on board memory was the max..640 k.
0 Votes
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Latest and greatest
egmccann 16th Mar 2010
The six-core i9 is their current "extreme edition." Unlocked, ready to overclock, etc, etc, etc. Intel knows there's an enthusiast market out there willing to pay these sorts of prices to get it first and push it, and their "extreme edition" CPUs have been $999 for a while.

No, I don't pay those prices either. I wait for them to come down to more realistic levels. (TBH, the current system is my first Intel system since my Pentium 90. It's been AMD for a long time - better match of performance and price for me most of the time.)
0 Votes
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@Jason
kenosha77a 15th Mar 2010
Jason, if you were to speculate on Apple's use of this i7
980x Extreme Edition CPU for its Mac Pro line, what would
you estimate Apple's price for a single CPU setup? Assume
same amount of Ram used in your system.

Would you think the Apple system would appear "faster" or
"slower" than a Win 7 64 bit system with this blog's
hardware specs. (I assume you would use that version of
Windows in this project)

Interesting speculation because if "your" rumors are true,
Apple will debut an updated Mac Pro shortly.

BTW ... very nice article.
0 Votes
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Apple will use the Xeon version of this processor.
nix_hed 16th Mar 2010
Why? Because pros with workstations prefer the stability that ECC
memory brings them. Xeon supports it, Core doesn't. Having said that,
the Xeon versions of this processor are even more expensive than the
Core versions, as pointed out here -

http://www.crn.com/white-box/223900043
0 Votes
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$999 for the processor alone?
Cylon Centurion 15th Mar 2010
Geez! shocked
0 Votes
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I'd seriously count yourself lucky...
djtrotte@... 16th Mar 2010
.. I'd be happy with $999 US, it's pricing at over ?850 ($1290) here in the UK
0 Votes
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In Fact....
djtrotte@... 16th Mar 2010
...picking part for part described in this article, against my usual supplier who I find to be most reliable/competative, we come out to ?2356.65, or $3,581.17...nearly $600 over

..but then again, I'd do it
0 Votes
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Intel lists this processor for $1150,
nix_hed 16th Mar 2010
so $1000 is a decent price for a launch 980x.
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
monkeyman1140@... 15th Mar 2010
Just get a dual opteron system and get 8 cores for cheaper.
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
maskito 15th Mar 2010
OK. I'm stupid. I thought the six-cores were going to be i9s?
0 Votes
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When I need a new system
kcredden2 15th Mar 2010
I'll come and ask your advice on what to buy. I usually build systems to last 3 - 5 years (and this one is 4). Then I was struggling to figure what to buy since it was all new tech, and being a transition time for computer tech.

Now next year if I need a new system, I'll have to go to school it sounds happy. However, sans lightning strikes or another catastrophic destruction of the system. I think it'll be viable until at least 2015. (Thanks to linux)

Can you imagine what we'll have in 2015?

- Kc
0 Votes
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Better Faster More Cores Yours = Pathetic
docquesting@... 16th Mar 2010
Ya nuf said. I can't give away all my secrets but for
around the same price or more I could have many many more
cores.
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
rrivera@... 16th Mar 2010
Do another article like this one but for a comparable system less than $1,000!
0 Votes
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Thats actually more interesting
Cayble 16th Mar 2010
The fact is with minimal research almost anyone can determine what the most powerful computer components are and if they are compatible, you could simply give the parts list to a custom builder and voil?! Anyone with the bucks has themselves an ultra powerful, ultra costly desktop computer.

The more interesting question for sure is, what far less costly components can be put together to produce some very serious performance at a significantly reduced cost?

That kind of thing is usually a little more difficult to research. When price is no object it often isn't difficult to find out what components kicked the butt of all other components, or at least should kick the butt of other components. When price is an issue, that becomes far more tricky. There are plenty of places to cut costs and cutting costs in one area more than another takes a keener eye to understand how that may impact performance.

I tend to think that many component manufacturers wouldn't like a lot of really in depth reporting on what works good, better and best at what cost. The reason I say that is that its quite likely that in many cases only very marginal, if any performance increases at all would be noticed with many different components of increased cost. No manufacturer wants potential customers looking at their products and saying to themselves "I cant see one good reason why I would choose this $249 part as opposed to this $199 part". But you can count on the fact that there are doubtless many instances where that would turn out to be the fact. And thats why building the high performance/reasonable cost computer is a much more interesting challenge.
0 Votes
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Will notepad run on it ?
TxM2xTx 16th Mar 2010
My beloved Notepad, will it work on this system ?
0 Votes
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It will, but...
nix_hed 16th Mar 2010
... whenever you run Notepad, both GPUs will start to shed acidic tears of
pain, which will drip onto the motherboard and cause the processor to
fail. Same with Solitare and Paint.
0 Votes
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No
aep528 16th Mar 2010
Notepad is so old it probably relies on certain
processor behaviors and will exit before it
starts. (Remember old games that were tied to
processor speed, and would run so fast they became
unusable when you bought a new system?)
0 Votes
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I do
lehnerus2000 16th Mar 2010
I played a "Joust" clone on an original IBM PC style clone. When my friend got an upgraded PC, you couldn't hit the keyboard fast enough, to even get a pixel off of the ground!

lehnerus2000
0 Votes
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Yes
satovey@... 16th Mar 2010
Since Microsoft added some functionality like the ctrl s = save file shortcut, it had to be recompiled.

And since Microsoft keeps shipping Notepad with it's windows OS, it came with Win7 64;
it should work with no problem.

However, your better off getting an open source replacement such as Notepad++. It does so much more especially with the addons you can get.
0 Votes
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Stopped reading half-way through...
Steve Goldman 16th Mar 2010
Adrian, do you proof-read your work here? I mean, I
understand that it's a blog entry and not a front page
piece in the New York Times. But still, a little proof-
reading goes a long way.
0 Votes
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Here's an example...
nix_hed 16th Mar 2010
"Performance is defendant on driver support for a particular game..." I
didn't know that performance had to defend itself from games.
0 Votes
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What, don't you remember
deanders 16th Mar 2010
...the arcade classic "Defender?"
0 Votes
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Plod, plod, plod...
bedswerver 16th Mar 2010
In a Windows environment, the last time I had a "Wow" moment was when I went from a 486DX33 to a Pentium 66 - loading Windows 3.11 and - BANG! - the startup screen seemed to be delivered by an express train!
After that, the horsepower of the processor has been hampered by the amount of bloat which comes with every modern operating system. I have used Windows all my working life and tapped into Linux occasionally.
As a Microsoft-leaning individual (I can't speak for OSX) I would imagine that the one OS which will hit hyperspeed on this will be Linux, if configured properly. I would be intrigued to see a well-configured Linux box in operation on this hardware. Maybe I'd get another "BANG" moment when the screen appears. It's only been about seventeen years in the waiting...
(and I'm not touting for innuendo over the use of the word "bang" for any fourteen year-old reading this).
0 Votes
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In the OS X world,
nix_hed 16th Mar 2010
my wife's move from a PowerPC 7447 1.33 GHz to a Core 2 Duo 2.4
GHz was very much like your move from a 486DX/33 to a Pentium 66
(also known as the 2+2=3.98 processor); startup times in OS X
Leopard went from around 1 minute and 50 seconds on the old
machine to 45 seconds from a cold boot.

I'd also like to give an honorable mention to my old 486 DX2/66 -
upgrading from 4 MB of RAM to 8 MB sped up the startup time of
Windows 3.1 by around 10 seconds (24 seconds to 14 seconds from
boot), and upgrading again from 8 MB to 24 MB sped up the startup
time of Windows 95 C from 1 minute 30 seconds to 48 seconds (no
antivirus, as it was a stand-alone machine). Don't ask me how I
remember this stuff, I just do.
0 Votes
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OMG
tkejlboom 16th Mar 2010
The CPU has little to do with the boot time since
the 486. The CPU makes all the wonderful things
you do after it boots faster. If you aren't clever
enough to figure out what to do with your CPU,
that's not the CPU's fault. You're probably a
sucker that buys dozens weak crappy CPUs in the
form of DVD, blueray, stereo, TV, and sundry other
devices. If you want a faster boot, get rid of
your BIOS.
0 Votes
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My Wow!
TrueDinosaur 16th Mar 2010
My last Wow! moment was with my latest PC. The key is dual SSD drives in a RAID 0. Excel, Word and Access start so fast I can't click the buttons on my stopwatch fast enough.

I also put the swap file and IE temp files on a 3rd SSD. High use programs are installed in the raid. Lower use programs are installed on the 3rd SSD.

The cpu is an I7 920 with 8 gig of ram running W7.
0 Votes
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Your next wow moment
I Hate Malware 16th Mar 2010
Will be when one or both of the SSDs fail and realise you shouldn't have used raid 0.
0 Votes
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Hope you have an external drive...
TucsonGuy 16th Mar 2010
to keep your data backed up. Combining SSD with RAID0 is like painting a bullseye on your back! happy
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
NoSpark 16th Mar 2010
GREAT article!
I enjoy reading about cutting edge components as I am on the periphery right now. I really appreciate the way the author has specifically picked product examples with the salient information as to why they were selected.
Great authoring! Now, Adrian, ask your boss for a raise!
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
dband@... 16th Mar 2010
Adrian:
Great article.
I'm just disappointed that all Intel can do is add cores. I think I'll keep my i7 965 system for now ($2000-ish), this is just two more cores at the same clock speed.
I use lots of apps that take advantage of multi-core processors, but most people don't.
The 965 was 4 cores at 3.2, the 975 was 4 at 3.33, and the 980 is 6 cores at 3.33. Unless you use software to take advantage of these CPUs, they are all still overkill. Most people would be fine with a E8600 Core 2 Duo for about $700 less CPU cost.
0 Votes
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Stock cooler?
bart001fr 16th Mar 2010
On a CPU which costs you about $1,000?

I very strongly suggest you splurge about $100 and get something better. I'm not suggesting you get a liquid coolant system, but Ultra makes the Ultra ChillTEC 939/AM2/AM3/775/1366 Thermal Electric CPU Cooler for about $120 from Tiger Direct.

But that is only a suggestion; whatever you decide, I would definitely go with nothing less than a PWM fan (4-pins).
0 Votes
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It's All About Start Up
dhamilt01@... 16th Mar 2010
I don't give a hoot in hell about Crysis.

If yar configuration don't fully boot Windows 7 in 10
to 15 seconds ... fogetaboutit!

Look at all the GDTW waiting for Windows to boot since
Windows 95 and you'll see that whatever the hardware,
it wasn't worth the cost of waiting for the GDOS to
boot!

Businesses around the world have lost billions in
productivity due to this "waiting for the dang OS to
boot" problem. In 1910, it took less than 10 seconds
to get the ole Model T started. Why can't today's
computers be ready to work in 10 seconds in 2010?
0 Votes
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Seriously?
honeybl 16th Mar 2010
I was drooling over even the thought of this system... until he mentioned the SSD. Seriously? Only 120 gigs? I felt so let down, like the little kid who didn't get picked for teams at dodgeball. Save the SSD's for laptops. For the cost, you could get 2 2TB hard drives. More than enough room to store all your videos, music, games....
0 Votes
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Yeah, seriously
egmccann 16th Mar 2010
SSDs aren't for capacity, they're for speed. But yes, it should have been paired with a decent 1tb or greater hard disk. Then again, this is a starting point. Add components to taste.

On the other hand, my 17-860 based system is "fast enough" for me, and cheaper, built and running, than the processor + GPU on this machine. Wait a few months, and the six core processors will be more available in quantity and price.
0 Votes
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Save the terrabytes for your media PC
shadfurman 16th Mar 2010
This is for gaming!

If you use it for media production you could
always add a HD for storage, but even media
production benefits SIGNIFICANTLY form an SSD.
When your editing in 4k you don't want to be wait
for the HD for churn out your frames.
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
tkejlboom 16th Mar 2010
Hmmm, My VMs have been running on a DL585 with 4 six core
CPUs for like six months now! Six cores is soooo last
week.
0 Votes
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Performance is defendant on driver support?
shadfurman 16th Mar 2010
Did you mean dependent?
0 Votes
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6GB RAM - that's a joke, right?
alan_r_cam 16th Mar 2010
My i5 has 8GB - and I want more. 16 GB would be better. For a triple channel CPU, make that 24GB. 4GB per core means legacy 32-bit programs can use a given core with maximum efficiency.
0 Votes
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It's all good if you're using applications that take advantage
guiri 17th Mar 2010
of all the cores...I for one want more speed but the stuff I do, only needs 1 or two processor cores sad
0 Votes
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Aw rediculous power
shadfurman 19th Mar 2010
I couldn't find your other post on a dual proc 12 core
Xeon setup. But I decided to see how much I could make
it cost. Allowing some reasonable sense in
cost/performance I came up with.

$15080

Thats without a case, psu, or screen

I forgot specific specs of what I added up, it took me
a good 20min to pic out the parts, but heres best I
can remember

*EVGA Classified Super Record 2 (SR-2) Motherboard
*Xeon procs x 2 (they were high end ones, don't
remember exactly)
*HIS Radeon HD 5970 Graphics adapter - 2 GB x 4
*64GB Intel X-25E SSD x 4
*2TB HDD x 4
*G.SKILL PI+Turbulence 24GB (12?4GB) DDR3 2200
0 Votes
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needed for 3D graphics rendering
AtlantaTerry 9th Apr 2010
I have a client who needs computers like these to render 3D graphics.

Right now they are running the app on a single core CPU box running Windows 2000!

No wonder each rendering pass takes hours or days.

What I'm going to do is design a system using a server motherboard with 4 Xeon sockets. This will give me 24 cores.

Then the beast will run Windows Server because consumer Windows operating systems only support two physical CPUs.

Terry Thomas
President
PC Tech
Atlanta
Skype: AtlantaTerry
0 Votes
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Hmmm...2899 you say?
kcredden2 26th Jul 2010
When I built this machine I wanted it to last 3 - 5 years. It was 4g memory, 3ghz (dual core), PCI/E, SATA/Pata, 500w power supply, nVidia GS 7300 video, w/dual monitor capibility and .5tb harddrive space. It started with XP, now runs Debian 5.0.3 better

I run X-Plane 8 on it a lot, along with everything else I want.

That was around $700. Today, it's still going fine,

So for $2899 I could build a machine that will last what...5 - 10 years?

Thanks for the article. I'm starting to check my financial situation happy

- Kc
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
AndyPagin 27th Jul 2010
The depressing thing is that you build this sucker, and in five years time everyone laughs at the idea that anyone ever had something so slow.
0 Votes
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RE: Build your own super fast 'Hexacore' barebones PC
AndyPagin 27th Jul 2010
Look, why not just buy an 8 core 64 thread UltraSparc box & have done with it.

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