Friday, September 19, 2008

Day +807 : A computer with 16GB RAM

I am fine today.

The software that we develop needs a lot of memory to analyze big structure. My nephew, Heng Chiek, helped to assemble a computer with 16GB RAM last week.

As the Windows XP/Vista that we use normally is 32-bit operating system, it can use at most 4GB RAM only, no matter how much more RAM you install. To make sure that the computer can use any RAM more than 4GB, we need 64-bit operating system. So we installed Windows XP 64-bit on the computer.

As the motherboard comes with 4 memory slots only, in order to put in 16GB RAM, we need to have 4 memory modules, each with a capacity of 4GB. It is extremely difficult to find such memory module. After much searching, I managed to purchase it from oversea through some middleman.

The specification of the system is as follow:

Motherboard: Asus P5QC
CPU: Quad Core Q9550
RAM: 16GB PC-6400 DDR2 RAM
Display Card: Asus 9500GT 512MB DDR2
HDD: WD1500ADFD
CASING: Power Logic
Power Supply Unit : ACBEL R8 Power 750
DVDRW: LG 20xDVD Writer/SATA
Standard mouse and keyboard

Without the monitor, the system costs RM6130. We are using the system to analyze a 50 storeys building. Hopefully, it can do the job well.

If you need such a system and don't know where do get it, just tell me. I will help you :-)

The memory cooler used to cool the memory
The 16GB RAM
See you next post :-)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Sir,

How is the performance for the super PC? How long does it take to calculate and draw the 50 storey building?

David said...

Don't know yet, it took about 30 hours to complete 3D analysis on a dual core machine with 8GB RAM. Still testing. It should take much shorter time to complete as the additional RAM reduces the use of virtual memory and thus also reduces disk swapping which is a slow process. Furthermore, we are using a very fast Quad core CPU now.