Remote management means never being very far away...
New Workstation
I'm feeling quite proud of having built a new workstation over Christmas, particularly as it worked first time.
Spec isn't too bad either:
ASUS NCCH-DL motherboard with 800MHz FSB
Dual XEON 3.0 GHz "Nocona" with HyperThreading and active cooling
4GB non-ECC PC3200 RAM dual channel enabled
250GB SATA HDD
nVidia GeForce 6600GT 128MB 8xAGP with dual DVI outputs
nVidia GeForce 5200FX 128MB PCI with DVI/VGA output
As this was a work beastie, I paid for the following myself:
Creative Soundblaster Audigy 7.1 SE sound card OEM
Logitec X-530 5.1 speakers
I work from home nearly all the time, so some half-decent music is a requirement.
By now, you're probably thinking "Huh, what's with the two graphics cards?" Well, here's the interesting bit.
I've had a dual monitor configuration for a couple of years now, starting off with a Dell 19" FST CRT and a laptop. When the CRT got annoyingly flickery, I decided to get a Dell 2405FPW 1920x1200 TFT, my "hottie". And I'm quite sure that my dual screen setup makes me more productive. But I still had the laptop beside the big screen, and because that was a 15" 1600x1200, I started to find it irritating that I was having to squint at the laptop screen. OK, that might have been because I'm also getting older...
I thought that what I really needed was a screen with the same resolution, but a similar physical height. So I splashed out on a Dell 2005FP 1600x1200 screen, and connected the second DVI output from the 6600GT card to it. Fantastic! The 2005FP is less than an inch smaller from top to bottom than the 2004FPW, so windows hardly change size as I drag them from one screen to the other.
But that left me with a redundant laptop, and some space on my desk. The next improvement was to get a copy of Maxivista virtual screen software, and connect up the laptop as a third screen on the left hand side. I then had a much bigger desktop, but the laptop is still too small, and I'm squinting at it again. I realised that the 2405 and the 2005 fit together so well that I just had to...
...splash out on a second 2005FP and another video card. Now I have a Dell 2405 1920x1200 in the centre, and the Dell 2005FPs on either side. I had to get the FX 5200 PCI card, as there is only one AGP slot on the motherboard, and I wasn't splashing out £500+ for a graphics card with 4 DVI outputs. I can't notice any performace difference between the two cards, but then I don't play games.
Now I have it all set up, and apart from a gentle humming under the desk, everything is working fine.
Best of all, I have been able to run 8 VPC images simultaneously, most of them with 256MB RAM, and my workstation doesn't break into a sweat. In fact, I don't think the fans have gone off low speed since I set the system up.
I'll post some pictures of the monitor setup when I get my digital camera back from my brother's house.
Total cost of the setup? About £3,000+ for monitors and workstation, providing a physical desktop of 5120x1200.
And then Dell had to do this to me...
Now, if I had one of those, and turned my 2005FPs to vertical orientation, that would give me a desktop of 4960x1600...
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