MaximumPC 2008 09

28 | MAXIMUMPC | SEP 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com

Quad core? Nerd, puhlease—that’s so 2008. Next

year will be all about CPUs with eight threads.

Fortunately, we’re already there with a pair of

Intel 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9775s. Between

these most insane of Intel’s Core 2 chips, we get

eight cores available to the operating system at a

nice round 4GHz. Is that overkill? Perhaps, as you

probably won’t fi nd more than a couple dozen

apps that will use all of these cores today. But let’s

not forget multitasking—you know, like encoding

an H.264 video in the background while playing a

game and also compiling some code and running

a few Folding@Home sessions. You can have all

that and your cake, too, with the QX9775s. It’s

even possible—dare we say it—that applications

optimized for more than quad cores would ben-

efi t more from a pair of QX9775s than they would

from Intel’s upcoming Nehalem. Time will tell.

Most consumers have never been exposed to “fully buff ered”

DIMMs, as the memory is strictly intended for workstations. To

sum it up, it’s a hybrid of serial and parallel interfaces that uses

an advanced memory buff er in the module to let machines run

in excess of 128GB of RAM. The penalty is latency and tremen-

dous heat from the AMB, so we had to use a Corsair Dominator

fan to keep the modules from spontaneously igniting.

Most 1,000-watt PSUs would crumple under the strain of our

Dream Machine’s loadout, so we turned to our old standby:

PC Power and Cooling. Its custom-wired Turbo Cool 1200

gives us more than enough power to run all of our hardware,

and with the PC Power and Cooling name behind it, we know

the unit won’t quit on us.

memorymemory psupsupsupsu

processorsprocessors

8GB Corsair FB-DIMM

So much RAM your applications won’t know what to

do with it

PC Power and Cooling Turbo

Cool 1200

A true 1,200W PSU that makes a mockery of many

‘1,000-watt’ units

Two Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9775 CPUs

One is the bomb, two are bombastic

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DREAM MACHINE ’