Field Marshal Melchett

The 2007 Build of General Melchett, with post-build modifications live here. A promotion from General is Field Marshal. Think Montgomery and a whole bunch of others. Prior to the physical release of the new "Nehalem" Intel Corei7 processors, my previous blog was a little theoretical. Planning the mid-2009 (estimated) build of the successor starts with watching the pricing of the three key components: Processor, Motherboard and Memory:

January 2011: Updated with the Stage 1 (of two stages) purchase for GENERALMELCHETT upgrade. $993.10 in 2011 vs. $1781 in late 2008. Wow.

I will update the table to track the drift in pricing. These pricings are from AUSPCMarket. I may also be going to the US in July/August 2009, so that also adds another variable. The above prices at AU$ including GST.

• Update 25th November 2008: Changed down the motherboard a model; pricing from Mwave.com.au
• Update 10th December 2008: Waiting for the price of DDR3 memory to drop
• Update 9th March 2009: dramatic downshift of memory pricing makes 12Gb look affordable! The DS4 motherboard is discontinued, with the new UD3R chosen as a replacement in the same price range. I may change this over time. The Intel price has slightly risen, probably due to the exchange rate fluctuations more than market conditions.

Notes:

• Depending on pricing, I may go faster than 2.66GHz in the Core i7.
• I am really happy with the General’s current Gigabyte motherboard: excellent driver support for Vista x64 and rock solid stable.
• Whilst 6Gb is less than the 8Gb now in the General, it is easy to track a 6Gb pack at 1600MHz and see where the pricing tracks over the next 9 months. I may install 12Gb in the Field Marshal. Because I can.

Any other suggestions of online suppliers, or real-world experience with memory – would be great.