In my previous post, I went through the reasons for building Project Fireball and went through some of the parts that I will be using to put the system together. In this and upcoming posts, I want to go into more details about the main components, some of the high-level specs of each, and why I chose them.

The CPU

Intel Core i7-2600 - Top View

The CPU is the heart of any computer, and the CPU you choose will impact your choice of other components. These days there are essentially two sources for the CPU – Intel and AMD. Both have been battling it out for years for the coveted privilege of running your applications, games, OS, etc. My first few system builds made use of AMD CPUs; they were fast and cheap and provided much more “bang for the buck” than the Intel CPUs of those days. More recently, Intel has taken the lead back from AMD and became the CPU supplier for my last 3 system builds. For Fireball, my choice was easy: Intel Core i7-2600 running at 3.4Ghz. More informed readers will be quick to ask why I did not choose the 2600K version of the CPU. Since the main difference between the K and non-K versions are the overclocking capabilities of the K, and given that I never overclock my CPUs, I’ll skip the 10-15% price premium and stick with the non-K version.

The i7-2600 is a quad-core CPU, which means it has 4 CPUs (or what is actually called cores) on one chip. Another nice feature of this model is that it’s Hyperthreaded, so to the installed OS, it looks like there are actually 8 CPUs! Another feature of the new Core i7 is that it contains a graphics processor on the same die, which means you could build a system without a video card and just use the one built-in. Unfortunately, Intel’s first iteration of this graphics processor implementation doesn’t provide adequate performance to play games and run high-end graphics. Additionally, the current design scheme disables the built-in graphics processor if a video card is present.

Here’s quick overview of the features of the i7-2600:

• 8-Way Multi-Task Processing: Runs 8 independent processing threads in one physical package.
• Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0: Dynamically increases the processor frequency up to 3.80GHz when applications demand more performance.  Speed when you need it, energy efficiency when you don’t.
• Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology: Allows each core of the processor to work on two tasks at the same time providing unprecedented processing capability for better multi-tasking, and for threaded applications.
• Intel® Smart Cache: 8MB of shared cached allows faster access to your data by enabling dynamic and efficient allocation of the cache to match the needs of each core significantly reducing latency to frequently used data and improving performance.
• AES-NI: Provides 6 processor instructions that help to improve performance for AES encryption and decryption algorithms.
• Integrated Memory Controller: Supports 2 channels of DDR3-1333 memory with 2 DIMMs per channel. Support for memory based on the Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (Intel® XMP) specification².

The Motherboard

P8P67 Pro Motherboard - Front

The choice of CPU directly drives what type of motherboard you’ll need to purchase. The 2nd Gen Intel Core i7-2600 uses an LGA-1155 package. In simplified terms, the package is the specification of the slot into which the CPU plugs into the motherboard. Several manufacturers offer motherboards using this specific package, but I’ve had great success in the past using motherboards manufactured by Asus. Their series of LGA-1155 motherboards, which Asus calls their P8P67 series got glowing reviews on many reputable technology review sites. Asus provides several different models under their P8P67 line, but I decided to go with their P8P67 PRO because of the ideal combination of features and price-point which met most of my requirements.

P8P67 Pro Motherboard - Back

The P8P67 PRO has some great specifications which met all my needs except one; a second network port. The second port is more of a ‘convenience’ for me and not something that I absolutely need, especially considering that to get a second port, I would need to buy the P8P67 DELUXE version of the motherboard, which also comes with a $40 price tag premium. One new feature that I haven’t seen on any recent motherboards is a built-in Bluetooth interface, enabling me to exchange data with my computer from my cellphone or other devices. Additionally, I can optionally remotely control certain aspects of the system, including rebooting or shutting down remotely through my cellphone or one of my Bluetooth enabled laptops, such as my MacBook Pro.

In my next post, I’ll run through the memory that I’ll be installing into Fireball, as well as the graphics card, SSD (Solid State Drive) and hard drives.