2009-11-24
The 600 Euro upgrade that cut build times in half
In the past, I have talked here and here about my test environment for Veturanto. Today I'll talk about my development environment instead.My main workstation used to have the following hardware configuration:
- Intel Core 2 Duo (dual core) @ 1.86 Ghz
- 4 GB DDR2 RAM
- Western Digital VelociRaptor 300 GB @ 10000 RPM
About two and a half months ago, a worthy successor of the Core 2 Duo arrived on the market: the Intel Core i5. By that time, Intel had also released the second generation of its high-performance SSDs. It was time for an upgrade.
I decided to take the plunge and invested about 600 Euro in the following hardware:
- Intel Core i5 750 (quad core) @ 3.01 Ghz (overclocked from 2.67 Ghz)
- Scythe Ninja 2 Cooler (yes, I do share Jeff Atwood's giant heatsink fettish)
- Asus P7P55D Pro motherboard
- 8 GB DDR3 RAM
- Intel Postville 34nm SSD 80 GB
But what kind of performance do you get out of this?
Let's compare two day to day activities: the full build and the application startup times.
Here is how they fared:
| Core 2 Duo + Raptor |
Core i5 + SSD |
|
| Full build |
1 minute 50 seconds |
45 seconds |
| Application startup |
17 seconds |
5 seconds |
The difference is nothing short of phenomenal !
Go out, get a modern processor and a high-performance SSD and you'll never look back !
About Axel Fontaine
I'm an entrepreneur, public speaker and software development expert based in Munich.
I'm the creator of Sprinters. Sprinters lets you run your GitHub Actions jobs 10x cheaper on your own AWS account with secure, ephemeral, high-performance, low-cost runners within the privacy of your own VPC.
I also created CloudCaptain, previously known as Boxfuse. CloudCaptain is a cloud deployment platform enabling small and medium size companies to focus on development, while it takes care of infrastructure and operations.
Back in 2010, I bootstrapped Flyway, and grew it into the world's most popular database migration tool. Starting late 2017, I expanded the project beyond its open-source roots into a highly profitable business, acquiring many of the world's largest companies and public institutions as customers. After two years of exponential growth, I sold the company to Redgate in 2019.
In the past I also spoke regularly at many large international conferences including JavaOne, Devoxx, Jfokus, JavaZone, JAX and more about a wide range of topics including modular monoliths, immutable infrastructure and continuous delivery. As part of this I received the JavaOne RockStar speaker award. As a recognition for my contributions to overall Java industry, Oracle awarded me the Java Champion title.
You can find me on 𝕏 as @axelfontaine and email me at axel@axelfontaine.com