With residency around the corner, I wanted to take advantage of Black Friday/Cyber Monday 2012 deals to build a new workstation to power my life as a resident physician. I sought to combine the storage capacity of my FreeNAS box with the versatility of OSX on my previous workstation (“The Overmind”) – the end result is a computer which delivers incredible scalability for virtualization, power for compiling applications (namely Android), and even a decent gaming experience for a Mac.
To benchmark this beast, dubbed “Tassadar”, I ran the GeekBench (64-bit) utility three times in succession on both my new and old systems; the highest value was selected for each computer. The Overmind was benchmarked at 6966. Tassadar recorded 17339. That’s well within the range of Apple’s Mac Pro line in terms of performance… but at a fraction of the cost. In a real world comparison, The Overmind took 65 minutes to compile an Android ROM from scratch. Tassadar takes 25 minutes. 🙂
| Name | Tassadar |
| OS | Mac OS Sierra |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3770k LGA 1155 @ 4.4 GHz (OC) |
| Memory | G.Skill 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 Ripjaws @ 1.8GHz (OC) |
| GPU | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660Ti w/ 2GB GDDR5 (OC) |
| SSD | Samsung SSD 850 EVO |
| HDD | 1 x 1 TB WD Black drive; 2 x 2 TB WD Green drive in RAID1 |
| PSU | OCZ 750W PSU ZT Series 80 Plus Bronze (fully modular) |
| CPU Cooler | Corsair H80 high performance liquid CPU cooler |
| Bluetooth | IOGEAR GBU521 Bluetooth 4.0 Micro Adapter USB |
| WiFi | TP-LINK TL-WDN4800 Wireless N Dual Band (450Mbps) |
| Optical | Samsung DVD Writer Super Write Master 24x |
| Case | Thermaltake Chaser MK-I |
| Monitors | Dual LG 27″ E2742V LED monitors |
| Mouse | SteelSeries Rival 700 Gaming Mouse |
| Keyboard | Apple Wireless Keyboard |
| Webcam | Logitech HD Pro |
| Headset | Plantronics Multimedia Stereo Headset |
| Fans | Noctua NF-P12 x2, Antec 3-speed, Cooler Master MegaFlow x2 |
And now some pictures of the desktop and rig:
For those who are curious about the workstation’s name, “Tassadar” was the Protoss hero from Starcraft who died slaying the Zerg Overmind. You can start judging me… now. 😉
Your brain is obviously a super sponge. I don’t know how you managed to get into Med school while being obviously exposed to enough Starcraft to name your workstation Tassadar–*and* be this Web-inclined. Throw some of your grey-matter my way!
Hahaha, I appreciate the kind words! It’s all about balance (although there are days which definitely favor gaming over education).
…and I’m typing this from my MacBook Air… dubbed “Zeratul.” 😉
Best. Name. Ever.
Thank you! =D
En Taro Tassadar
Hahaha, indeed. For Aiur!