Dream Machine 2009

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The WINDOWS team constructs Dream Machine 09 using a CPU that can handle eight simultaneous threads, boasts 6GB of memory and uses two SSDs running in RAID 0. If you're curious about what other components feature in Dream Machine 09 and fancy taking the machine home, read on...

Processor power

Of all the different components that go into creating a fully functioning PC, the compact central processing unit (CPU) is the second most crucial piece of kit. This chip is tasked with bringing the PC to life with regards to booting, software execution and more. So depending on what processor you've chosen your computer's performance will vary accordingly.

Since Dream Machine 2009 is supposed to be, well, a super-fast Dream Machine, we wanted only the best of the best and in that regard we had to turn to Intel's awesome Bloomfield processors. Bloomfield chips are the high-end Core i7 processors and use the LGA 1366 CPU socket interface, rather than the newer LGA 1156 socket. These chips also feature a triple-channel memory controller - for seriously swift memory performance - and a 6.4GHz QPI Link, which allows for quick communication between the CPU and motherboard.

The fastest chip in Intel's Bloomfield arsenal is the scary-fast Core i7 Extreme 975, which boasts competition-trashing specifications of four 3.33GHz cores. As it also boasts HyperThreading technology the chip is able to process eight threads simultaneous, which make it an absolute monster when dealing with multi-threaded software. The CPU features no less than 256KB of L1 cache, 1MB of L2 cache and a massive 8MB of L3 cache, all of which help the CPU keep frequently-used bits of data in close proximity to its super-fast processing cores.

As this chip is manufactured using Intel's 45nm fabrication process it runs reasonably cool despite its ultra-high-end specifications and because it features Intel's TurboBoost technology, it can automatically overclock itself in certain scenarios. All-in-all it's a cracking chip at default speeds but despite this, we wanted more, which is why we overclocked the processor to a frequency of 3.75GHz. The overclock made the CPU even more potent and returned benchmark busting scores across the board. It goes without saying that the CPU in Dream Machine 09 is the fastest chip that the Lab has ever benchmarked to date.

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