Valve HQ upgrades computers; puts everyone elses to shame.

[Monkeywoman]

Over the weekend, Valve released an unexpectedly fascinating piece of information: the specs of the machines sitting on desks across Valve HQ, which are used for development of both games and the Steam platform.

According to a news post over on Steam, Valve change the spcs of their development units every 18 months or so. See how close you are to their current rigs:

* EVGA 780i SLI FTW Intel Motherboard
* Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz Quad-Core Processor
* 4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 1066MHz ram
(Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
* 1 x NVidia GTX280 1GB - OR - ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
* 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD
(Seagate, Western Digital)
* 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD
(Seagate, Western Digital)
* Antec Sonata III desktop case
* Zalman CPU Cooler
* 850W Antec power supply
* 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30" LCD - OR - 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1" LCD monitors
* Windows XP 32bit

Now see how far away you are from the new generation of machines the company is "currently transitioning to":

* EVGA X58 3X SLI Intel Motherboard
* Intel Corei7 940 2.93GHz Quad-Core Processor
* 12GB PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz ram
(Crucial Ballistix, Kingston ValueRam)
* 1 x NVidia GTX285 1GB - OR - ATI 4870 1GB graphics card
* 1 x 250GB 7200RPM SATA HD
* (Seagate, Western Digital) 1 x 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD
* (Seagate, Western Digital) Lian Li P60-F Case
* Intel CPU Cooler
* 850W Antec power supply
* 1 x Dell 3008FPW-HC 30" LCD - OR - 2 x Dell 2001FP 20.1" LCD monitors
* Windows Vista 64bit

That's a lot of cores and a lot of GBs.

source; http://storefront.steampowered.com/S.../message/2269/

[Warboy]

Hmm. I alone still put them to shame tho

[RaZz!]

not that much of an "OMFG HOLY ****"-upgrade . the most significant is the ram and the transition to a 64bit os.

[zanzabar]

not that much of an "OMFG HOLY ****"-upgrade . the most significant is the ram and the transition to a 64bit os.

they have that and they have the dropping of the 780i, that alone should help them alot

and 12GB of ram instead of 4, to help with the 64 bit

[biohead]

Hmm. I alone still put them to shame tho

Not cool, where yo gettin moneys from?

[Warboy]

Not cool, where yo gettin moneys from?

I meant on a system vs system bases. Not in the scene of "OM*G x amount of 940s."

[Garrett]

lol 1x gtx285 and a 30" screen... try Crysis then

[RaZz!]

they have that and they have the dropping of the 780i, that alone should help them alot

and 12GB of ram instead of 4, to help with the 64 bit

yeah well, but when i first read the topic i thought they did some ubercrazy holycow upgrade from a p4 to a i7 extreme edition or smth

every developer upgrades its mostly nice rigs so i failed to see how this upgrade from valve was anything special or newsworthy

[Ket]

Is it just me, or do those "upgrades" seem utterly pointless? i7 isn't that great yet, and the move from a GTX280 to 285 is especially pointless. No performance increases there unless they plan to overclock things (which I seriously doubt)

[ColonelCain]

Is it just me, or do those "upgrades" seem utterly pointless? i7 isn't that great yet, and the move from a GTX280 to 285 is especially pointless. No performance increases there unless they plan to overclock things (which I seriously doubt)

Yeah, but hey, wouldn't you love to get a new top of the line desktop that often? That'd be so sick...

Though, makes you wonder... why does the Source engine not allow higher levels of eyecandy?

[BababooeyHTJ]

Why? They only develop games that you could max out with hardware less than half as powerful as the 780i rig, nevermind the i7.

[[XC] riptide]

Gimmee Dual Socket Gainstown with a BANK of adaptec driven Raid0 Drives /SSD or raptors, 16gig ram, .... or shutup valve.

[zanzabar]

the i7 is alot faster for compiling things, and source has alot of eye candy but its not designed to be hyper photo realistic its designed to have physics and scalable textured. if u look at mods or l4d they can do alot

[[XC] Lead Head]

Gimmee Dual Socket Gainstown with a BANK of adaptec driven Raid0 Drives /SSD or raptors, 16gig ram, .... or shutup valve.

Why raptors? 15k RPM SAS/SCSI drives are much more fun. I plan on picking one up off ebay sometime this week after seeing just how fast an ancient 10k SCSI drive is

[WrigleyVillain]

All I know is I wanna be their IT guy.

[masterg]

so those old rigs, they gonna auction them or something?

[LaMpiR]

All I know is I wanna be their IT guy.

[clayton]

lol 1x gtx285 and a 30" screen... try Crysis then

Nah they are too busy working overtime playing Valve games.

[Sparky]

stock?? Not impressed

[Easybeat]

I didn't realise it took that much machine to run a complaints desk.

[SamHughe]

minimum i7 config. imo. It won't impress anybody here in XS. 10 times better than the current config the university I work for allows though (q6600+4gb ram if you submit a justification letter to the technology committee).

[m0da]

I thought their "current" systems were the upgraded systems.

Rarely will you see companies spit out new/high-end parts for their workers like this...
who has an i7 940, gtx285 and 750gb disk space at work?!

[safan80]

lol 1x gtx285 and a 30" screen... try Crysis then

lol I have yet to install crysis maybe in 10 ten years.

[Hornet331]

I thought their "current" systems were the upgraded systems.

Rarely will you see companies spit out new/high-end parts for their workers like this...
who has an i7 940, gtx285 and 750gb disk space at work?!

Depends where and at what position you work.

[cegras]

lol 1x gtx285 and a 30" screen... try Crysis then

Valve doesn't develop crappy games.