Budget /spec for dev PC

boumbara

boumbara

boumbara

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Joined
27 Aug 2009
Posts
2
Hello.

My four year old antique no longer does what I need it to, and I am in the market for a new build.

I want this pc to:


  • be quiet,

  • run lots of stuff concurrently, including:


    • VS2008

    • SQL2005

    • a VM or three

    • office apps

    • downloads

    • music

  • start applications quickly, even when the stuff above is running,

  • run two, or perhaps three monitors at high res,

  • play the occasional game, but I don't measure my fps, and am not fussed if I can't max all the settings.

Any of you guys have the same stuff running on your own machines that might recommend me a spec?

My biggest problem I think is that I have no idea what I need to spend. The point at which the grief I'll get from the wife will exceed any benefit from the new machine is probably about 2k (not including monitors), but of course if I can bring it in cheaper then all the better.

Thanks
 
You could probably get a £600 build good enough for what you use it for... but since you're prepared to spend that much then you should look into one of the countless i7 builds already on the forum.
 
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Thanks for the quick responses.

Superewza, I'll be pleased if I can get away with spending £600. I'm prepared to spend more, but would rather spend the money on beer and pizza instead. With that in mind could you suggest a bundle as a starting point?

Drake22, I couldn't see the ram in your suggested spec (thks, btw). My instinct is to go for 12gb thinking that the vms would eat up 3 lots of 2 all by themselves, but perhaps I'd be wasting my money?
 
I'd go for an SSD - every dev I know prizes multitasking and fast loading times above all else, so an SSD and 6/8gb of ram will do you nicely.
 
my bad, i ment the other version of cooler, Socket 1366 / 755 (misclick)

by the way, megahalem is losing to ifx 5-7 degrees at linx stress


...forgot memory, wrong cooler - time to go to bed ;)
 
Drake22 said:
by the way, megahalem is losing to ifx 5-7 degrees at linx stress
Click to expand...

Source on that ? 5-7 degrees is a pretty massive jump in efficiency, especially considering it is at the very top of performance atm.
 
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I use my PC for dev work, VS2008, SQL 2005, Office, many many programs open, and also 3 monitors.

You don't really need to fast a CPU, however SSD and memory are a must - I presume your running 64 bit OS, i'm running XP64.

This is my spec
Core 2 1.86 (build 3 years ago)
Gigabyte DS4
6GB RAM (most I have seen in use is around 4GB on XP64 - does not mean 4GB just as good as XP likes to keep some in reserve)
64GB Kingston SSD
1.5TB Samsung F2
2 x graphics cards (GTX 260 + 7800 GTX) - Any old DVI Nvidia would do for third monitor, an £10 7200GS ebay special is fine for 2D work)
3 x Neovo E19 Glass Front screens

I'm not saying build a PC this low spec (that would be stupid), however machine above is still very quick for dev work, and in fairness has at least 2 years use left in it. The important things for dev work is SSD, lots of memory and good monitors. In my view the CPU take a back seat, however I do somtimes wish I had quad core.

Other things for DEV work is stable system, and case fans not to loud.
 
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I just turned my HP ML115 into a desktop for dev work. It's a quad Opteron and cost me under £200. Added another couple of 250GB drives and put them in RAID format (£70), stuck in 8GB of RAM (£80) and put in a new graphics card (£40) and it's a really capable little desktop for this kind of work. There's no sound card, and the slot is a 3.3v PCI, so you'll need a USB one if you want to listen to music. Mega cheap way of getting a decent workhorse though.
 
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