Dev / gaming build advice

Jammin1984 · 5 Feb 2011 at 18:51

Hi all,

Its been about 6 years since my last build. So my box is getting a bit long in the tooth and its time for an upgrade.

Im a bit out of touch therefore looking for some advice on a potential build.

Primary purpose is a great development box that will last me a good 5 / 6 years again. My current box is struggling with Visual Studio 2010 and Intellij, even more so with two instances of them running. Resharper can lock a running instance of VS 2010 for a good 20 / 30 seconds

I also run Virtual Box occasionally. Secondary, since im spending a fair old wedge, is as a gaming box. I wont be overclocking much. Quiet as possible, yet powerful, operation is more important to me.

Ok, here is what im currently thinking:

So,

1)Is that PSU capable? I will be running one SATA drive out of my current box alongside the two drives there for a native Ubuntu install. Additionally I have a wireless card.
2)Is the memory perhaps overkill considering I probably wont end up overclocking too much. Im thinking perhaps i get some slightly cheaper RAM, maybe 4x2GB and a better quiet case.
3)Any pointers and advice?

Thanks, much appreciated.

<edit> This is pretty much the limit of my budget.

95thrifles · 5 Feb 2011 at 19:41

Hi and welcome to forums

Was looking through spec and thinking how Id tweak it then saw your questions and youve got it already, the PSU is capable but Id try and get something a bit better, a Corsair HX 850 would allow you to possibly add a 2nd gfx card in SLi in the future, if thats not a concern then youre in the right wattage region, but a slightly better PSU will be more fficient and quieter, and a modular one will help with cabling, therefore airflow and again this will mean quieter system overall. The RAM is overkill, just get 8 gig of PC12800, XMS3 or Geil, save a bit of cash there. And yes Id definitely say better case, look in the £70 region at least, I wouldnt want to be putting all that high end kit in a cheap case, the Fractal cases are quite good for noise, as this seemed to be a concern. Lastly the HDD isnt worth £73, just get the normal version or a samsung F3, mechanical drives cant even saturate SATAII let alone SATAIII

Jammin1984 · 6 Feb 2011 at 14:39

Brilliant, thanks for the reply.

Ive took heed of your advice on the RAM and SATA drive cutting the cost down a good chunk. Ive gone for a different case and a modular PSU. Although not the recommended HX 850 as a)SLI isnt really a concern at the moment, b)£150 is a bit steep!

Here is mkII:

Does this look more suitable?

Also, am i right in thinking a modular PSU lets you just attach the cables that are required?

Thanks again

Darkpilgrim · 6 Feb 2011 at 15:01

Looks good,and yes modular just means the cables are detachable,keeps your case tidier and gives better airflow.

6644kp · 6 Feb 2011 at 15:17

mk 2 is pretty good but unless you plan to game overkill for things like visual studio

Jammin1984 · 6 Feb 2011 at 15:21

Brilliant, thanks guys.

And yeah, its mainly a dev box but for some good gaming too!

Cookeh · 6 Feb 2011 at 15:37

i doubt that ram wil fit under the heatsink - it's close enough with ram that has very low heatsinks!

For that reason, I'd be looking at either GeIL (whose 8GB kit is pretty damn cheap atm) or Corsair XMS3

Dingle · 6 Feb 2011 at 16:34

Maybe get more memory!
It obviously depends what your doing but sql server, vm instances and vs instances can start to gobble it up and memory is cheap.

This is more for info than anything else but the c# compiler is single threaded whereas the c++ compiler is multi threaded. Whatever the i7 you've picked will rock and I imagine turbo boost 2 will help.

I'm not sure about the c300. I have one and I don't get the advertised write speed. I would also consider making your dev directory on a separate disk or maybe a ramdisk. I planning on trying out :
http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk
My i7 machine with a c300 builds faster with the dev directory on a WD green drive than on the ssd! This might be partly my write problem but is also because vs 2010 and win7 are on the ssd.

So I'd either get a second ssd or more memory for a ramdisk.

Keep a hard drive for mass storage but I love the silence when they stop spinning!

Regards Dave

Cookeh · 6 Feb 2011 at 16:42

Write speed isn't nearly as important as read speeds for most uses

Jammin1984 · 6 Feb 2011 at 16:59

Cookeh said:
i doubt that ram wil fit under the heatsink - it's close enough with ram that has very low heatsinks!

For that reason, I'd be looking at either GeIL (whose 8GB kit is pretty damn cheap atm) or Corsair XMS3

Ahhh, never even crossed my mind, cheers.

Dingle said:
Maybe get more memory!
It obviously depends what your doing but sql server, vm instances and vs instances can start to gobble it up and memory is cheap.

16 GB is indeed very very tempting, especially now im going for cheaper ram. Mainly backend web dev, usually multiple instances of VS with R# and SQL mangment studio open. Very tempting....

Dingle said:
This is more for info than anything else but the c# compiler is single threaded whereas the c++ compiler is multi threaded. Whatever the i7 you've picked will rock and I imagine turbo boost 2 will help.

Yeah my new box at work is an i7 and it does indeed fly, makes coming home and working on old faithful a bit depressing! Always fun to play with .AsParrallel() 4.0 niceness too

Dingle said:
I'm not sure about the c300. I have one and I don't get the advertised write speed. I would also consider making your dev directory on a separate disk or maybe a ramdisk. I planning on trying out :
http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk
My i7 machine with a c300 builds faster with the dev directory on a WD green drive than on the ssd! This might be partly my write problem but is also because vs 2010 and win7 are on the ssd.

So I'd either get a second ssd or more memory for a ramdisk.

Keep a hard drive for mass storage but I love the silence when they stop spinning!

Regards Dave

Hmm looks like some SSD and ramdisk reading up is needed, Im not buying till end of the month so plenty of time to get up to speed. Dumping current working directory into a RAM disk and running VS etc from SSD sounds good.

Thanks