New build for programming

Gullanian

Gullanian

Gullanian

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Joined
25 Feb 2011
Posts
267
We need a new build for my brother who is a programmer, it has to be able to compile big projects quickly in Visual Studio (that's the main objective) and have pretty decent graphics as well. The entire system should run very well and come with probably quite a bit of ram as well. Does this look good?

We need a suggestion on a good heatsink I think and PSU

MOBO - £75
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http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-448-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1906

CPU - £138
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http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-362-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=1275

RAM - £80
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http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-302-CS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387

GFX - £92
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http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-200-XF&tool=3

SSD - £78
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OCZ Agility 3 60GB 2.5" SATA-3 Solid State Hard Drive (AGT3-25SAT3-60G)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-075-OC&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=910

SSD 2.5" to 3.5" - £4
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http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-002-OP&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=910

Thanks for any help :) Budget can be extended further if needed but we need to buy 2x monitors as well so it's going to be expensive. Currently he is using an old laptop that's going to die soon.
 
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Im primarily a .NET developer.

If he uses VM's a lot I would consider 16GB ram, if possible. Also on the RAM, be careful of the clearance with any big after market coolers. That ram may well be over kill too, if not heavily over clocking. Go for slightly slower and more of it. Try this.

I would also consider an I7 over an I5, if possible. Although from what I know there is hardly any difference in compile times between the two. However depending on how he works it may be a nice boost; eg many instances of VS open, SQL server, Virtual Machines, Text editor and maybe even photoshop all open at once.

Also, on the SSD front maybe consider a crucial or intel, such as this over an OCZ. I believe there have been some reliability issues on the OCZ drives and the crucial ones tend to do very well in reviews. Im sure someone else here can shed more light on that though.
 
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heres a few changes to save money and/or get more performance:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £159.98
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 460 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM £89.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive ** Pre-Order price ** £77.99
1 x Asus P8P67 LE Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard ** B3 REVISION ** £74.99
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £57.59
Total : £471.94 (includes shipping : £9.50).

processor is overclockable (its only the standard cooler but you should still manage ~4Ghz
slightly slower speed but much cheaper memory (there isnt much of a performance gain when you go over 1600Mhz)
SSD doesnt come with any of the OCZ problems. also i hear there is a firmware update to get a 20% boost in performance
graphics card is way better
 
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Awesome thanks Reaper! If we were to say put another £300 in, would we get much more performance from it?

Also I have a hex core AMD, but am assuming i5 should perform better than that for the use of this computer?
 
Gullanian said:
Thanks Jammin, that ram is a lot cheaper so we will go for 12gb of that I think. I'm not sold on the benefits of i7 for double the price but if anyone knows more that would be great.
Click to expand...

Definitely more RAM the merrier on a dev box, especially with VM's.

As far as I know, for a single instance of VS, an I5 vs I7 at the same clock speeds compile time difference will be hardly anything, if at all.

<edit>

As Surveyor says below, go for 8 or 16GB, not 12.
 
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We have all the software via Bizspark so there's no software costs (including win7 etc). I have a hex AMD but this computer is for my brother who needs a completely new one. Thanks for Ram info!
 
Gullanian said:
Awesome thanks Reaper! If we were to say put another £300 in, would we get much more performance from it?

Also I have a hex core AMD, but am assuming i5 should perform better than that for the use of this computer?
Click to expand...

yes, the i5 2500k will outdo anything AMD can throw at it:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/203?vs=288

as for where to spend extra money it really depends on what your planning on doing with the computer.

a few things i did mean to ask were, what make/model PSU does your brother currently have? are the DVD drives and hard drives IDE (big ribbon cable) or sata (small flat cable)? and what make/model case do you have?
i can see your planning on recycling the PSU, DVD, HDD and case and just wanted to make sure everything will work
 
We don't really need a DVD/HDD we got a ton lying round and don't really use DVD's anyway, are planning on buying a new PSU as well (not sure which one to get).
 
Gullanian said:
We don't really need a DVD/HDD we got a ton lying round and don't really use DVD's anyway, are planning on buying a new PSU as well (not sure which one to get).
Click to expand...

reason i asked about the DVD and HDD is because none of the intel sandybridge or AMD bulldozer motherboards support IDE, so i wanted to make sure you had something other than an SSD to store your data on

as for the PSU it really depends on how much you want to spend, and what you plan to upgrade to in the future. for what your about to buy the OCZ ZS Series 550W would be more than enough, but depending on what you plan to upgrade to you might want something a bit more powerful
(however, the motherboard youve chosen doesnt support crossfire/SLI properly, so you shouldnt need much more than the OCZ unless you change the motherboard and get two graphics cards)

one last thing i forgot to mention. some SSDs come with an adapter to fit on 3.5" bays, so you might want to ask about that in the customer service section
 
Hi all,

Thanks for help so far! I'm the brother Gullanian was referring to. I need a complete new system, so I've added in some extras and got this so far:

Asus P8P67 motherboard (£75)
Intel Core i5-2400 (£138)
Akasa CPU cooler (£35)
Corsair XMS3 8GB RAM (£58)
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB (£78)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 6770 (£92)
OCZ ZS Series 650W PSU (£56)
Case (£70)
500GB HDD (£31)
2 x Samsung B1930N 18.5" display (£180 together)
Also a standard mouse & keyboard.

Just a couple of questions:
- Will that cooler fit in the case? I've seen coolers not fitting in to cases before.
- Any obvious bottlenecks/overspending?
- Will it be quiet? I'm a bit of a sound geek so low noise is important.

For context: this machine will mainly be used for building large C++ projects, so for that I suppose CPU, RAM and a good SSD are important. I only infrequently use a single VM.

Thanks for any advice!
 
- motherboard is not the best for overclocking, which is mainly the point of P67 :) Advantage of a m-atx is the potential for a smaller case (Silverstone Temjin).
- You cannot overclock a 2400. Not meaningfully. So either a H61/H67, or a 2500K + P67/Z68.
- Therefore the cooler is not necessary. You can get a much cheaper cooler for replacing the stock one if you prefer. (http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-AN&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=1395).
- The case can fit a Noctua NH-D14.
- Dual display almost a requirement for development :) However the display you have chosen are only 768. I would go 1920x1080p for sure.
- The GPU is expensive for performance. But fair enough if your budget is stretched. If you don't do graphics, maybe consider integrated?
- The case is quiet, and the system will not draw much power. So it should be quiet.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £159.98
1 x Asrock Z68 PRO3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
2 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £89.99 (£179.98)
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive ** Pre-Order price ** £77.99
1 x Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £69.59
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £59.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £25.99
Total : £768.17 (includes shipping : £14.75).





YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2400 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £137.99
2 x OcUK V-Line 221V2SB 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £89.99 (£179.98)
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive ** Pre-Order price ** £77.99
1 x Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl £69.59
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G) £49.99
1 x MSI H61M-E33 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £46.99
1 x BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W '80 Plus' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Antec Kuhler Flow High Performance CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/LGA1156/LGA1366/AM2/AM2+/AM3) £16.99
Total : £676.70 (includes shipping : £16.85).

 
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