New software dev build.

davetherave2

davetherave2

davetherave2

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So I have been procrastinating on a new build for years and it is clear that my workhorse of a PC (e6600, 4gb, 8800gtx) is well past it's prime.

When running visual studio with 9 projects loaded into it it just can't cope and runs extremely slowly. Not to mention the odd random bsod (still not sure why but I am sure something is starting to give up)

So I have approx £500 to spend and just need the main internals. I have case, psu (cooler master 1000w modular) and a lot of hard drives.

Now I use my machine for mainly development work but I am also a fan of the odd PC game sc2 mainly at the moment (although my machine struggles with the newer games)

Ideally I would be looking at 16gb of ram as 8gb just doesn't cut it with multiple instances of visual studio 2013 and SQL management studio.

It also gives me the perfect time to upgrade to windows 8.1 (have license via ms biz spark program)

I'm not looking to do any overclocking on this unit as it will be like a work machine at home.

So fellow hardware nuts what can you suggest
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i7-4771 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £229.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11220-00-20G) £134.99
1 x Gigabyte B85M-D3H Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £56.99
2 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £49.99 (£99.98)
Total : £531.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This assumes you have enough hard drives of sufficient capacity and quality to not need a SSD and don't need an optical drive.
 
Thanks for the reply. I have a Samsung 830 120gb ssd, 2x2tb, 2x1tb hard drives and although I have optical drives I can't actually remember the last time I used them.
 
RJC said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x Asus Radeon R9 270X DirectCUII TOP 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £82.99
2 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £53.99 (£107.98)
Total : £538.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Click to expand...

'I'm not looking to do any overclocking on this unit as it will be like a work machine at home

Not sure that spec is best suited RJC
 
So it has been a while since I last looked at upgrade cycles but is intel due to release a new CPU any time soon as I don't want to get a current gen CPU if a new one is just round the corner.

In addition I guess I would be looking at 3 monitor support as a minimum but could be expanded to more if needed. This maybe something for a later purchase. Or maybe I could get away with using my 8800gtx for a little bit longer.
 
Haswell Refresh + Z97/H97 is due to release sometime in Q2. Probably not worth waiting as the it'll only be a clock speed bump (1-200Mhz) + supposedly better TIM on 'K' processors. Z97 will apparently be supporting M.2 SSDS (like MSATA but faster) and I'm assuming there's a chance of 3rd party controllers for SATA Express being on some higher end motherboards. Also Z97 will support Broadwell processors when they eventually release (Q4?).
 
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I know there is never a good time to be buying a pc as there is always something better coming out but what I don't want to happen is I buy the kit then a socket change happens and then I am limited to what cpu I can put into in the future (eg if I get a pretty good i7 then I am limited to what probably 1 or 2 other models in the future). Also are there any plans on changed from DDR3 memory to something faster eg DDR4+ (again what ever the next version will be)

Although I know that I will be happy with my pc for the next 2 -3 years I don't want to be thinking "if only I had waited those additional weeks to get the next revision which supported x, y and z" which may not be required right now but may become more important in the future. If that makes any sense what so ever.
 
Understandable, I'm in a similar situation at the moment. DDR4 is coming to mainstream (enthusiast really) around Q2/Q3 from what I've seen. But that will only be on the enthusiast X99 chipset which is the successor to the current X79/Skt2011 that's available, this is only really for those who need lots of cores and compute power (or just like having the biggest e-peen). I think proper mainstream sockets won't have DDR4 until next year.

Really you might as well get what you want now otherwise you'll end up in an endless loop! :D
 
Thanks. I may just have to try and convince work to have one of my old development machines and work from home with it. I am sure once I have flattened it and done a couple of upgrades (bit more memory and an ssd) this could tide me over for another year until I can a) either spend a little more money b)finally part with the cash and get something which isn't going to be completely obsolete in the next 30 seconds.
 
I can't get the shopping cart code to work so i'll type items.

I'm a Visual Studio developer and use a Haswell i7.

Intel i7-4771 (you need 8 threads it will help your build time)
Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H (this is the cheapest gigabyte board that supports 3 monitors digitally - you can make 3 identical screens into 1 and span your Visual Studio etc over them. The HD graphics on the i7 is totally fine for 2D and mild 3D, faster then the 8400GS you mention)
Kingston HyperX Blue 2 * 8GB (It's boring but it's totally solid and reliable, I run 32gb of this)

Optional

Artic Cooling i30 + IC Diamond 7 thermal paste (you don't really need this, but it will cool your CPU more efficiently, more important it will keep your rig quieter over Intel Retail fan).
 
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So it looks like I may be in luck and can borrow an unused machine from work.

It will be a dell that is a couple of years old now but has a 6 core xeon (2.93ghz, 12mb cache) and 12gb of ddr3 of ram in it and a quadro gfx card. Looks like someone has "pinched" the 2x 300gb raptors out of it so I will probably have to replace them with an ssd and use the couple of storage drives that are in it.

So this should tied me over for a while I think until I can put the budget together for a new dev machine. Hopefully by then we will be the realms of proper intel 8 cores for the mainstream (or maybe I am dreaming that up).

Thanks again for everyones suggestions though.
 
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