Software Developer? What's your work PC spec?

aftershxck

aftershxck

aftershxck

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Just curious as to what spec PCs people are using if you work in software/web development, and what kind of apps you have open the majority of the time.


The reason I ask is because my work pc is as follows:

Pentium 4 2.6 GHz (single core, no hyperthreading)
2/3 gig of ram.

The programs I have open 95% of the time are:

Eclipse development environment with lots of plugins.
JBoss service for running enterprise web apps (I run this through Eclipse).
Multiple internet explorer/windows explorer sessions
MS SQL analyzer
MS SQL profiler
Visual Studio 2005 (editing xml files).

I can't stress how damn slow this is - when starting JBoss my whole machine is crippled (100% cpu usage) for a whole 10 minutes. Windows restart takes ~10 mins (5 mins for all progs to exits, 5 mins to load everything). Internet explorer takes 10-15 seconds to open in some cases and so on.

I just wanted to see whether this kind of thing is the norm in companies? (some people have quad cores here, mines one of the, if not the slowest pc!).

For reference my home pc is an AMD X2 4400 (running stock at 2 gig), with 2 gig of G-Skill ram, DFI motherboard and so on - this is at *least* 2 years old and its 3-5 times faster than my work pc!
 
Not a professional developer just as a hobby, but my spec in sig is used for that as it's the quickest PC in the house, and I also test my creations on the manky old laptop to make sure they're runnable on old stuff. :)
 
I use a laptop at work but it's an Intel C2D with 2GB of RAM. Main IDE is Eclipse-based but Lotus Notes also hogs a lot of resources.

It should run everything fine in theory but it's loaded with crappy, bloated software.
 
For my last job I had a similar machine doing similar stuff - P4 2.4GHz and 1GB RAM (although they gave me another 1GB a few weeks before I left), doing enterprise web development on Eclipse/JBoss/MSSQL. Definitely badger anyone and everyone for more memory, it helps a great deal when running the above, and if running MSSQL locally be sure to delve into its performance and memory optimisations. Hard disk speed is also a factor, it's well worth scheduling a regular defrag to keep things running smoothly.
 
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Bl00dy code monkeys...always moaning about how hard done by they are! :-)

Does sound a little pants to be honest. I've got secretarys running more powerful systems than that.

Is it a dell or something cobbled together (hmmm whats the difference?? :) )


Anyway, with that spec, I'm guessing it's more than 3 years old. Dependant on your company size, one would hope they've written off the cost of it by now, so you're probably due a new one.


Failing that, at least demand more memory (am I right in reading that as 768 MB..not just a vague description of your total ram? ) :)


And then stop whinging! :)
 
I think you're pretty lucky to have a rig with 3gig RAM.

Believe it or not one member of my team was liaising with an application developer not that long ago who (allegedly) was still running Internet Explorer 4. Yes, you heard - not 6, not 5, but 4. I seem to recall that Win2kpro shipped with IE5 out of the box, so I dread to think what version of Windows he's running (presumably NT4 or Win98).

Our defect manager only has 256meg RAM which tbh gets swallowed right up just loading Outlook2003 and QC9.2 leaving no room for anything else.

Still far better than my old employer who as far as I could tell in my 5 years there don't actually have any kind of rollout/upgrade proceedure - there were plenty of machines around still running Pentium1/2s and win95/98/nt (some of which were doing reasonably critical/demanding tasks like sending out emailed reports to clients, processing mailmerges of thousands of records plus images etc).
 
aftershxck said:
The reason I ask is because my work pc is as follows:

Pentium 4 2.6 GHz (single core, no hyperthreading)
2/3 gig of ram.

For reference my home pc is an AMD X2 4400 (running stock at 2 gig), with 2 gig of G-Skill ram, DFI motherboard and so on - this is at *least* 2 years old and its 3-5 times faster than my work pc!
Click to expand...

Perhaps request to work from home and mention that productivity will increase ;)
 
Last job (which only lasted about 1 1/2 months) was an old P4 2GHz with 640MB RAM... it was a painful experience.

Current (new-ish) Job = Q6600, 8GB RAM for PC - T7250, 3GB RAM for laptop. Heaven in comparison!
Usually running: Eclipse, SQL Server 2005, VS2008 & 3-4 VMWare machines.
Quite Often Running: 3DS Max 08, Maya 7, Photoshop
 
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Thanks for the views.

I meant 2 or 3 gig of ram (can't remember which), and I'll look into optimising MS SQL server...

However the PC is definitely impeding my performance with all the wasted minutes/frustrating feelings throughout the day. The pc is some HP or Dell btw.

I've only been here less than a year but still.... I'm even tempted to ask someone higher up the ranks if I could build my own (work) PC and if they'd subsidise the cost? What are peoples thoughts on this? Also, I don't want people thinking, "that smarmy ****** building his own pc for WORK!" or something :o

I.e. I could get something even faster than my home pc for less than 500 pounds (not saying this is pocket money to me ~ it's nearly 2 weeks wages - and I'm desperately saving every penny for a car, which puts into perspective how bad this pc is !!!). :D
 
at work
2.8ghz p4
512mb win 2000 NT
80gb hdd

running 15 hyperterminals
and variety of vb programs

we test software and hyperterminal logs the commands whilst testing. which if find a prob we look through logs for way of a fix
runs pretty gd

new pc coming soon to expand our teams
e6400
2gb
xp
 
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Shouldn't need to be doing that - brining in a spare stick of RAM from home is one thing, but you shouldn't have to be paying out of your own pocket for hardware and relying on subsidies.

If you ask for an new machine and provide some evidence (perfmon logs or whatever showing prolonged period of 100% cpu usage and peak commit charge exceeding physical memory), together with an explanation of how this affects your productivity, then you may find they are willing to accomodate your request. I think this is likely to go further than the "my pc is really slow!!" type whinges some make.
 
HangTime said:
Shouldn't need to be doing that - brining in a spare stick of RAM from home is one thing, but you shouldn't have to be paying out of your own pocket for hardware and relying on subsidies.

If you ask for an new machine and provide some evidence (perfmon logs or whatever showing prolonged period of 100% cpu usage and peak commit charge exceeding physical memory), together with an explanation of how this affects your productivity, then you may find they are willing to accomodate your request. I think this is likely to go further than the "my pc is really slow!!" type whinges some make.
Click to expand...

OK :) I'll knock up some evidence :D
 
aftershxck said:
Just curious as to what spec PCs people are using if you work in software/web development, and what kind of apps you have open the majority of the time.


The reason I ask is because my work pc is as follows:

Pentium 4 2.6 GHz (single core, no hyperthreading)
2/3 gig of ram.

The programs I have open 95% of the time are:

Eclipse development environment with lots of plugins.
JBoss service for running enterprise web apps (I run this through Eclipse).
Multiple internet explorer/windows explorer sessions
MS SQL analyzer
MS SQL profiler
Visual Studio 2005 (editing xml files).

I can't stress how damn slow this is - when starting JBoss my whole machine is crippled (100% cpu usage) for a whole 10 minutes. Windows restart takes ~10 mins (5 mins for all progs to exits, 5 mins to load everything). Internet explorer takes 10-15 seconds to open in some cases and so on.

I just wanted to see whether this kind of thing is the norm in companies? (some people have quad cores here, mines one of the, if not the slowest pc!).

For reference my home pc is an AMD X2 4400 (running stock at 2 gig), with 2 gig of G-Skill ram, DFI motherboard and so on - this is at *least* 2 years old and its 3-5 times faster than my work pc!
Click to expand...

Pretty much same spec, software as me and it's painful :(
 
Your spec is typical. Add in some mandatory network management services, distributed kerberized systems, network source control and everything but everything stored on a SAN and you're about there.
 
Its funny you should say that, I've just been given an upgrade from an Athlon Xp 1800 with 3Gb memory. I use similar products (IBM websphere software based on eclipse, iSeries navigator etc.), I mentioned it to my boss and said that it was wasting an hour a day out of my time. I now have 3Gb of DDR2 memory and an AMD Dual Core 4600 :) The upgrade was only £130 as a motherboard bundle and should be a lot better for me to work on :)



http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/faq.php?faq=vb_read_and_post#faq_vb_special_codes
 
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