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I'm thinking about buying a new development PC as I tend to do a little at home on my laptop but thinking about doing more work from home so need a more powerful machine.
It's been years since I bought a desktop and I have no idea where to start or what is good value these days, or what specs to go for. I am thinking 16GB RAM is a must but other than that I have no idea.
Any suggestions?
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AMD CPU 
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FX 9000
Skipper: We'll fix it.
Alex: Fix it? How you gonna fix this?
Skipper: Grit, spit and a whole lotta duct tape.
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intel i7
16 GB or more
SSD for OS and programs and an additional 1 TB or more for your data
A reasonable graphics card, sufficient for at least 2 screens on a high resolution
blazingly fast internet
sufficient USB ports
Something like that 
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Sounds expensive 
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Sounds like under $1K to me. You, as a developer, are expensive. Don't make yourself wait after your dev box.
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I bought my desktop (for home) for around 1K I think, usually I use it for 5-7 years.
The advantage of a desktop rig is that you can split costs by adding more fancy stuff later (and thus split some costs).
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I've been building my own PCs since the mid-90's. In fact I have the same exact PC I started with in 1996!
I admit that I have changed some components over the years, like replacing my HD every 2 to 3 years. [Get an SSD, I just did, it's FAST!]
The motherboard, CPU, and RAM have been swapped out every 4 to 5 years. DVD burners and video cards too. Back in the days of floppy drives and multi-card readers -- had to replace them, but not as often. And the case and power supply, had to replace them a few times.
So ... if you ignore that I replaced every single component numerous times, I have that same PC I started with!
I build PCs because I can shop around and get what I want. I do NOT buy top end. The new stuff is highly priced, and last year's model is sufficient to get 5 years out of it.
The initial build is the most expensive, as you're buying everything at once. Since then I don't think I've spent more than $400 USD in a year -- I watch sales and buy when the price is right for me.
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I think you should reply to "Wastedtalent" since he's probably more interested in the info
(not looking myself)
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Yeah, I have been building my own development PCs for a few years now. For me the 'sweet spot' seems to be a CPU that is 1 or 2 below the current best, and more memory than you ever expect to use.
Also, one drive for OS and installed programs, and a another for development, etc.
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1TB/512MB SSD's cheap enough now, and worth way way more than the i7 (vs say an i5)
spinners are dying tech, and actually less resilient (as well as mile slower) than SSD these days.
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Are you looking into my home office window?!?!
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Might want to wait till the intel issue is sorted (and watch out for cut price old stock with the problem still there.)
Absolutely SSD: with the huge size of VS (or pretty much any dev platform) you're better going SSD even if it means cutting back budget on the CPU - most tasks are disk IO bound (loading different stages of the dev env, compiler etc.)
I'm happy ith an i5 and SSD, outperforms the wifes i7/spinner by miles (and she's not doing dev.)
Edit: keep an eye out for USB 3.1 (backwards compatible to prev versions) too.
Unless doing high itensity graphics you can actually do well without a graphics card, most MOBI's have the intel graphics built in and can run 3 displays high res
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lopati: roaming wrote: Might want to wait till the intel issue is sorted (and watch out for cut price old stock with the problem still there.)
New hardware with the Meltdown fix (and any hardware changes that might be made to mitigate Spectre) isn't expected before 2019 at the earliest; hardware changes are slow...
Short term DRAM and NAND flash markets have been tight over the last year or so pushing prices upward, no good ETA on when/if prices will recover. For NAND it's been equal parts continued growth in demand combined with the ongoing conversion to 3D flash meaning that a larger share of production is out of service. DRAM's suffered from higher than expected demand from Mobile, Cloud, and Crypto customers. The manufacturers seem to've finally learned from the past boom/bust cycles in the DRAM market and aren't throwing massive amounts of money at new capacity this time around that has lead to the inevitable busts.
The worst part of the current HW market, if not really a major concern for Wasted Talent, is GPU availability; driven by the surge in cryptocurrencies that aren't suitable to ASIC mining. That's not likely to change short of the current round of price deflation going a lot lower; and because if/when that happens the current mining cards will flood the used market destroying new sales and inflicting another round of major losses on AMD/Nvidia, neither are eager to try and address the current shortage by increasing production.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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lopati: roaming wrote: most MOBI's have the intel graphics built in and can run 3 displays high res
I'll vouch for that.
My Intel NUC can easily handle my 4K 40" TV (DVI), along with a 1920x1200 24" and 1920x1080 27" monitors (both over USB3).
I wouldn't necessarily try to play fullscreen 4K video on that, but for development, even this is overkill.
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lopati: roaming wrote: Unless doing high itensity graphics you can actually do well without a graphics card, most MOBI's have the intel graphics built in and can run 3 displays high res
My experience agrees and disagrees at the same time. I agree that on-board graphics do the job and can support multiple monitors.
However, on-board video uses RAM (reducing RAM available for other uses) and in my experience is slower than a low-end video card with it's own RAM. Last spring I got into SkyRim and had to buy a better video card.
Not a high-end, $800 card. The one I bought was a few revs back and cost $160 USD.
EVERYTHING is significantly faster, including Visual Studio. My work PC is fairly fast, a good development workstation -- onboard video. VS loads like a pig. My home PC is lesser in every respect except the video card -- it loads in far less time.
This said, when building a PC, I'd not put graphics first. In fact I'd put it last. My ranking for building a PC:
1. Good MB, CPU, and lots of RAM first. This is the largest total expense, get good equipment, but not bleeding edge. Ensure the MB supports USB3 and has sufficient connections.
This is the biggest expense and is the "component" least likely to be replaced as you'll typically replace all three at once.
2. Case & power supply. Ensure you have enough juice to run everything, and I like cases that have room for many fans. No such thing as too many fans! Also, I now require USB3 ports on the front -- don't touch USB2.
3. DVD burner. This may sound like an odd choice, but they have value. Consider that backups burned to DVD are absolutely proof against ransomware. The media is dirt cheap so multiple backups are cost effective, and unlike flash media are far less volatile. Safe storage time is measured in years, maybe decades. It's also easy to completely destroy old backups ... if you have a shredder that eats DVDs.
[I recently purchased a USB3 external unit that will hot-swap SSD and SATA harddrives, effectively making them flash drives. Best way I know of to backup your system. If the current drive gets hose, crack the case and insert a back HD. $35 USD]
4. SSD. Makes a huge difference in speed. The good news is that if it doesn't fit the budget initially, it's an easy add-on.
5. Decent video card. Use onboard video initially, upgrade when the budget allows.
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Yes, one that will cut your hardware requirements down: Get rid of that resource hog named Visual Studio and use SharpDevelop instead. Suddently your computer's hardware is not as important anymore.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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Personally I would vote Linux, whenever possible. And I wonder:
How good is SharpDevelop support for C++?
... such stuff as dreams are made on
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megaadam wrote: Personally I would vote Linux, whenever possible.
Good choice.
megaadam wrote: How good is SharpDevelop support for C++?
I have not even looked for C++ support in SharpDevelop and I think it's for .Net only. So the most I would expect is the old managed C++.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
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I find it easier to work on a desktop.
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Cheaper to upgrade desktop...what else?
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oh, and very large monitor screen.
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