Lightning Fast Development Machine for home

[VectraMan]

Agree. I'm an expert dev but not great with Hardware if I'm fully honest. I just want a reliable machine that is going to help me dev quickly and yes I think a decent processor, good amount of RAM and SSD is what I need....

Perhaps the question should be how exactly is your current machine slowing down your dev work? I remember the days of changing the wrong header file and then having to put your feet up for an hour whilst the compiler did its thing, but that doesn't happen any more and my i7, 16GB SSD'd laptop is much faster than I need for Visual Studio code monkeying on the whole. If I had to run a huge database and a couple of VMs it might get a bit more problematic.

Probably the answer is to either build your own, or go to one of the people that will build to your spec (pleased with the desktop I got from Novatech this way).

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Perhaps the question should be how exactly is your current machine slowing down your dev work? I remember the days of changing the wrong header file and then having to put your feet up for an hour whilst the compiler did its thing, but that doesn't happen any more and my i7, 16GB SSD'd laptop is much faster than I need for Visual Studio code monkeying on the whole. If I had to run a huge database and a couple of VMs it might get a bit more problematic.

Probably the answer is to either build your own, or go to one of the people that will build to your spec (pleased with the desktop I got from Novatech this way).

My gut feeling is I need to go to a company like overclockers..... But their website is just so kak!

[SueEllen]

My gut feeling is I need to go to a company like overclockers..... But their website is just so kak!

Work out what you need then go to a site like overclockers to see what they can build for you.

[b0redom]

On my next computer, I might go for three or four SSDs in RAID 0, per volume.

Waste of money and increase in complexity and risk. SSDs are already implemented internally as multiple RAID-0 banks of RAM. As I'm sure you're already aware, a single disk failure in a RAID-0 array takes out the whole array. If you really want faster I/O than a single SATA SSD can provide (and it's unlikely you'll see a performance increase outside of a synthetic benchmark if you do), go PCIe SSD and hear your wallet cry.

However - if you're going to do this, you must have a good backup solution. I have regular full and incremental backups to an 8TB available storage NAS - 4x4TB HDD, hot-switchable, RAID 6 (meaning I can lose two disks without losing data).

Absolutely this if you're doing RAID-0.

[Halo Jones]

I build my own PCs from components. That way I get exactly what I want at a good price. Since I can do, it obviously isn't difficult!

+1

Admittedly BGG did the research on component compatibility, but I built it & have replaced bits as I need

As other have said overclockers & scan are good places to buy

[woohoo]

Brave man posting in General.

I develop in VS, usually have multiple instances open and SQL server, VM's etc.

I used https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/ for my home super pc - I spent about 2.5k including VAT without a monitor and keyboard. I also added a mid-range graphics card.

My spec is two years old and still great for what I need.

CPU: INTEL® Core™ i7-5930K Six-Core 3.50 GHz 15MB INTEL Smart Cache LGA2011-V3 ***Overclockable
• HDD: 256GB (1x256GB) Plextor M6e M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive, Read: 770MB/Sec, Write: 580MB/Sec, Controller: Marvell 88SS9183 Controller [+144] (256GB Plextor M6e M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive) - This is wrong they actually upgraded the SSD size for free.
• HDD2: 2TB WD Black WD2003FZEX SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64M Cache 7200rpm Hard Drive [+105] (Single Hard Drive)
• MEMORY: 32GB (8x4GB) DDR4/2400mhz Quad Channel Memory [+439] (HyperX Predator w/Heat Spreader)

I did remember testing build times with my laptop and the pc and build times do seem to be affected by processor speed. You can also set the number of Parallel Builds in VS which you can set to the number of processors you have.

SSD speed is pretty important for loading VS - not sure how much it affects build time which is more important to me. It's been a while since I looked at it but I'm pretty sure processor speed is more important to build time than IO.

I went for 32GB of RAM, I haven't got a VM started right now but I'm using about half of that now.

I went for a Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower - it's probably dated now but its' big and fairly quiet. Has a fair bit of room for more storage and when adding graphics cards etc it's always nice to have a fair bit of room to work in.

oh for backups I use onedrive with Shadowprotect. Shadowprotect backs up the entire SSD to a second drive and have onedrive setup to backup whatever is in that folder. Got the tip off CUK i think.

[Platypus]

I used Scanshot to build my last "monster" PC. Gaming spec i.e. very fast!

EDIT: But the Mac mini I'm using now is silent and 1/20 the size and pretty fast. But I don't do development anymore.

[yetanotherbob]

I currently have a Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro which is a great laptop having 512GB SSD. It is, however, a bit slow for the kind of development I want to be doing.

Work machine is mental speed with 16GB RAM, i7 and Lots of SSD. I went and bought a tower without SSD for £700 from John Lewis (thought a normal HD would be ok) but found it as slow as hell so returned it. Now I realised I need a super fast machine to help me develop quickly. I need it to run Visual Studio and just generally be quick starting up and bringing up applications.

Anybody got any recommendations? My thoughts are I need the following spec:

- 16GB RAM
- i7
- 256 GB SSD

cheapest John Lewis machine with that spec comes in at like £1500 which I thought is way too much for a dev machine but could be wrong......

I bought a simple i7 laptop for about £600 and upgraded the RAM to 16G (about £80) and SSD (about £250 for 1TB) to suit my needs. Worked out well under £1000.
You might get a higher spec processor now (e.g. more cores) for £600-700.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

I bought a simple i7 laptop for about £600 and upgraded the RAM to 16G (about £80) and SSD (about £250 for 1TB) to suit my needs. Worked out well under £1000.
You might get a higher spec processor now (e.g. more cores) for £600-700.

Yeah... Not gonna cut it when 3 Visual Studios open + Management Studio + streaming some live footy.....

[d000hg]

How do you know that's "enough" RAM?

There's some memory based DB platforms that would require 32GB as a minimum for a VM type set up.

In theory he'd know he doesn't need to run DB servers in a VM before speccing the machine

For the vast majority of things 16Gb is plenty, even as a developer... but obviously there are cases where it's not if you start having to run a system locally or work on realistic data sets.