Lightning Fast Development Machine for home

[cojak]

I'm a developer and I used to build my own PC's back in the mid-90's. Over the years I've developed on Laptops with external monitors, including my retina MacBook Pro but for me, to get any real work done you need a decent 'desktop' PC. The issue with laptops is that by the time you've plugged in the power supply, two cables for external monitors, external keyboard, a speaker cable, etc, etc, it's resembles something on a life support machine. Kind of loses its 'portability'. I got so frustrated with the Mac/OSX when trying to get a decent multi-monitor setup in the context of remoting into the client network I just gave up and commissioned PC Specialist (https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/) to build me a machine. I thought about building one myself like I used to but just hadn't kept up with the componentry and tbh, I just couldn't be 4rsed. It was a great decision as it's a truly fantastic machine, though I don't remember the spec. I was massively impressed with PC Specialist. The unit was delivered with some foam padding on the inside of the case to keep all the components nice and safe.

Although OP said he wanted a 'lightning' fast machine, he doesn't really. He just wants something a bit faster than he has at the moment.

If he really did need 'lightning fast' he'd know the spec he'd need to achieve said speed (16gb RAM? Sheesh...) and wouldn't be frightened of nerdy websites.

[northernladuk]

Although OP said he wanted a 'lightning' fast machine, he doesn't really. He just wants something a bit faster than he has at the moment.

If he really did need 'lightning fast' he'd know the spec he'd need to achieve said speed (16gb RAM? Sheesh...) and wouldn't be frightened of nerdy websites.

But he's an expert dev!!

[greenlake]

Now I realised I need a super fast machine to help me develop quickly.

Anybody got any recommendations?

[jamesbrown]

Although OP said he wanted a 'lightning' fast machine, he doesn't really. He just wants something a bit faster than he has at the moment.

If he really did need 'lightning fast' he'd know the spec he'd need to achieve said speed (16gb RAM? Sheesh...) and wouldn't be frightened of nerdy websites.

Exactly.

[DimPrawn]

A PC for the proper developer.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/pea.../customize.php

2TB RAM and 4 x 24 core Xeon.

[jamesbrown]

A PC for the proper developer.

https://www.pugetsystems.com/nav/pea.../customize.php

2TB RAM and 4 x 24 core Xeon.

Cor blimey, not bad value either... might have to bring forward the next upgrade

[RonBW]

I'm a developer and I used to build my own PC's back in the mid-90's. Over the years I've developed on Laptops with external monitors, including my retina MacBook Pro but for me, to get any real work done you need a decent 'desktop' PC. The issue with laptops is that by the time you've plugged in the power supply, two cables for external monitors, external keyboard, a speaker cable, etc, etc, it's resembles something on a life support machine. Kind of loses its 'portability'. I got so frustrated with the Mac/OSX when trying to get a decent multi-monitor setup in the context of remoting into the client network I just gave up and commissioned PC Specialist (https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/) to build me a machine. I thought about building one myself like I used to but just hadn't kept up with the componentry and tbh, I just couldn't be 4rsed. It was a great decision as it's a truly fantastic machine, though I don't remember the spec. I was massively impressed with PC Specialist. The unit was delivered with some foam padding on the inside of the case to keep all the components nice and safe.

I actually went the other way this past year - after years of having a high spec desktop machine and a "normal" laptop that I had to copy things onto when I went on site, I moved to a high spec laptop with external monitors for the majority of my work but can easily unplug the monitors to take the laptop away with me when I need to.

I had it built to order by PC Specialist, including having to get them to change their system to order two monitors on the same order to hit the magic number, and it's been great.

[eek]

Although OP said he wanted a 'lightning' fast machine, he doesn't really. He just wants something a bit faster than he has at the moment.

If he really did need 'lightning fast' he'd know the spec he'd need to achieve said speed (16gb RAM? Sheesh...) and wouldn't be frightened of nerdy websites.

+2. My current laptop is 48gb ram, 512gb nvme with 512gb ssd for media only. It's also got a Xeon processor but as others pointed out a quad core i7 is little different.

The thing is that your specs show that you really need to do some more research before buying what you want - and you seem to be buying on what you think you need rather than what you actually need which is worse than useless.

So question 1: what are you going to use the machine for?

[greenlake]

So question 1: what are you going to use the machine for?

[d000hg]

But he's an expert dev!!

To be fair I'd clas myself as an expert developer but I don't know much at all about the state of current hardware. I stopped being a nerd on the subject when my PC Format sub ended at 17 and stopped caring at all about 2010... I pretty much dislike computers especially having to build/configure/administer them. My desktop is still a Compaq Presario with 4Gb of RAM and a 2GHz Core 2 CPU... I was going to bin it but then put in a SSD and it remained fast enough.

Even the decent spec Mac Mini I bought to replace it is largely unused save for music stuff!