Lightning Fast Development Machine for home

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

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......

[SueEllen]

Is there any reason it has to be from John Lewis?

Generally gaming machines e.g. high spec ones sold to gamers tend to be fast.

Look online.

[cojak]

Take a look at Overclockers UK, you can build your own with them.

I've bought 2 PCs from there, excellent value for money.

[d000hg]

That sounds a lot of money for what is not a particularly crazy system? 16Gb RAM and 512Gb SSD isn't a big deal... unless you've picked the top i7 available which probably isn't needed.

I'd rather suspect people will recommend more RAM and slightly less blistering CPU, that's what I'd be tempted for anyway. But yes, SSD is transformational.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Take a look at Overclockers UK, you can build your own with them.

I've bought 2 PCs from there, excellent value for money.

Like the idea but their website is awful....

Too many choices makes head spin....

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Is there any reason it has to be from John Lewis?

Generally gaming machines e.g. high spec ones sold to gamers tend to be fast.

Look online.

Doesn't have to be from John Lewis but was great buying it and then returning it in-store to get an instant refund without any headache. That and having a 2 year warranty as standard. Great service to be honest.

[SimonMac]

Quick play on OCUK and i7 Quad Core, 32GB ram and 500GB SSD comes in just over a grand

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-...DDT1191LIM1~zz

[MrMarkyMark]

That sounds a lot of money for what is not a particularly crazy system? 16Gb RAM and 512Gb SSD isn't a big deal... unless you've picked the top i7 available which probably isn't needed.

I'd rather suspect people will recommend more RAM and slightly less blistering CPU, that's what I'd be tempted for anyway. But yes, SSD is transformational.

+1 my current machine has just a slighter smaller SSD and 32 GB of RAM, its a 3 year + old lap top

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Quick play on OCUK and i7 Quad Core, 32GB ram and 500GB SSD comes in just over a grand

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-...DDT1191LIM1~zz

No Optical Drive needed and 16GB is plenty.... More about the SSD.

Windows Pro or standard?

Bit put off by it's name and that it's for music professionals... I want a development machine Damn it!

[MrMarkyMark]

No Optical Drive needed and 16GB is plenty.... More about the SSD.

Windows Pro or standard?

Bit put off by it's name and that it's for music professionals... I want a development machine Damn it!

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.