Reply to: Development laptop - bang per buck

[Scrag Meister]

That's what I said

Eventually!!

[TheFaQQer]

FTFY

That's what I said

[Scrag Meister]

eBuyer has a 960Gb SSD for £450 this week.

FTFY

[TheFaQQer]

eBuyer has a 960GB SSD for £450 this week.

[BHicks]

If you're going for a laptop for dev usage, I'd second the replacing of the HDD for an SSD and would also suggest looking at something like this:

HP EliteBook 8460p

They're very strong, come with a full HP 3 year warranty and replacing bits (memory/hdd etc) is an absolute doddle.

Another nice touch is that they support AMD Eyefinity which means you can hook up multiple external monitors without having to invest in additional graphics cards. Quite handy for a full blown dev rig where you perhaps want your IDE on one screen and your application(s) on the other(s).

[Spacecadet]

If you do not mind Ivy Bridge instead of Haswell:

Samsung 350V5C 15.6-inch Laptop (Silver) - (Intel Core i7 3630QM 2.4GHz Processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, DVDSM DL, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

That one's cheap because the screen is only 1366x768

[Scrag Meister]

Dell Factory Outlet


Dell outlet xps15-l521x

£574 + VAT for an i7 with 8GB DDR3
upgrading the Ram will cost you about £100
change the hard drive for an SSD whilst you're at it

You can also change the mSATA SSD for a larger capactity drive then operate them independently

Swap out the DVD drive for another SSD if you feel extra special

Has the added advantage of not looking like a cheap Chinese knock off

There have been complaints of over heating, personally I've not had any issue with it. Even extended even gaming sessions have been unimpaired by excess heat.

WSCS

I have one of those too, great bit of kit.

[bobspud]

Hi all,

Looking for another laptop for dev work. Mostly data mining/analysis services/predictive analytics stuff.

So memory and CPU number crunching power is the only thing I'm interested in.

Best I can find so far is this:

I7 Quad Core (Haswell) with 16GB DDR3

MSI CX61, CX61 2OD-011UK, MSI CX61 Haswell

£749 inc VAT

Anyone know of something more powerful for similar money?

Dumb question of the day: Have you thought of running up an AWS image to handle this?

[tranceporter]

I am sure you already know this, but SaveOnLaptops are giving a free slip case for the 15.6" laptop with offer code "slip"

Luxury Neoprene Slip Case 15.6" Reversible sleeve [BLACK/RED], FCLSL15BKRE

If you do not mind Ivy Bridge instead of Haswell:

Samsung 350V5C 15.6-inch Laptop (Silver) - (Intel Core i7 3630QM 2.4GHz Processor, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, DVDSM DL, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

[tranceporter]

Stay away from OCZ. Reliability is really bad, but they are dead cheap. I lost a complete laptop worth of stuff. Yes I backed it up, but the replacing the drive, rebuilding the O/S then the re-setting up of everything is not fun.

Yes, I have heard not so great things about them as well. I would either go for Samsung 840 PRO or Intel 520..

[eek]

Will check later for some deals, but one thing I would do is to buy the laptop with a strong CPU, but low RAM and HDD. If it saves you good £££'s, then you can always plug in latest ram + SSD at your own expense, which usually proves cheaper.

Surely the priority is best in class none replaceable parts (so screen, cpu, gpu) and then buy the replaceable parts separately.

[TheFaQQer]

I am guessing that you want to develop on the go - in a train etc.
Something I've been fiddling with - wanting more power is tiny PCs like this one:
Gigabyte BRIX
It can pack the latest DESKTOP Haswell i7 with much higher clockspeed than
You only pay for the components you're after and not the battery, LCD screen etc...

Handy on the train. You just need to add the power supply, monitor, keyboard and mouse....

[yasockie]

I am guessing that you want to develop on the go - in a train etc.
Something I've been fiddling with - wanting more power is tiny PCs like this one:
Gigabyte BRIX
It can pack the latest DESKTOP Haswell i7 with much higher clockspeed than
You only pay for the components you're after and not the battery, LCD screen etc...

[tranceporter]

Hi all,

Looking for another laptop for dev work. Mostly data mining/analysis services/predictive analytics stuff.

So memory and CPU number crunching power is the only thing I'm interested in.

Best I can find so far is this:

I7 Quad Core (Haswell) with 16GB DDR3

MSI CX61, CX61 2OD-011UK, MSI CX61 Haswell

£749 inc VAT

Anyone know of something more powerful for similar money?

Will check later for some deals, but one thing I would do is to buy the laptop with a strong CPU, but low RAM and HDD. If it saves you good £££'s, then you can always plug in latest ram + SSD at your own expense, which usually proves cheaper.

[Spacecadet]

Hi all,

Looking for another laptop for dev work. Mostly data mining/analysis services/predictive analytics stuff.

So memory and CPU number crunching power is the only thing I'm interested in.

Best I can find so far is this:

I7 Quad Core (Haswell) with 16GB DDR3

MSI CX61, CX61 2OD-011UK, MSI CX61 Haswell

£749 inc VAT

Anyone know of something more powerful for similar money?

Dell Factory Outlet


Dell outlet xps15-l521x

£574 + VAT for an i7 with 8GB DDR3
upgrading the Ram will cost you about £100
change the hard drive for an SSD whilst you're at it

You can also change the mSATA SSD for a larger capactity drive then operate them independently

Swap out the DVD drive for another SSD if you feel extra special

Has the added advantage of not looking like a cheap Chinese knock off

There have been complaints of over heating, personally I've not had any issue with it. Even extended even gaming sessions have been unimpaired by excess heat.