I’m looking to buy or build a new development machine. My current machine is a Dell 490 case with an Intel Core 2 Quad processor running at 2.4 GHz. 16 GB of RAM and two 750 GB hard drives. I have a second machine (Core 2 Quad at 2.0 GHz, 16 GB RAM, two 500 GB drives). Together, the systems make for a pretty reasonable development environment, but they’re starting to show their age. The machines can’t easily be upgraded with newer technologies (USB 3.0, SATA 3.0, etc.). Worse, those machines are noisy.
I should be able to replace both of those machines with a single machine, and not lose any required functionality. I figure if I can load it up with a fast processor (perhaps two quad-core processors), 64 GB of RAM, and two 2-terabyte drives, I’ll be in good shape. With two video cards and monitors, I can easily have two virtual machines running concurrently. With four monitors (a possibility), the system should rock!
My number one requirement is that the system be quiet. I realize that there will be some noise. That’s unavoidable. But these 490s are crazy loud. I don’t really notice how loud until I turn the machines off and am amazed by the quiet.
I’ve seen Jeff Atwood’s most recent Building a PC blog (from a year ago), and he has some good suggestions. His needs and mine often differ, though. In particular, he thinks that 24 GB of RAM is overkill. Some of the stuff I do will eat 24 GB with no trouble. I have programs that can make good use of 64 GB or more.
One other thing I’d really like is an SSD to hold my boot partition as well as a “scratchpad” area that I can use for large data-intensive tasks. A 128 GB SSD is quite reasonable: from $150 to $250. 512 GB will go double that, but might be worthwhile.
There are other things that’d be nice to have, but my basic requirements are:
- Quiet case.
- Quad core or possibly dual quad core (unless somebody has an 8-core processor).
- Minimum 32 GB of RAM. Preferably 64 GB.
- Space for four SATA drives, plus DVD.
- Space for two dual video cards (total of 4 monitors).
I don’t know yet what that’s going to run me, but price isn’t all that important. I sit in front of these machines for 12 hours a day. If I can build one that saves me time and makes my work more enjoyable, then it’ll pay for itself pretty quickly.
Suggestions welcome.
One important path to quiet computing is big fans that spin very slowly. High RPMs are your enemy. Multiple large exhaust fans that move lots of air might be your salvation.
With 8 cores and 64GB memory you will need a serious power supply so be sure to check out how noisy that is along with all the power specs.
I’m a firm believer in conservative specs, especially when choosing memory. I would not go for bleeding-edge gamer memory, but more conservatively speced main-stream. Sadly unless you go for a server motherboard you will almost certainly not be able to get ECC memory – at least if you go with Intel. (Not sure about AMD.)
I suspect a single 6-core processor will give you an order of magnitude more selection than any dual-socket configuration. When I looked a few years ago I think to get dual sockets you had to get either a server motherboard or perhaps a workstation motherboard, and neither was up to date on peripheral support like golly-gee-wow video cards and USB 3. I’m guessing you need to read up on chipset/CPU parings first.
When you get the right bits of OS and (W7) hardware (certain Intel chipsets?) in place there is an option to use a small (64GB? less?) SSD together with a hard drive to speed up the drive. I have not used it, but it is tempting and I’d love to hear from someone using it. In theory at least it might get you most of the benefit of that SSD drive for work files without having to think which files go where, as well as speeding up files not designated to the SSD.
When I build my last system (1 year ago) I used NewEgg as both reference site and supplier. From what I have heard from trusted sources NewEgg isn’t a great place to actually buy stuff any longer, but I still find their shopping features to be top rate. So I would probably use them for all my what-if work, then shop around.