20 replies to this topic

[carbon]

Can someone tell me a good configuration for programming PC and how its should look like (components)? Resonable price, 1000$!

[WingedPanther]

What languages/tools do you want to run? I've done programming on an EEE PC 4G, so it doesn't take much.

[Alexander]

You'll be able to get a monster computer with lighted keyboards for a thousand, a good PC with at least a dual core and 3GBs of RAM should suffice. The market has moved to quad cores and i3/i5's since then so a good i3 should be a bonus for the cost of an older one.

I wouldn't buy in to an i7 with 12GBs of RAM unless you are doing some crazy builds such as Firefox's multi-gigabyte source code.

[carbon]

Visual Studio, Eclipse, Photoshop, Dreamweaver...

I usually use few programs at the same time so I need a very good PC. And I dont want AMD. Just Intel.


And I heard the integrated graphics (on Intel's processor) are that good that you can watch hd movies without any probem, is that true? If it is, maybe would be better to take i7 2700k for 300$ or i5 or any other with integrated graphics. I dont need PC for gaming, cause I dont play games only programming.

[WingedPanther]

What you need is a ton of RAM for Photoshop, and a large hard drive. Beyond that, not a lot, and AMD or Intel will serve you fine.

There is NO reason to get an i7 unless you want a beast of a server. If you want good graphics, don't go Intel, but for watching movies it'll be fine.

[carbon]

I noticed on ebay that Notebooks are relatively cheap. Is better to buy a notebook than PC?

[Alexander]

carbon said:

I noticed on ebay that Notebooks are relatively cheap. Is better to buy a notebook than PC?

You'd have to ask yourself that. Notebooks/laptops have come so incredibly far since the turn of the century, my cheap cheap netbook can perform nearly any programming task. Just remember, a dual core processor or somewhat better, and more than two gigabytes of RAM will do wonders for your programming. Most notebooks above $500 have "discrete" graphics cards provided by Nvidia or Ati, which should allow for movies + some gaming depending on the capabilities. There are often plenty of reviews out there for modern laptops.

I'd get one if you think you want to work portably, i.e. on a desk one hour then in the livingroom or school later on. Sometimes it is better to program in more comfortable positions than on a PC with a keyboard and mouse.

[carbon]

Im looking for notebooks on ebay and a lot of them have 5400rpm (hard drive). Why so small?

[WingedPanther]

5400rpm is the speed it rotates, not the capacity of it. That is generally more than sufficient for a disk-based hard drive, and tells you very little about data access speeds.

[carbon]

I know its rotating speed. So whats impotant for data access speed?

[Sysop_fb]

They're slower because the power needed to run a 10k rpm hdd would eat through a laptop battery like it was nothing.
Laptops are fine for programming unless you're planning on doing some heavy duty math based calculations for a research paper.

Honestly though I have a good laptop that I use when I'm at home or on the road, I bought a cheap refurbed desktop that I keep running in the back incase I have a bit of code to run that's going to take a few hours or days.... laptops aren't good at going hardcore running calculations for hours on end or atleast mine tends to overheat after 12 hours as I learned the last time.

[carbon]

I would buy this "coller" that fits under laptop, no problem. I think it can handle programming apps.