Basic Work Computer

[Davo889]

Hey guys, just need some advice..

We are a very small company and we have just taken some kid on to do some work for us.
He needs a computer but he insists it needs to be a decent spec £600+

He will be using it for browsing (listing items on ebay, website maintenence/wordpress) as well as using word/excel etc, remoting into customers to offer training and support via teamviewer

He was hired because he is a developer and will be using visual studio for c# and python and using "IDE"s for some existing products we have.

Also we are looking to make apps and he says android studio and flutter can use lots of resources.

The way i see it, if he is developing things to work on a phone, so they are bound to work on a basic pc.

But he is coming back with these £600+ computers - when i see lots of gaming pcs on ebay for £300 and £400

Does anyone have any advice on what sort of realistic specifications this kid might need?

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Using windows or Linux for Android designing ?
Ubuntu faster then windows 10 etc, also emulation support for AMD was/is better
Intel for Windows (android development )

Compiling , more cores the better but you do get bottlenecks with single core speeds in-between . Avoid older Ryzen and older intel, 10th gen and Ryzen 3***

16 GB ram, 8 for the studio and 1GB for the emulation it appears

https://medium.com/@bfortuner/python-multithreading-vs-multiprocessing-73072ce5600b

 

[Deleted member 77746]

You don’t want a £300 for any developing what so ever if it’s apps.

Web stuff I can do on my chromebook but that’s because it’s just web that gets processed on a server and not the local machine.

Anything below 600£ is not a gaming machine or a dev system for sure.

By all means buy a cheap machine but usually it’s but cheap but twice anyway.

 

[pc-guy]

I think those 400 quid eBay systems are plenty for your use.

those PCs are typically equipped with an AMD APU - you need a CPU with integrated GPU so you don’t have to fork out on a discrete GPU like nvidia or Radeon.

those systems though do need more ram. If he s doing all of those at the same time you will probably need 32GB ram. Remote sessions will use very little resources but compiling and developing can take up a lot of ram and potentially hard disk space. So a fast SSD for system drive and a HDD for storage is essential. NVMe is not really necessary.

you ideally want lots of cores but I am familiar with any of the developing tools to say how many cores you need. But never the less you would imagine a 6c/12t is a minimum.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

6 core 12 thread intel. What's annoying is Ryzen 4*** APUs aren't out to buy yet. But you might find one built...

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-10400 2.90GHz (Comet Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail= £179.99
• 1 x Gigabyte B460M-D3H (Socket LGA 1200) DDR4 Micro-ATX Motherboard= £79.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan Z T-Force 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-21600C18 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey= £99.95
• 1 x TeamGroup 500GB Vulcan SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 3D NAND Solid State Drive= £52.99
• 1 x Corsair CV Series CV450 450W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (CP-9020209-UK)= £39.95
• 1 x Kolink KLM-003 Micro-ATX Case - Black= £22.99

Total: £486.96 (includes shipping: £11.10)


OCUK to build roughly the same would be £460 but 16GB ram Vs 32GB​

 

[Rikmeister]

Android studio is very demanding of resources. It's not just Android studio that is demanding but in the background it is running Gradle to do the work of building the apps - Gradle is a major application in its own right. So you've got 2 major programmes running, then you have the application you're developing - I suggest you make sure the PC has a lot of memory, 16Gb would be good, 32Gb even better. The GPU isn't so important if he will be testing with a phone attached to the PC, but if he is using the emulator a lot (like emulating tablets and different phone display sizes) then Android Studio can make use of the GPU.

Gaming PCs have a different set of requirements to a PC for programming. Games benefit from good single core performance whereas for programming if you have your IDE, Gradle, the emulator, office apps (email etc) running in the background, so he would benefit from good multicore performance that might wasted for most games.

Orbitalwalsh recommended a 6 core/12 thread CPU so that looks good, in fact that whole system looks good. I don't know what the airflow would be with that case. The build hasn't got a dedicated GPU so temps might not be too bad but getting a fan for the side vent might be a good precaution. For £100 - £200 more than the ebay gaming PCs I think orbitalwalsh's build would be much better for the task.

I don't know how much you're paying the new guy but I should imagine if the better PC only raises his productivity 10% you'll soon pay back the investment.

Good luck, would be great to hear how you get on.

 

[JasonM]

He needs a proper development computer, you need to look at a workstation build or a higher end machine. You should be getting him at least 2 monitors also.

I'm a software developer (C# / dot net) my computer is over £1500 (12 core, 64 GB Ram, Nvidia Quadro) + glass fronted 22" monitors * 3 + lift stand.

I've been in software over 20 years, worked at companies that never wanted to spend on computers it's horrible, I remember 15" CRT's and ball mouse, but those days have gone I make sure I have good hardware today.

 

[Rikmeister]

Having read JasonM's post, I have to agree. You're investing in your developer with his salary, no point stinting on the hardware.

I'd particularly echo Jason's point about the monitors. If you look at an IDE like Android Studio or Visual Studio it fills the whole screen, having at least a 2nd screen where you can display output or a 2nd code window so you can look at, say a function that is being called and the code calling that function, makes a massive difference.

 

[JasonM]

When I wrote 12 core 64 gb that is perhaps a little extreme, however you need at least a modern i5, and 32gb ram (16gb will be hitting page file).

The OP mentioned those cheap ebay gaming builds, it's not just about spec but quality of hardware. If a computer fails it will cost you more in time getting it fixed, or a new computer. I use Seasonic PSU's, quality Kingston memory, WD enterprise drives, Nvidia Quadro that use stable drivers, even down to IC Diamond paste and Artic cooling CO fans. It's all done to ensure the computer is as stable and reliable as it can be. In contract the ebay builds use the cheapest components they can, for a computer you depend on 40 hours a week not what you want.

 

[Rikmeister]

When I wrote 12 core 64 gb that is perhaps a little extreme

I think it was fair enough, you were citing yourself as anexample of what a professional developer uses. There's no reason he should know what a development machine should be. Great point about the reliability.

In contract the ebay builds use the cheapest components they can, for a computer you depend on 40 hours a week not what you want.

I've seen some YouTube videos where a technie takes apart (litterally) some prebuilds, and it can be frightening.

 

[JasonM]

I've seen some YouTube videos where a technie takes apart (litterally) some prebuilds, and it can be frightening.

It's funny you mention this. I'm actually thinking of starting a YouTube channel myself, it would mainly be software development, however I also want to cover building a workstation machine with higher end parts, such as Nvidia Quadro, ECC memory, enterprise disk drives for heavy SQL usage, workstation grade case, Seasonic Titanium PSU and showing it all built correctly (proper ESD precaution that no one ever shows on youtube). Basically an over-engineered high end reliable computer for pure work.

 

[Rikmeister]

It's funny you mention this. I'm actually thinking of starting a YouTube channel myself, it would mainly be software development, however I also want to cover building a workstation machine with higher end parts, such as Nvidia Quadro, ECC memory, enterprise disk drives for heavy SQL usage, workstation grade case, Seasonic Titanium PSU and showing it all built correctly (proper ESD precaution that no one ever shows on youtube). Basically an over-engineered high end reliable computer for pure work.

Sounds interesting! Please share the URL if you decide to go ahead.