sábado, 25 de octubre de 2014

Building a dev box under $800

Tired of developing on my gaming laptop virtualizing Ubuntu, I now decided it is time to use my old PC case and build meself a new computer. I went for a decent processor and video card but good RAM and SSD drive. This are my final specs:

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($234.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 45.0 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler  ($17.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($119.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: PNY XLR8 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($134.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($65.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 1GB Video Card  ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: Intel 7260HMWDTX1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter  ($45.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $773.91
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-25 22:46 EDT-0400

The first thing that gets your attention is the i5. Why not i7? The price difference for the i7 version of the processor is almost $100. What do you get with the i7 4770K? You get 2mb more of L3 cache memory and hyperthreading which bumps up your thread count to 8 even though you are still at quad core. IMO these advantages do not merit $100 so that is why I went with the i5.

Other important things here is the 2x8GB at 1600 for only $134. Since the motherboard has 4 slots, I will still have space to go to 32GB if necessary. 128GB of SSD should be enough for OS pagination (in case 16GB of RAM is not enough for the main bins). The video card is just on the threshold between budget and gaming video cards. It is enough in case you want to do some blender renderings or some steam gaming, but still not as expensive.

Note that it is still missing I/O accessories such as sound card, keyboard, monitor and mouse.

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