About to buy some new gear, we have lots of Dell stuff always buy from them but they seem expensive now.

£1200 each and we need a few

Rough spec
Intel® Core™2 Quad Q9650 (12M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, vPro)
Windows® 7 Professional 64 Bit with Media
E-series E2210 22”W UK/Irish Monitor – Black
8.0GB 800Mhz NON-ECC DDRII Memory (4*2GB)
500GB (7200 RPM) SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with NCQ and 16MB DataBurst Cache
GRAPHICS CARD256MB ATI Radeon HD 3470 dual display port with DVI Adapter

So where is better than Dell for this sort of stuff?

They are used to run multiple instances of Visual Studio, SQL etc, IIS, subversion, multiple displays etc.

You could try Broadberry. Bought servers from them in the past and they’re v.helpful. I’ve just roughly specced a machine to your spec and it was ~£1000

Broadberry

Developer PCs? What are you developing?

Development isn’t a demanding application any more surely.

molgrips – Member

Developer PCs? What are you developing?

Development isn’t a demanding application any more surely.

It’s like with everything else, the apps & data grow to use up whatever power you have available. Try running up an instance of SQL server, management studio, visual studio, firefox, opening some huge log files in notepad++ etc. Everything soon grinds to a halt.

Well I use Eclipse which is about as much of a memory hog as you can get.

Plenty of ram is nice but you don’t need a heavyweight PC. It’s not 3D rendering.

I am about to get a dell laptop with similar specs (Except dual core I7) for SQL and VS development work. Cant wait 🙂

Im doing MS BI what about you?

plenty of ram is nice but you don’t need a heavyweight PC. It’s not 3D rendering.

Well, depends what he’s developing, and if compile times, running test suites, simulations are an issue etc.

We use Fujitsu Celcius workstations now. They fit the bill.
The W280 is current fave.

Also in database work testing ETL work and processing SSAS can involve some pretty heavy workload

Maybe although I still can’t imagine. I run app servers, DBs, IDEs and all on this machine and it’s a crap PC. Then again I don’t do MS so dunno what their stuff is like 🙂

I’d have thought there’d be a way around having to build some massive app from scratch each time and run a huge test suite mind. Maybe the app should be split into more easily manageable components?

One place I worked, it took 5 mins to start up the app sever, which was a pain. Solution – get hot deployment working.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have a great PC.. but the first thing I’d spec given a bit of extra money would be a second monitor.

I’d have thought there’d be a way around having to build some massive app from scratch each time and run a huge test suite mind. Maybe the app should be split into more easily manageable components?

Yeah, in general, but sometimes you end up doing lots of little compiles that all add up. If you can cut from 5 mins a go to <1min, it makes a big difference (cos you can sit and wait for them, rather than wander off/get distracted). Did a lot of this for previous work where I was cross-compiling code that had to be tested on-device, and so on.

Agree on the monitor thing though.

So any recommendations or shall I just go tell the 5 devs out there that they are doing it wrong and there 3ghz 4meg machines are fine.?

but the first thing I’d spec given a bit of extra money would be a second monitor.

You HAVEN’T got a second monitor?

(cos you can sit and wait for them, rather than wander off/get distracted)

When are you supposed to log onto STW then?

Yes TG, my PC at this new place is so shoddy that it only has one monitor, and that is not even widescreen! I had to install Chrome cos the PC couldn’t handle multi-tabbed browsing in IE quickly enough to not be annoying.

However it still runs eclipse fine 🙂 Admittedly it’s a small app on which I am working.

That spec does look a bit high in places, like 8 megs of memory, but the single(!) monitor is nothing special.

Why not some Core-I7s? Have you looked here:

http://www.europc.co.uk/product.php?productid=140840

they come with 3 year warranty, but Win 7 home, not Pro.

Or get a slightly lower spec (that HD space is crazy) and spend the money on a couple of 24inch monitors with better res, as multiple monitors really do affect your productivity for the better.

Memory is always useful.

The HP Z-series is reliable.

TBH, any high-end PC will be suitable for your needs.

If you’re doing DB work, then invest in an SSD (for the db files), or at least a WD Raptor (150GB or 300GB).

I’ve got 8Gb of memory in this machine here; frequently I wish it was 16.

Visual Studio 2010; SQL Server + others.

I can only assume the single monitor purchase is because they’ll be keeping old monitors from the outgoing machines – so an additional monitor each.

Only hole I’d pick in the spec would be (as previously noted) Core i7 and not Core 2 Quads; however unless you have massive compile times I’d take the extra memory over a faster cpu every day of the week.

Might also benefit from a couple of HDD’s in a RAID configuration; or SSD disks (if you can afford it)

I’ve got 8Gb of memory in this machine here; frequently I wish it was 16.

😯

What’s using all the ram?

molgrips – Member
I’ve got 8Gb of memory in this machine here; frequently I wish it was 16.

What’s using all the ram?

SQL server eats it for lunch – if you give it 4GB or 32GB – it will use as much as possible.

It might run 1% faster with 16GB compared to 8GB, depending on the application….

Get them onto Eclipse Computers and tell them to spec their own. You can get equivalent to that DELL one for about £680 including VAT on there.

SQL server eats it for lunch

It doesn’t have to, it is how you have it configured.

Those Dells I pointed to have 2x1TB drives and the Studio I am working on has a Intel SATA RAID controller, so RAID no problem. Plus a 3 year warranty whichis useful in a business perspective.

SSD drives have a finite write life, so maybe not?

Two monitors!

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2004/06/multiple-monitors-and-productivity.html

(I’m on one, but I’m a looser.)

SQL server eats it for lunch – if you give it 4GB or 32GB – it will use as much as possible.

So it’s reserving available ram for cache then, presumably. It must be configurable. Isn’t there server/workstation config/install option? That idea seems to ring a bell in my head.

Just cos it grabs it doesn’t mean it actually needs it. I’ve run SQL server on modest dev boxes before, albeit a few years ago.

Not completely true on the monitors – one big monitor with uber resolution is pretty good, and maybe better as you don’t have the disruption of the monitor borders in the centre.

Cheers for the Eclipse link, they look good and the Fujitsu ones

Yes one ginormous monitor would be good, but they are silly expensive.

I don’t think having one normal sized monitor is that much of a drag on productivity tho. I mean two is easy and convenient, but I can still work just as well on one.

I cope with one at home but it is 1920×1200 – 1600×1200 for a single would be my minimum or it would be a resigning issue…

So it’s reserving available ram for cache then, presumably. It must be configurable. Isn’t there server/workstation config/install option? That idea seems to ring a bell in my head.

Just cos it grabs it doesn’t mean it actually needs it. I’ve run SQL server on modest dev boxes before, albeit a few years ago.

Yes, you can configure it. IIRC by default it will use whatever it can.

Our developer recently upgraded from an Athlon XP shuttle / 1GB RAM (waaaay out of date!) to a HP Z400 / 12GB RAM / 6-core Xeon / 160GB SSD.

He was running VS 2008 / SQL 05 / IIS / and other stuff….. it worked, but very very slowly.

Needless to say, his productivity went through the roof. What took 20mins to compile, now takes 50 seconds….

What’s using all the ram?

Multiple copies of Visual Studio; SQL Server (yes I know it’s configurable – it still needs plenty of RAM if you are using it with a large/frequently accessed db); Sharepoint and FAST Esp

I have various VM’s with some of the above components on each depending on what I’m working on – I have occasional need to run two vm’s concurrently for integration testing / debugging.

Multiple copies of Visual Studio

?

molgrips – Member
Multiple copies of Visual Studio
?

Developing multiple separate applications, which might need to be tested interacting together.

Doesn’t it let you open multiple projects?

It all seems very weird to me!

Multiple projects – yes; multiple solutions – no.

Each solution will contain several projects; however each ‘deliverable’ module (e.g. a Windows Service or WCF service) will be a single solution referencing only it’s required project files.

Bit apples and oranges (pun sort of intended)comparing a workstation class box with a ‘white box’ build (I’m assuming the Dell is a XPS or something).

That said, I’ve had so few problems with commodity PCs these days I’m not sure I’d bother to buy a workstation at premium. RAID is nowt special on SATA these days. It’s really only to get the higher class of processors that don’t tend to appear in the normal models – Core2 Quad should be easily available in all ranges, but processor choice should be carefully weighed – you might get better performance from fewer, faster cores.. i5 has turbo boost (official overclock on demand) for example. I’m discounting unofficial overclocks though I know it can be done perfectly happily I’d keep that for my home PC.