Building PC cost and specifications?

Question

i need it for a lot of heavy programming and i need to work on both windows and linux as dual boot.

i'm a college student so i don't have tons of money, i want something like 1000-1500$

Answer 1

Get an i7 4790k processor. It does the job very well with my heavy use on a dual monitor setup. AlSo get a copy of Windows 10 as it is getting much more productive.make sure you can keep the system cool with good fans. You should not blow off the power supply as it is a very central part of the computer that you will need for heavy usage. Get one that is 80 plus certified. If you are going to need a graphics card, do not get one unless it is over 200 dollars and make sure you have a compatible motherboard and case. You want 16-32 gigs of ram and a minimal of 1 tb. Get a 120gb ssd and boot Windows 10 onto that as it makes for faster boot up time and frees hard drive space.

Answer 2

$1000-$1500 is an ample budget. You may want to consider a machine with a Xeon CPU and ECC RAM, it's not something that's absolutely necessary, but it's not going to hurt anything and the ECC RAM might come in handy if you run into errors whilst compiling or running your programs. This is one of the rare instances when an AMD CPU (FX-83xx) might be a better choice than an intel i5/i7. Either will work, but you can save some money and whilst not giving up much performance in the scenario you're describing. If you were building a gaming machine, then yeah, I'd go Intel, but for this, I wouldn't dismiss AMD as being a valid choice. If your going to be spending a fair amount of time with Linux, get an Nvidia graphics card as their Linux driver support is better. than AMD's GPU Linux support. For what you're doing a pretty basic graphics card will do ( GT 730 or R7 240), but if you see yourself gaming on this computer, you'll want a stronger video card. 16 GB of RAM should be adequate, for storage, I'd go with a 480-500GB SSD and a 2TB HDD. Normally a 240-256GB SSD is plenty, but if you're working with large databases, being able to work with them on an SSD will help speed things up.

Answer 3

Any laptop/desktop can be used for programming. I've programmed on some very low end systems. It all depends on the type of programming you want to do. Of course having 16GB ram and 2TB hard drive is definitely helpful, but not necessary. If you are going to be doing game programming then you need a very good graphics card for your system. Make sure you get one that can work with DirectX 11 or 12. NVidia is the best video card to get because it has good drivers for Linux too. The ATI video cards don't have great support for Linux when it comes to 3D acceleration. Asus motherboards are the best so go with one of them. The i7 Quad core is the best CPU if you can afford it.

Answer 4

when i was in college, I had a laptop that I used for developing unix apps. I used C++ and Java mostly. Do you realize that programming is done using an editor? It's a similar text editor for most windows. the difference is most development software has a compiler to test the codes. And you do not need a $1000 PC. Even a cheap laptop can do the job. I prefer dell for durability. Just make sure it has a dual core processor with 4 GB of ram running windows 8.1. Windows 10 is still buggy and I wouldn't touch it.



UPDATE:

there is something wrong with your dual core i5. I also did SQL database. No problem doing it whatsoever. Try setting your laptop to high performance power setting. and never DEFRAG your hard drive, it actually slows down your hard drive than making it faster.

Answer 5

If you are a college student, ask your Computer Science department about the DREAMSPARK program...if your university participates in Dreamspark, you can get a full version of Microsoft Windows (any edition including the enterprise and professional ones) for completely FREE. As for Linux, well, Linux is almost always free of cost ;D. Also, you can use GRUB or GRUB2 from recent distributions to boot into Windows 10 (and any other Windows) with no problem last I checked.

Answer 6

If you're the university student, request your pc Technology division concerning the DREAMSPARK plan... in case your college participates within Dreamspark, you will get a complete edition associated with Ms Home windows (any kind of release such as the business as well as expert types) with regard to free. For Linux, nicely, Linux is nearly usually cost free; Deb. Additionally, you should use GRUB or even GRUB2 through current distributions as well in to Home windows 10 (as well as every other Home windows) without any issue final We examined.

Answer 7

Hello.....



If your present laptop allows you to upgrade the ram [ 4Gb ] to 8Gb and also see if you can clone your HDD

500Gb onto an SSD ~256 or 500Gb. This upgrade will set you back approximately $400.0. Speed will increase

significantly. Another item of note, download 'CCleaner' [ Free ] under 'Tools' sidebar, uninstall programs you

do not need /use. These techniques will increase speed & make your computer efficient.

FYi: i own 2 desktops & a laptop; 2 desktops have SSDs; 1 has 8Gb RAM the other 16Gb RAM. lightening

compared to other computers. i built both boxes containing AMD FX-8350 processors. The 8Gb desk top

costs approx. $950.00.

Answer 8

$1500 is a good budget for a computer. You could get the fastest i7 processor (the i7-4790K), 16 GB of RAM, a reasonable graphics card, an SSD, and a hard drive. Ummm, a decent power supply, a Hyper 212 evo CPU cooler, and so on. Yup, for $1500 you can build a very nice computer.



~Cindy! :)

Answer 9

Probably a Macbook Pro.



It is Linux under the hood and you can run windows on it if you have to.



Trust me - you are not doing 'heavy' programming until you are writing stuff with automated deployment + RESTful web services with a database at the back end running through Jenkins/Kingpin stack then deploying through virtual servers defined by Chef on Amazon Web services.

Answer 10

I disagree with the never defrag your HDD as it makes it slower point, as defragging (on windows) can speed up access (as it cleans up bits of files from all over the place). I d suggest removing unnecessary programs or even reinstalling windows. (Windows 8/10 on a decent machine doesn t take too long to reinstall). To speed up even further, consider buying an Solid State Drive to replace your hard drive, as since there are no moving parts, the speeds are faster. They are expensive if you need a good amount of storage but if you ve got the money... For SSDs, it s suggested that you don t defrag as much, but windows 8 or 10 should handle this automatically.

Answer 11

You should first learn how to do a web search and the first word FREE Like

Free computer programming tutorials,

Free computer programming courses



You've got your head in the Microsoft cloud except for Linux Now if you know Linux you should know that the latest September 2015 will run on 15yr old computers with1 gig of ram, Windows how ever needs at leased a minimum of 4 gig of ram



Programming does not need a heavy weight system Period. Any 64 bit system will do you just fine, Microsoft are on their way out, except it or not. Now how you can save money on higher technology training.

Answer 12

Anything pre-built in such price range is more than adequate; gaming is only possible bone of contention but that is fixable with any desktop system; laptop spec is fixed upon manufacturing except premium models.

Answer 13

http://reddit.com/r/buildapc or http://reddit.com/r/buildapcforme (probably the latter as you really dont have any specifics on what hardware you want).



I mean you honestly probably only need like $700 or less for what you want. if you arnt playing games you really dont need a graphics card.



Could get a really nice mini-itx case and mini-itx motherboard with a skylake i7-6700K, 16GB of ram for $700. mini-itx form factor is small and light-weight, so its easily portable.



and with left over money, could get like a 4K monitor and bad-*** headphones/speakers, etc lol

Answer 14

1000-1500$ is more than enough to build a very very good pc... if you would like to contact me directly i would be more than happy to help you build it... i have built many pcs for myself and others :)

Answer 15

Make sure to start with the CPU and ask people you know. You don't want to get it wrong.

Answer 16

under $1000 i think

Answer 17

mini itx

Answer 18

none