Building a dev PC, what would you buy?

News & General Discussion
1

I’m currently building a dev machine for PS4, Vita, PC development. I have a macbook pro mac mini for mobile development.

I’ve not build a PC in a while as I’ve been using Macs so I’m a bit out of touch.

Here’s my list so far, just wondering if any of you would suggest anything different or see any potential issues?

Money isn’t really an issue but I want to get a good bang for my buck.

Thanks

Intel Core i7 4770 3.40GHz Socket 1150 8MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Cost £210.59

Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 Socket 1150 VGA DVI HDMI 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
Cost £66.22

Cooler Master N-Series N400 - USB 3.0 ATX Case
Cost £41.98

PowerCool X-Viper 650W Semi Modular 80+ Bronze Power Supply
Cost £47.98

Corsair Vengeance Performance Memory modules 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 Unbuffered DIMM Quad Channel Memory for 2nd and 3rd Generation Intel Core Processor platforms
Cost £230.46

Palit GTX 760 2GB Jetstream GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics card
Cost £199.98

WatchDogs Nvidia Download Coupon
Cost £0.00

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1150, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler
Cost £17.01

Total £814.22

2

Get at least a 850 watt power supply. More power is always better then having to replace it if you add more things.
I think there is a slightly better video card but it is also in the 700 series.
Ssd drive? At least for the os and unity plus whatever modeling programs etc. Then at least one or two 1 tb hd for storage.
Totally up to you but I would really change the power supple. I have a corsair in mine and my sons. Runs without any issues.

3

You don’t need any high wattage power supplies if you have one GPU setup.

You don’t need 32 gigs of memory. 16 gigs is enough.

4

Seconded. Make sure you get a big enough SSD instead.

5

Thanks for the input. So shave 16gb ram off and use that money for an SSD? Upgrade the PSU yes or no? The PSU is always an after thought for me, even though it’s pretty important. :roll_eyes:

6

If money isn’t issue, get a dual Xeon setup, having 2x CPU’s could come useful for baking light and stuff.
Better yet, just get a fully built workstation.

7

Samsung 840 Evo - 500gb minimum. I’ve got the 1TB version. 500 is cheap enough. This alone, is the single biggest productivity boost. Put your OS, work folder, the Sony stuff and Unity on it. Boom, 5-8 secs and it’s on device and I’m playtesting.

As these are the tools of the trade, you need fastest possible build times so you’re on device, you’re testing and working, not waiting.

8

Upgrade the PSU. You don’t want to have to rewire the whole PC in two years when you want to run SLI. It’s cheap, just do it. If you have to money get a better motherboard, you want to make sure your core components are good. Switching a CPU or GPU is easy, a motherboard is not.

9

True, I’ll add an Evo to the mix.

Money isn’t an issue but I don’t want to spend it for the sake of it on stuff that’s a bit overkill.

Thanks. Any recommendation for PSU and motherboards?

10

I envy you rest of the world who doesn’t pay extremely high taxes :frowning:

11

I second better mobo(Asus), bigger/better PSU(750+), 16GB ram and Samsung SSD.

Another thing you should consider is noise levels, a noisy PC can cloud your head and make you lose focus.
So I recommend you make it silence with Antec P280 case, CPU watercooling kit, 120mm fans only and Asus FanXpert(part of Asus mobo). That’s what I got. My PC is almost dead silence and still runs really cool.

12

An SSD drive is definitely a great idea for every system. However, I strongly recommend the Samsung 840 Pro instead of the Evo. The Evo costs less, but it will wear out much sooner. Compare the P/E cycles of both drives. The Pro series has three times the P/E cycles compared to the Evo series. Here is an article about endurance of the different SSD drives.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6459/samsung-ssd-840-testing-the-endurance-of-tlc-nand

13

I’m too poor to shop for new PC, ad least until after I replace all my light bulbs with LED light bulbs and my couch… :frowning:

…but if it’s possible I’d look at one that supports DX12 and OGL4

14

You’re spending > 500 for a CPU and memory and < 50 for the PSU that prevents deadly power surges.

I’d start in this range. Believe it or not, a good PSU is worthwhile to invest in, and keeping a good spacer between the current and max load will reduce the chance of blowing caps.

15

Guys are you sure 16 gb ram is enough? What about when working with several programs at a time? Including photoshop?

16

I would never settle for 16GB of RAM, but I can understand why some people would choose to since it is easy enough to add more RAM later.

17

If you aren’t using this site already, check out http://pcpartpicker.com/ helps a lot with compatibility and sometimes price,

18

I run with 8gb of ram and never have a problem. Close the damn applications you haven’t used in an hour and you’re fine. :wink:

19

Just built this literally last night, pretty happy with it although in hindsight I probably should have gone bigger on the SSD.

20

6 gb works fine for me, with lots of big apps open.
4 gb is too tight though …