My MacBook Pro has served me well for nigh on 3 years now, and I am thinking of purchasing a high power desktop for doing some serious work with Unity 3 this summer. I have been using Macs exclusively since learning to code on an Apple IIGS, but Apple’s conduct with the iPhone 4.0 terms and the App Store in general has me willing to look elsewhere.
If you had up to $2,000 to invest in a dream development machine, what would it be?
I am currently leaning towards building a rig based upon this quad core i7 Newegg combo, a Radeon 5770, and a decent 27" screen. How much more would I be able to do with it than a new 27" iMac? Would something from Alienware be a good idea?
One of those 27" or so iMac’s with a 2560 resolution are gorgeous! Not sure on the price but it might be within your budget.
I know you might be a little phased about Apple with the whole iPhone thing and all that, but they’re still great computers and OSX rocks. If you are going to continue with iPhone/iPod/iPad development then you simply have to have a Mac at the moment.
I think you’ll find that for the money you’ll get more oomph with PC hardware than the iMac, but then you’re going to be using Windows.
Yep! My dad has a 27" iMac - and I love it. For general purpose computing elegance an iMac would definitely win hands down, but I am thinking that up to 6 harddrives now and all-upgradable components for the future is the way to go for me. I’ll be keeping my MBP for iPhone deployment and mobile work, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
I am almost at peace with the idea of running Windows. Many of the information management apps I rely on are already web based or fully cross platform (Gmail, Google Reader, 1Password, Evernote, Chrome, Dropbox, Backblaze, etc), and it seems that Windows offers far more in the realm of modeling and other game development tools.
I will probably end up with dual or triple monitors in a year or two, but the jump from a 14" screen to a 27" should keep me happy for now
Is there anyone here who has built their own system and has advice to offer?
(Edit: I corrected the links in my original post, so you can now see what I was referring to)
I would definitely go for a custom built rig. Not only is it fun building PCs, but youll most probably end up with a computer that suits all your needs for years to come Building a PC would be a lot cheaper than getting an imac as well, both in terms of “bang for bucks” and the possibilites you will have when it comes to upgrading it later on. Let`s all admit it, the mac is basically a pc now and they are still overpriced, especially here in the cold Northern Europe.
The only negative thing about building your own pc though, is that if anything goes wrong, youll have to "debug" all the parts yourself and find out whats causing the problems. That can be a pain in the ###, so beware!
The specs your going for seems very good too. You should be able to run most of the stuff you need (except making stuff for the iphone), so good luck to you mate!
I’ve also been thinking about getting another development machine, and like yourself, I’m thinking about building a Windows box. I’d prefer to keep the size as small as possible, and unfortunately that’s not looking very easy to do. Most of the “all in one” Windows machines I’ve found have less graphics capabilities than my ancient 17" iMac. Same for the small format desktops (mini ITX, etc.). Why is it all high performance PC’s have to have such big, butt-ugly, kilowatt-hungry boxes?
@Asvarduil:
Cool article! Learned quite a few tips.
@Bigkahuna:
To each their own! I picked a huge, awesome looking case and can’t wait to stuff it with a half dozen harddrives and perhaps a water cooling system. USB and SATA 3 should be incredible, while 4 hyperthreaded i7 cores and triple channel DDR3 memory have me pretty excited as well.
Now I have to start saving up - not to afford the computer and Unity 3, but to afford life after the purchase…
Hey that’s a pretty nice selection. Interesting that the cpu alone is almost $1000. Sometimes I think the extra price hike from a slightly higher Hz rate is way overrated. But a 2.8GHz quad core sounds very nice. And your graphics card looks pretty hot, not literally.
yea that doesn’t sound about right to me for some reason. i built my machine for around 500 bucks. it has a 3.0 quad core cpu, 4g or ram, i bought the case, power supply and video card which is a nvidia geforce gts 250 and i have two hard drives one 1tb and another 500gb so for 1000 im planning on building a duel quad core computer with a better video card and either 4gb ram or 6.
Best of luck with your purchase. I’m sure you won’t be dissapointed.
I just bought a new computer myself. Although mine ended up just shy of $4000.
I’ve always bought budget computers before, but this time I wanted it to really move mountains and I’m sure it will be able to.
It has the new 6-core cpu from Intel (which cost nearly $1300 by itself :shock:), 12gb ram, dual SSD’s in raid 0 and a HD 5870 gpu.
I do some fluid simulations and heavy rendering in 3ds max and that is where I’m sure the 12gb ram and 6-core hyperthreaded cpu will come in handy.
If I’m to stop bragging (you earn the right to brag with the purchase of the i7-980 cpu) and instead give some tips I would try to fit a SSD in your setup as your OS disk. There’s no doubt in my mind that an SSD disk is the biggest upgrade anyone can get right now for normal computer usage.
The Intel X25 is supposedly one of, if not, the best SSD’s available at the moment. I bought two of the 80gb versions which cost me about $280 each. I bought 2 mainly because I think 80gb will be a tad small for my OS disk, but also because I wanted them in raid. If 80gb is enough for your OS disk then I’m sure that will be a big, and not too expensive, speed upgrade to your system.
Also, the 5770 is not really all that powerful. Here in Norway the 5850 is only ~30% more expensive, but it performs ~50% better in tests.
I realize my tips would increase your total cost by quite a few hundred bucks, but I for one would spend that extra money because I think it will get you a much faster system.
PS: All my prices are currency converted from Norwegian kroners and I have no clue what these components cost overseas.
I have been seriously considering an SSD, and with your advice just added the X25 to my cart ($195!). I am now waiting for the CM HAF X case to come out in a couple days, as it seems to be a significant improvement on the 932.
I used to like alienware, till they were bought by dell.
Anyways, alienware is selling overpriced gaming computers. You should go for good priced computers.
Ibuypower is pretty good in my opinion, good prices and good reviews. That is of course if you want a gaming computer.(And why not, whats good for heavy gaming must be good for development, right?)
I run a PC that goes pretty fast , the tower cost me 800€ wich is about 950$ a year ago. Get at least 8gb.
I simply would buy the same but updated with one of the latest cards and this would be more than enough.
I would particularly insist on the dual monitor rig. I’ve been working with it more than 5 years and it is simply a must for me when developing serious stuff. I would suggest that one of them is turnable, cause otherwise the thing become too wide in certain cases, and because it is ideal when you’ve to read webs or documents, lists etc…
I would suggest a REALLY big screen, that would be the main where unity, max, microstation, photoshop etc… would be running ussually and smaller support screen.
Be wary of solid state drives. They are ‘flash drives in a HDD case’. They wear out just as fast as any flash drive. So don’t expect it to last like your old disk based HDD and expect it to last less than your flash drive as it will constantly be used instead of however often you use a given flash drive.
$2000 seems a little high for a pc. I build a new one 3 years ago for $1400 and $100 of that was just because I didn’t already have mouse keyboard and speakers.
I don’t think I would ever spend more than $1400 for a PC. I like best bang for the buck middle of the road hardware.
Just wanted to close this thread on a high note - I ran into a couple snaggles, but overall am perfectly satisfied with my new build:
I can launch Unity 3 b5 in three seconds, and just about every other program instantly
Intel Core i7-930 CPU
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R ATX Mobo
GIGABYTE GV-R585OC-1GD Radeon HD 5850 GPU
CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50 Cooler
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W Power Supply
Mushkin Redline 6GB DDR3 1600 Memory
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM HD
Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB SATA III SSD
Cooler Master HAF X Case
ASUS VH232H 23" Monitor
CM Storm Sentinel Mouse, Steelseries pad, and Logitech G15 keyboard
Cyber Power 810 watt Smart UPS
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Beware: While building a new computer, NEVER use your iPhone 4 exclusively for more than a week. My eyesight is now completely spoiled, and I can hardly bear to read text on the average 23" 1920px monitor. I can’t wait for someone to release an affordable iPhone quality display for desktop computers…
