Best PC config for software development usage

[smartabbas]

Hi Everyone,

I am a software engineer, I want to build a machine for purely development purpose, I am confused with the processor I should go with. One of my colleague has recommended AMD FX 6300, however I am not 100% convinced with AMD as I have saw many reviews which says AMD has lots of heating issues, I wanted to go for i7 to remain future proof atleast for next 5 years. Can anyone suggest me the best configuration if not i7 than which one would be better an i5/3 or AMD FX series. Also please suggest the best other components like MOBO, RAM etc.

Thanks,
Abbas.

 

[kanewolf]

Is your development going to target a specific platform or be dependent on any specific hardware features? If so, you should get a platform that has those features. You wouldn't develop on an AMD platform if you were wanting to test Intel Quick Sync video for instance.

Beyond that, the more monitor space the better. And then keyboard comfort.

 

[itmoba]

Eh, which programming languages do you intend to develop with, and which IDEs are you going to be using with said languages? As you're a software engineer, my assumption is that you already know the languages with which you work or will work with, so you don't really need much more than Vim or Emacs, and that you probably have a test server for pre-deployment testing (unless you're like me and use guest OS VMs for testing purposes too).

My suggestion? Go with an Intel i7 (or Xeon E5 if it's a workstation + development platform). Asus and Gigabyte make decent motherboards for consumers, and you'll be fine with 16 GB of RAM.