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  3. Preferred hardware for developers?

Preferred hardware for developers?

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csharpasp-netdesignhardwaretesting
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  • G Graham Bradshaw

    Christian Graus wrote:

    A Mac Pro is flat out the best dev environment you can have. I have 8 processors and 20 gig of RAM

    Why do you need a Mac for this? You can easliy get an equivalent (or better spec) on generic hardware, and probably for less money.

    C Offline
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    Christian Graus
    wrote on last edited by
    #20

    I've never seen a PC with 8 cores and 20 gig of RAM, so I have no idea how much that costs. however 1 - the Mac is flat out a nicer machine to use 2 - it means I also have Safari on the Mac to test against ( and FF if I want to install it ). I would not assume they work the same on PC and Mac.

    Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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    • B Baconbutty

      and all this is why, when I look at buying games for a PC, my own PC is now obsolete (after 3 years) and I had to buy a monstrous PC for my son just so he could play games on it. I wish developers, gaming in particular, would code apps to work on readily available kit rather than bleeding edge technology that mere mortals probably don't have and can't afford anyway.

      My new favourite phrase - "misdirected leisure activity"

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      Tom Deketelaere
      wrote on last edited by
      #21

      I buy a monstrous PC every 5-6 years, in the end it comes up cheaper than upgrading all the time. And I never have any problems running the latest games/software, yes bye the time the pc is 5 years the game/software might not work as fast/smooth as on a new monstrous pc but it does run. And you really don't need to spend 5000 dollars to get a monstrous pc, if you look a bit at what you need you can get one for a lot less (mine that I bought 4 months ago was 2000€, still a lot but not impossibly expensive)

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      • C Christian Graus

        If apps were not written for the bleeding edge, then they would a - not be as good as they can be ( and being cutting edge is surely the reason people spend a fortune on a gaming PC instead of buying an XBox 360 ? ) b - would not push the cutting edge into the mainstream by pushing innovation .

        Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

        B Offline
        B Offline
        Baconbutty
        wrote on last edited by
        #22

        I'd prefer it if apps were written to make effective use of the tech available rather than throw increasingly vast numbers of horses at it. I'm fed up of being railroaded into having to buy more and more powerful machines just to run a program (OS) that makes the PC work. I type a letter no faster now than I did many years ago on a 486 25sx with a massive 4Mb memory. Sure I can tart it up with a load of spurious crap that the vendor has so nicely provided for me that I didn't want but uses up resources - woo - bloody - hooo.

        My new favourite phrase - "misdirected leisure activity"

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        • R realJSOP

          Christian Graus wrote:

          you almost have as much power as my main Mac.

          When it's working... I actually have five PCs at home, all running multi-core AMDs, and with the exception of the laptop, all in excess of 2.5ghz. Isn't your laptop 1.8ghz?

          "Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
          -----
          "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001

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          Christian Graus
          wrote on last edited by
          #23

          John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

          When it's working...

          I had some teething problems, especially with the VMs, but it's all running sweetly now.

          John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:

          I actually have five PCs at home, all running multi-core AMDs, and with the exception of the laptop, all in excess of 2.5ghz. Isn't your laptop 1.8ghz?

          My laptop may be. No, it's a 2.4 GHz duo. I assume my Mac pro is at least as fast, and, it's 8 cores. My comment was meant to be glib tho, I'm sure your 5 PCs are on aggregate, at least as powerful as my two Macs :P

          Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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          • B Baconbutty

            I'd prefer it if apps were written to make effective use of the tech available rather than throw increasingly vast numbers of horses at it. I'm fed up of being railroaded into having to buy more and more powerful machines just to run a program (OS) that makes the PC work. I type a letter no faster now than I did many years ago on a 486 25sx with a massive 4Mb memory. Sure I can tart it up with a load of spurious crap that the vendor has so nicely provided for me that I didn't want but uses up resources - woo - bloody - hooo.

            My new favourite phrase - "misdirected leisure activity"

            C Offline
            C Offline
            Christian Graus
            wrote on last edited by
            #24

            Baconbutty wrote:

            I'm fed up of being railroaded into having to buy more and more powerful machines just to run a program (OS) that makes the PC work.

            Well, for that, you only need to update every few years, and usually you just need to buy what is standard. That's different to running a gaming PC.

            Baconbutty wrote:

            Sure I can tart it up with a load of spurious crap that the vendor has so nicely provided for me that I didn't want but uses up resources - woo - bloody - hooo.

            Well, that's how the business works. The core stuff, I could do on my Apple ][. But, they want to make it prettier and more mainstream to sell more PCs and keep people upgrading. That also keeps us in work, so we are better off than most people for it.

            Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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            • C Christian Graus

              Wow, if you add up all your PCs, you almost have as much power as my main Mac.

              Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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              El Corazon
              wrote on last edited by
              #25

              add up your macs you have almost as much power as the graphics card on my PC. ;P

              _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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              • P paulray

                Curious about CPU/MEM etc used for ASP.NET developers? I use a Pentium Core2 Duo Laptop for design and coding, then Celeron desktop for final compile and packaging (read SLOW). Standard P4 servers for testing etc... Not interesed in brand name of computers, but curious about configurations?

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                phannon86
                wrote on last edited by
                #26

                Got what I was given (now 15 months old) - 2.66GHz C2D, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 2x 19" monitors (though I had to ask for the second) running XP 32bit and so far I've never needed anything more. Interestingly, these monitors also have USB sockets on the side, so on my desk I've got in total 14 USB ports... I'm using 4. [edit] At home I use Vista 32bit on my MacBook Pro (dual boot). Pretty much the same spec as the above work PC. [/edit]

                He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man

                modified on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 8:52 AM

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                • C Christian Graus

                  I've never seen a PC with 8 cores and 20 gig of RAM, so I have no idea how much that costs. however 1 - the Mac is flat out a nicer machine to use 2 - it means I also have Safari on the Mac to test against ( and FF if I want to install it ). I would not assume they work the same on PC and Mac.

                  Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

                  E Offline
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                  El Corazon
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #27

                  Christian Graus wrote:

                  I've never seen a PC with 8 cores and 20 gig of RAM, so I have no idea how much that costs. however

                  probably less than 8k. My work machine has 8 cores, 8 SCSI drives (which are more expensive than the processors and could just as easily be cheaper SATA drives), and nv280, 16gig of RAM (with half free to reach 32gig as an upgrade). It is just above 8k, so the other should be cheaper with SATA drives.

                  _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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                  • C Christian Graus

                    I've never seen a PC with 8 cores and 20 gig of RAM, so I have no idea how much that costs. however 1 - the Mac is flat out a nicer machine to use 2 - it means I also have Safari on the Mac to test against ( and FF if I want to install it ). I would not assume they work the same on PC and Mac.

                    Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                    G Offline
                    Graham Bradshaw
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #28

                    Christian Graus wrote:

                    I've never seen a PC with 8 cores and 20 gig of RAM, so I have no idea how much that co

                    Quick play on Apple & HP sites: 2 x 3.2GHz quad-core Xeon, 32GB RAM, 4TB disk with raid, Quadra FX5600 graphics, 2 DVD RW drives Apple: $18,899 HP: $14,605

                    Christian Graus wrote:

                    the Mac is flat out a nicer machine to use

                    What do you mean by that? You're running (according to your example) a Windows OS in a VM, to the user experience is a Windows one. The only difference that I can see is that you are using an Apple keyboard and mouse (ie this is a hardware-based experience, not software-based). Is the Apple keyboard really that much better?

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                    • E El Corazon

                      add up your macs you have almost as much power as the graphics card on my PC. ;P

                      _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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                      Christian Graus
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #29

                      ROTFL !!! That must be a hell of a graphics card.....

                      Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                      • E El Corazon

                        Christian Graus wrote:

                        I've never seen a PC with 8 cores and 20 gig of RAM, so I have no idea how much that costs. however

                        probably less than 8k. My work machine has 8 cores, 8 SCSI drives (which are more expensive than the processors and could just as easily be cheaper SATA drives), and nv280, 16gig of RAM (with half free to reach 32gig as an upgrade). It is just above 8k, so the other should be cheaper with SATA drives.

                        _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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                        C Offline
                        Christian Graus
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #30

                        Mine was $6k, which is US$4k.

                        Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

                        E 1 Reply Last reply
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                        • B Baconbutty

                          I'd prefer it if apps were written to make effective use of the tech available rather than throw increasingly vast numbers of horses at it. I'm fed up of being railroaded into having to buy more and more powerful machines just to run a program (OS) that makes the PC work. I type a letter no faster now than I did many years ago on a 486 25sx with a massive 4Mb memory. Sure I can tart it up with a load of spurious crap that the vendor has so nicely provided for me that I didn't want but uses up resources - woo - bloody - hooo.

                          My new favourite phrase - "misdirected leisure activity"

                          H Offline
                          H Offline
                          hairy_hats
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #31

                          Baconbutty wrote:

                          I'm fed up of being railroaded into having to buy more and more powerful machines just to run a program (OS) that makes the PC work.

                          I doubt that it's the OS that slows it down so much as the prettification of the interface than is running on top of it.

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                          • C Christian Graus

                            Probably, because that would be all they are worth. Macs cost more ( mine cost AU$6000 ) because they are better engineered than the average PC. Swapping RAM on my Mac was such a dream, I wanted to do it again. Nothing like the many times I have done it on many, many PCs. You get what you pay for.

                            Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                            James Simpson
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #32

                            I suppose if you get paid $700 an hour, the amount you save swapping ram out in a lifetime could pay for that mac :)

                            James Simpson Web Developer imebgo@hotmail.com P S - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were eliminated
                            Mitch Hedberg

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                            • C Christian Graus

                              Probably, because that would be all they are worth. Macs cost more ( mine cost AU$6000 ) because they are better engineered than the average PC. Swapping RAM on my Mac was such a dream, I wanted to do it again. Nothing like the many times I have done it on many, many PCs. You get what you pay for.

                              Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

                              Richard Andrew x64R Offline
                              Richard Andrew x64R Offline
                              Richard Andrew x64
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #33

                              Installing RAM chips is such a simple thing to begin with, how could it possibly be easier in a Mac than a PC? Please describe how it's easier in the Mac.

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                              • C Christian Graus

                                ROTFL !!! That must be a hell of a graphics card.....

                                Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                                El Corazon
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #34

                                Christian Graus wrote:

                                ROTFL !!! That must be a hell of a graphics card.....

                                when I am not calculating fluids and particle systems, I fold... :)

                                _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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                                • C Christian Graus

                                  Mine was $6k, which is US$4k.

                                  Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                                  El Corazon
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #35

                                  Christian Graus wrote:

                                  Mine was $6k, which is US$4k.

                                  I'd have to look at the PO to find out how much the drives cost and pull them out of the price. Normally they are near 300-800. Obviously these can't be on the high end of that, but I didn't buy this one.

                                  _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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                                  • C Christian Graus

                                    A Mac Pro is flat out the best dev environment you can have. I have 8 processors and 20 gig of RAM. This lets me run a VM without any slowdown. Then I can create multiple VMs which have different versions of IE, and different versions of Firefox. I can also easily maintain a vanilla OS, just by backing up a file. Finally, I can also test for Safari, so my website works for Mac users.

                                    Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

                                    B Offline
                                    B Offline
                                    blackjack2150
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #36

                                    Christian Graus wrote:

                                    A Mac Pro is flat out the best dev environment you can have. I have 8 processors and 20 gig of RAM. This lets me run a VM without any slowdown. Then I can create multiple VMs which have different versions of IE, and different versions of Firefox. I can also easily maintain a vanilla OS, just by backing up a file. Finally, I can also test for Safari, so my website works for Mac users.

                                    So, you use HAL[^] for building websites...

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                                    • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                                      Installing RAM chips is such a simple thing to begin with, how could it possibly be easier in a Mac than a PC? Please describe how it's easier in the Mac.

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                                      Christian Graus
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #37

                                      The Mac is very nicely put together. The side slides off, and a drawer opens ( it has two big finger holes to slide it open ). There's no cables getting in the way, you're not pushing hard drive cables away to get to the RAM slots, etc. Hard drive swapping is the same, they sit in bays and then connect as they slide in, without cables everywhere. I'm not saying I was ever incapable of installing RAM on a PC, just that sometimes it was a PITA when the case was pretty full.

                                      Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                                      • Richard Andrew x64R Richard Andrew x64

                                        Installing RAM chips is such a simple thing to begin with, how could it possibly be easier in a Mac than a PC? Please describe how it's easier in the Mac.

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                                        El Corazon
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #38

                                        it is TOO easy on the PC... I HAD 32gig when this was purchased... everyone raids it... of course I joke about it because if someone is looking I have to run XP32bit... it is the only official OS....

                                        _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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                                        • C Christian Graus

                                          The Mac is very nicely put together. The side slides off, and a drawer opens ( it has two big finger holes to slide it open ). There's no cables getting in the way, you're not pushing hard drive cables away to get to the RAM slots, etc. Hard drive swapping is the same, they sit in bays and then connect as they slide in, without cables everywhere. I'm not saying I was ever incapable of installing RAM on a PC, just that sometimes it was a PITA when the case was pretty full.

                                          Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.

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                                          El Corazon
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #39

                                          Christian Graus wrote:

                                          just that sometimes it was a PITA when the case was pretty full.

                                          that is the case though! that has nothing to do with the PC! :doh:

                                          _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb) John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."

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