PC Build for Software Development

Rolanmen1 · October 10, 2018

Hello, I am a software developer (freelancer) currently working with an i7-6700HQ laptop, GTX 950M, 128GB SATA SSD and 1TB HDD. I am planning to build my first desktop PC around black friday/cyber monday so I can improve my productivity with better performance.

I am working for a client with a very large web application (over 16k code files) that consumes some time to compile and I will eventually develop Android and iOS applications that requires emulation. So I need high core count and NVMe is a plus to quickly access any needed file. Was considering i9-9900K but it is too expensive, so I need a dGPU (any cheap GPU in eBay should work) to work with Ryzen with no APU.

In the future (about a year from now) I do plan to save and buy a high end GPU to game on 1440p with a SATA SSD for gaming storage. But for now, everything I want to focus on buying for productivity first. In the short future I do plan to buy a pair of 1440p monitors, mice, keyboard, webcam and headset (I frequently have Skype calls). I will be buying these on Amazon and/or Newegg and they will be shipped to Dominican Republic, consider the budget to be 900 USD for the PC build alone (excluding shipping cost and taxes).

Here is what I am considering buying (might change on the deals I might get on black friday/cyber monday). Thanks in advance.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz 8-Core Processor	$294.99 @ Newegg
Motherboard	Asus - PRIME B450-PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard	$104.55 @ OutletPC
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$139.99 @ Newegg
Storage	ADATA - XPG SX8200 480GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$109.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$58.89 @ OutletPC
Case	NZXT - H500 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	$69.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA - BQ 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	$59.89 @ OutletPC
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$853.29
	Mail-in rebates	-$15.00
	Total	$838.29
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-10 17:31 EDT-0400

MandoPanda · October 11, 2018

Looking good. I know you mentioned it in your post, but do beware that you cannot display anything without a graphics card with your current build. That Ryzen chip does not have integrated graphics.

Rolanmen1 · October 11, 2018

9 hours ago, MandoPanda said:

Looking good. I know you mentioned it in your post, but do beware that you cannot display anything without a graphics card with your current build. That Ryzen chip does not have integrated graphics.

Thank you for your response and yeah, I am taking this into consideration.

Something that I have heard is that if I am buying a 2700X I should step up the Motherboard to X470 for better power delivery, is this true? I am looking at the Asus X470 Prime Pro but the GIGABYTE X470 Aorus Ultra Gaming looks the same but cheaper. Choosing a MoBo is a bit confusing for me.

MandoPanda · October 11, 2018

Yes, the x470 will typically have better power delivery if you want to do some serious overclocking. I personally like MSI and stay away from Gigabyte, but do your own research and read reviews. I'm sure Asus is good, but read the reviews.

Don't forget to enable XMP.

Rolanmen1 · October 12, 2018

Great, thanks for the advice MandoPanda.

I have made some changes:

-Switched PSU from 750W Bronze to a 650W Gold (I believe this will be enough if I decide to buy a 1080/1080 TI sometime next year).

-Switched MoBo from a B450 to X470 from Asus. The before mentioned Gygabyte MoBo had a good amount of bad reviews stating it will stop working after some months. It also has front panel USB-C as a bonus (I have not seen any MSI X470 MoBo with front panel USB-C at this price point, not really important, but I like the future-proofing, and I know most MoBo has USB-C in the back, but I rather avoid that if I am just quickly plugging a USB-C peripheral).

-Switched Case to one that has a front panel USB-C.

I know I exceeded the budget (900 USD before taxes and shipping), but I hope that I will get a nice deal on some parts on Black Friday/Cyber Monday (I remind you that this parts will be shipped to Dominican Republic). I will be buying some parts as time passes and wait for the most expensives parts for BF/CM (CPU, MoBo, RAM).

Here is the updated list, let me know what you think.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz 8-Core Processor	$294.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	Asus - Prime X470-Pro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$158.72 @ OutletPC
Memory	G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$139.99 @ Newegg
Storage	ADATA - XPG SX8200 480GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive	$109.99 @ Amazon
Storage	Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$58.99 @ SuperBiiz
Case	Inwin - 303C (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case	$105.00 @ Amazon
Power Supply	EVGA - 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	$72.03 @ Amazon
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$939.71
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-12 08:11 EDT-0400

lacion · October 12, 2018

I would not recommend ryzen for anything that requires emulation, I had a gazillion performance issues and plain just errors using Hyper-v VMWARE and VirtualBox.

after a lot of struggle and time lost (lost of money wasted) i ended up getting a 7900x i went from a constant struggle to get things running and working to just working on the things that were paying the bills.

16 will barely be enough for running VM's especially if you're going to actually be loading them.

Rolanmen1 · October 13, 2018

On 10/12/2018 at 8:29 AM, lacion said:

I would not recommend ryzen for anything that requires emulation, I had a gazillion performance issues and plain just errors using Hyper-v VMWARE and VirtualBox.

after a lot of struggle and time lost (lost of money wasted) i ended up getting a 7900x i went from a constant struggle to get things running and working to just working on the things that were paying the bills.

16 will barely be enough for running VM's especially if you're going to actually be loading them.

Thanks for your comment lacion and I do understand your concern.

To be clear, the virtualization I plan to do is not really intense. For mobile application development (I use Xamarin on Visual Studio), I will use Android and iOS emulators which can run on mid-range setups, and some other times I would run on a real device. For VMs, I do not plan to do very intense virtualization, most of the time 8GB of RAM for a VM would be more than enough. So I am not very much concerned regarding memory (and I can always pop up more if needed).

What does concerns me about your comment is Ryzen and the problems you got running VMs. I will investigate on the matter and will consider going for the blue team. Again, thank you for your comment.