Building WFH machine for Software / Web Development

[IntergalacticProblem]

1. Budget & Location
    Location: UK
    £1000 - £1200 for the budget, Not really looking to penny pinch but can't go overboard. Already have some parts which should help to drop the price
    Already own from previous builds.
        -    Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB - NVME
        -    ASUS GTX 1660 Super - OC Edition - Triple Fan
        -    CoolerMaster Master Liquid 120mm AIO CPU Water Cooler
        -     Razer Core X External Graphics Card Enclosure
        -     Assorted HDD in various sizes

 

2. Aim
    The primary aim of the build is to create a reliable workstation for WFH now that my XPS 9370 is starting to struggle. Looking to futureproof myself for at least ~4 years
    Largely for C# development VS2019 / VSCode / Docker / SSMS 18.5.
    Very large .Net Framework solution ~80 projects within the solution as standard but can expand to ~300 if I've got all the extra projects loaded.
    Looking to get into using VMs
        -    To Start learning other languages without cluttering up the normal work environment so I can spin them up and delete them as needed.
        -    Likely going to start Contracting (Software/Web Development) at some point in the next few months so having VM's for each development environment is a plus
        -    Familiarize myself with different versions of Linux without having to Dual Boot

    Very light/infrequent gaming, CK2, Cities Skylines and likely CK3 in the future. This is not designed as a gaming rig and I'm fine runinng on Low/Mid settings.

 

3. Monitors
    Recently upgraded to Dell U4919DW

 

4. Peripherals
    Have Keyboard / Mouse / W10 Pro Key

5. Why are you upgrading?
    Currently running XPS 9370 config: 
        i7-8550U
        16Gb Ram
        512GB SSD
    Dell Docking Station WD19TB 180W 
    
    The Laptop is great but is starting to struggle under the load of everything.
    I recently upgraded to a U4919DW monitor from Dual 1080P monitors and it's kind of pushed the laptop over the edge (I've also had to disable Hardware Acceleration on Chrome and Slack since the monitor upgrade).

    Normal daily workload is 
        -    1 maybe 2 instances of VS2019 open depending on the task for the day, I do a lot of jumping around and helping junior devs so need to have multiple solutions readily accessible
        -    Video calling via Slack
        -    Tv / Stream open in chrome.
        -    Lots of tabs open in chrome (Jira / Stack Overflow / Nagios / Ops Genie) talking 3 Chrome windows with ~30 tabs open total spread across them.
        -    Compiling a very large C# project while doing the above.

        -    A few docker containers running things like SQL Server

 

    All in all I'm happy with the 9370 and hadn't intended on building a Desktop but I've come to the conclusion that it's needed and I'm spending a lot of time at my desk and can feel that it is starting to struggle with the increased requirements.

    as mentioned above I already own an eGPU case and a 1660 Super. I bought this ~3 months ago and have used it precisely twice so don't really want to sink money on another GPU so I'm probably going to present a terrible bottlekneck but I don't think it will impact my use case.

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/P4cRXv

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor  (£417.97 @ Laptops Direct) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£241.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3000 CL15 Memory  (£290.51 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£201.96 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB TUF Gaming X3 OC Video Card  (£278.57 @ Novatech) 
Case: NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£73.08 @ CCL Computers) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£130.43 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Total: £1634.47
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-28 19:52 BST+0100

 

I know that the 3900X is far beyond the 1660 Super but it's basically only needed to run the monitor and I'm more interested in code compile times / Docker / VM's running.
I'm not particularly attached to the Case and it's largely just a place holder, as long as it's clean and simple with as little RGB as possible.
I'm tempted to buy just a Single 32GB RAM stick and then upgrade this at some point in the future if needed when I get going and see that I'm hitting the RAM limits using VM's etc.

 

I've left the prices in for them but as stated I already own the GTX 1660 Super / 970 Evo

[Bombastinator]

The 1660s is fine.  Taking it out of the egpu and putting it in a desktop will increase its speed and reduce its latency a lot.  No need for more.

 

It sounds like you do a lot of multitasking and multithread stuff but not things that need wildly high single thread (that’s an assumption with VS.  if it’s a program that likes single thread things could be different)

 

if you need single thread an intel 10600 maybe. If you don’t a 2700x or 3700x just for nice overkill thread count so you don’t have to worry about piling on multitasked apps.  This thing sounds like good netfeed might actually be more important. The cpu you have now should actually be more or less enough.  I suspect it may be egpu latency or your netfeed is what is making you feel this “struggle” and not really your hardware so much.  Building a desktop for wfh makes a lot of sense though because it’s part of what makes an office officy.  That kind of stuff sounds stupid but it can be really important.  Might even want to save some of your budget for making the home office more functional.  It’s really important.  A door is key.  Sounds silly but if you don’t have one you might get more mileage out of that than a new machine.

[igormp]

27 minutes ago, IntergalacticProblem said:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/P4cRXv

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 GHz 12-Core Processor  (£417.97 @ Laptops Direct) 
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI) ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£241.95 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3000 CL15 Memory  (£290.51 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£201.96 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER 6 GB TUF Gaming X3 OC Video Card  (£278.57 @ Novatech) 
Case: NZXT H510 ATX Mid Tower Case  (£73.08 @ CCL Computers) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£130.43 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 
Total: £1634.47
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-05-28 19:52 BST+0100

 

I know that the 3900X is far beyond the 1660 Super but it's basically only needed to run the monitor and I'm more interested in code compile times / Docker / VM's running.
I'm not particularly attached to the Case and it's largely just a place holder, as long as it's clean and simple with as little RGB as possible.
I'm tempted to buy just a Single 32GB RAM stick and then upgrade this at some point in the future if needed when I get going and see that I'm hitting the RAM limits using VM's etc.

 

I've left the prices in for them but as stated I already own the GTX 1660 Super / 970 Evo

Bottleneck is only a thing depending on the task, and you won't be bottlenecked by that gpu on most of your tasks, you could even go by with a 1050 if you didn't have a gpu already.

 

If 32gb is enough for you, then there's no problem with using a single stick, you won't benefit that much from dual channel in those tasks, I'd say only a 10% speed bump or so.

 

That PSU is kinda overkill, you don't really need more than 650W (and even that is more than enough) unless you plan on having multiple GPUs.

[DG House]

Heyo, what a wall on infomation, i hope i didnt miss anyhtng important ^^

 

Your part list is good but i have some recommtations

 

you should wait for the upcomming B550 Motherboard (great VRM for under 200$)

and the upcomming Ryzen XT models ( i know rumors, but there must be somehting to that^^)

 

Also a single ram stick in a Dual Channel system bottleneck the half out of it.

32GB stciks are ok but its better to have higher CL and more Frequzne for C# work.

 

The 3900x comes with a cooler but no chance to OC it with that

A AIO or a big Air cooler is neccesary for even slight OC

 

the 850W PSU is only nessacy if you want multiplym Graphic cards or a massive load of storage

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DG House]

2 minutes ago, igormp said:

If 32gb is enough for you, then there's no problem with using a single stick, you won't benefit that much from dual channel in those tasks, I'd say only a 10% speed bump or so.

i think that will be the case in Some work loads, but he will doing a big load of diffrent stuff a once (with 30 Chrome tabs open at all time)

also its cheaper to get 2x 16GB than on 32GB and upgrading from 2 too 4 sticks is super easy

and of course the little bit gaming will be botleneked hart ^^

[igormp]

1 hour ago, DG House said:

i think that will be the case in Some work loads, but he will doing a big load of diffrent stuff a once (with 30 Chrome tabs open at all time)

also its cheaper to get 2x 16GB than on 32GB and upgrading from 2 too 4 sticks is super easy

and of course the little bit gaming will be botleneked hart ^^

All of that stuff open won't consume memory bandwidth while idle.

Going with a single stick allows him to easily go for 64gb with another stick, while still having 2 free slots for future upgrades. 2x 16gb isn't much cheaper than 1x 32gb anyway.

He said gaming isn't the focus, his games are light on the GPU and he doesn't mind mid settings.

1 hour ago, DG House said:

you should wait for the upcomming B550 Motherboard (great VRM for under 200$)

and the upcomming Ryzen XT models ( i know rumors, but there must be somehting to that^^)

 

32GB stciks are ok but its better to have higher CL and more Frequzne for C# work.

 

The 3900x comes with a cooler but no chance to OC it with that

A AIO or a big Air cooler is neccesary for even slight OC

Agreed on waiting, but I don't think he can do so since he needs to work, otherwise it'd be a good idea to wait for the B550 mobos along with Zen 3.

C# compiling won't mind the single channel of ram, it'll be bottlenecked by the disk anyway (even if it's a nvme).