Budget PC For Programming

[drc00k3]

I'm only looking for a CPU, Motherboard, Cooler and RAM. I'm in the UK and have a budget of around £300. My main use will be programming but I also need to run a few VMs and I might use it for gaming occasionally. I'm running two monitors and don't need new peripherals. I'm upgrading from an AMD Athlon II x2 245 with 4gb RAM. This is what I'm thinking of getting:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/6mcm99

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/6mcm99/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£169.95 @ Amazon UK)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.95 @ Novatech)

Motherboard: MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£64.74 @ Aria PC)

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£59.26 @ More Computers)

Storage: OCZ Trion 100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For £0.00)

Storage: Toshiba 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For £0.00)

Video Card: Asus GeForce GT 730 1GB Video Card (Purchased For £0.00)

Other: JeanTech PUFP-355P (Purchased)

Total: £318.90

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-16 17:51 GMT+0000

I might need to change the PSU but that won't be included in the budget. I want something that will last for a few years and is upgradeable. If this is the build I end up going with, I might swap the 4690k for a 4790k in a few years. Any suggestions?

[Tooom3k]

I've got i5-4460, 2x8GB of HyperX Beast 1600MHz memory and also use it for programming: Unreal Engine 4 and Android Studio. I usually have 2 virtual devices with Android running and it's working more than fine, so you should be good for some time. However, if you are not in a hurry, I would save some money for i7. My friend has I think 4790k and packaging an Unreal Engine project is twice as fast as on my i5.

[DXMember]

I would suggest looking into if you can find Broadwell i5 chip for better integrated graphics,

Might look into some AMD Kaveri chips.

 

Either way don't get any discrete GPU at all, the integrated stuff will be plenty and those suggested on top are only to increase gaming performance.

 

Also don't plan for upgrading 4690K to 4790K in a few years, as they are End of Life products and you won't get anything that's not second hand in a few years.

 

Btw, what kind of programming will you be doing?

What kind of games will you be interested in?

[Enderman]

get a 1231v3 instead of the i5

will be better for VMs

[GodSpoon]

That would be more than enough for programming

You could even skip out on that GPU an just go broadwell for decent iGpu performance, especially since your wanting to upgrade in a few years

and like @Enderman said, if your doing a lot of VMs you would appreciate the hyper threading that the 1231v3 has

z97 will still be relevant but definitely won't have as good of a path as z170 

[KemoKa]

Looks good. Though if you're going to use it for gaming at all, you'll want a video card that's a bit more substantial. 7770s are $50 on eBay.

 

A Xeon 1231 v3 will serve better for VMs and rendering.

 

what sort of programs are you going to be writing? If it's going to involve graphics to any degree, you'll want something that can drive the finished product.

And OpenCL acceleration won't hurt, either.