NEW BUILD FOR PROGRAMMING

[TDB14]

Hi Guys, 
 

I'm looking to get back into programming - I did a bit at uni and thought ...why not build the computer myself too?
 

It doesn't need to be super duper high spec but I would like to have the option to upgrade as I go (see if I take to it etc.). I was thinking on this basis that maybe I should invest in a good motherboard/SSD/...HD and then just decent other second hand components.
 

- I'd like to be able to overclock - to learn about it more than for performance gains ...to begin with anyway
- I don't mind second hand ... or third hand for that matter (big price reduction?)
- I'd like to have multiple cores and threads (as many as possible within reason) because I enjoyed learning MPI/OpenMP at uni and I want to play around with them
- I will be running linux ubuntu (unless you have a better suggestion)
- I DO NOT want to use this computer for gaming but I would eventually like to learn CUDA ... if you know what I mean
- I will have 2 monitors 
 

Budget: ~£770.24 at the time of posting, preferably lower obvs ...but can go higher if I'm asking the impossible. (I live in the UK but that's around $1000)
 

Spec: I bow to your superior wisdom ...but I was thinking an i7-6700/i7-6800 as a starting point.

I would really appreciate any help from you kind, knowledgeable, attractive folk and I apologise if I have posed this request in an ignorant manner (no doubt the internet will subtly let me know if this is the case).

[AvocadosGuac]

R5 1600 instead of the 6700 or 6800 for programming hands down.

[LienusLateTips]

What about OpenCL?

[LienusLateTips]

A bit overbudget, with OpenCL acceleration. Will make CUDA version in a moment:

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/yyJmjc
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/yyJmjc/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  (£199.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£98.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: *Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£116.10 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: *Corsair - Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£71.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£41.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: *Gigabyte - Radeon RX 580 8GB Gaming 8G Video Card  (£220.96 @ Novatech) 
Case: BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case  (£28.86 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£48.95 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £827.79
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-06 19:08 BST+0100

[TDB14]

wow, thanks a lot! :D. R5 1600 sounds ideal, more cores and cheaper. Don't know much about openCL but checking it out now.
Questions on this rig: is it easily up-gradable? What would I swap out if I was looking to upgrade it? Do you think it's worth looking around for any parts second hand?

[AvocadosGuac]

2 minutes ago, TDB14 said:

wow, thanks a lot! :D. R5 1600 sounds ideal, more cores and cheaper. Don't know much about openCL but checking it out now.
Questions on this rig: is it easily up-gradable? What would I swap out if I was looking to upgrade it? Do you think it's worth looking around for any parts second hand?

Very upgradable.

 

You can easily purchase a 1700-1800x and throw it in no problem.

 

Also the GPU can be moved to a 1050ti if you are looking to CUDA. AMD have CUDA cores. 1050ti/1060 for your purposes would be the best

 

 

Edited May 6, 2017 by Jrock

[LienusLateTips]

Just now, TDB14 said:

wow, thanks a lot! :D. R5 1600 sounds ideal, more cores and cheaper. Don't know much about openCL but checking it out now.
Questions on this rig: is it easily up-gradable? What would I swap out if I was looking to upgrade it? Do you think it's worth looking around for any parts second hand?

That rig:

 

The AM4 socket still has 4 years of life, because AMD uses a socket for 4 years rather than the 2 used by Intel. The PSU is only 450W though, and the motherboard has no SLI support. But in this price range, the NVIDIA GPUs you will find will not have SLI support. It does support XFire though. Also if you were to upgrade now there is always the 1700 to upgrade to.

[LienusLateTips]

PCPartPicker part list: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/7XXYBP
Price breakdown by merchant: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/7XXYBP/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  (£199.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£98.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: *Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£116.10 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: *Corsair - Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£71.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£41.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: *EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB GAMING Video Card  (£204.98 @ Alza) 
Case: BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case  (£28.86 @ Aria PC) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£48.95 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £811.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-06 19:34 BST+0100

[TDB14]

That's great, I'm sold on the motherboard and CPU! Don't think I'll be needing SLI.

The video card seems to be the expensive part in all of this at the moment. Do you think it may be possible to have a cheaper part here as I will not be using it for gaming...just for learning at the moment - @Jrock why do you think the 1050ti may be superior for my needs?

Quote

The PSU is only 450W though

Can I just switch out for a greater wattage if this is proving to not be enough or do some components require this?

[LienusLateTips]

1 hour ago, TDB14 said:

That's great, I'm sold on the motherboard and CPU! Don't think I'll be needing SLI.

The video card seems to be the expensive part in all of this at the moment. Do you think it may be possible to have a cheaper part here as I will not be using it for gaming...just for learning at the moment - @Jrock why do you think the 1050ti may be superior for my needs?

Can I just switch out for a greater wattage if this is proving to not be enough or do some components require this?

1. May you please click the "remove formatting" button when you copy paste. It makes it so hard for night theme users to read.

2. Perhaps the 1050Ti will, or the 1060.

3. IT WILL BE ENOUGH...

Perhaps if you have the extra cashola switch it with a 80+ Gold Tier 1 550/650W unit?

[brob]

When you are ready to explore gpu programming, add something like a GTX 1050 or RX 460. If you are set on CUDA programming, then it will have to be a GTX.

 

This build offers two hyperthreaded overclockable cores. Plenty for exploring parallel processing, especially when one considers that the cpu has been oc'd to 5GHz. But really a single non-hyperthreaded core is all that is really needed for parallel processing.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i3-7350K 4.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£148.98 @ Ebuyer) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H80i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£85.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME Z270M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£116.00 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£116.10 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£136.74 @ Aria PC) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define Mini C with Window MicroATX Mid Tower Case  (£65.48 @ Amazon UK) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£48.95 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £718.22
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-06 21:15 BST+0100

[AvocadosGuac]

30 minutes ago, brob said:

When you are ready to explore gpu programming, add something like a GTX 1050 or RX 460. If you are set on CUDA programming, then it will have to be a GTX.

 

This build offers two hyperthreaded overclockable cores. Plenty for exploring parallel processing, especially when one considers that the cpu has been oc'd to 5GHz. But really a single non-hyperthreaded core is all that is really needed for parallel processing.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i3-7350K 4.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£148.98 @ Ebuyer) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H80i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£85.97 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus - PRIME Z270M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£116.00 @ CCL Computers) 
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  (£116.10 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£136.74 @ Aria PC) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define Mini C with Window MicroATX Mid Tower Case  (£65.48 @ Amazon UK) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£48.95 @ Ebuyer) 
Total: £718.22
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-06 21:15 BST+0100

This guy is on crack.

 

 

The 1050ti is good because its nVidia and it uses CUDA. AMD doesnt use CUDA.

[brob]

1 hour ago, Jrock said:

This guy is on crack.

 

 

The 1050ti is good because its nVidia and it uses CUDA. AMD doesnt use CUDA.

Hardly. I just happen to understand cpu and parallel processing. (Read up on preemptive multitasking.) I also understand the program development environment. An environment that is largely single threaded so a single more powerful core leads to higher productivity than a number of less powerful ones. An environment that tends to frequent storage i/o operations, so sufficient fast storage improves productivity.

 

A great deal of gpu programming these days is done using OpenGL because it is manufacturer independent. Learning just CUDA programming limits one to Nvidia gpu.

[AvocadosGuac]

2 hours ago, brob said:

Hardly. I just happen to understand cpu and parallel processing. (Read up on preemptive multitasking.) I also understand the program development environment. An environment that is largely single threaded so a single more powerful core leads to higher productivity than a number of less powerful ones. An environment that tends to frequent storage i/o operations, so sufficient fast storage improves productivity.

 

A great deal of gpu programming these days is done using OpenGL because it is manufacturer independent. Learning just CUDA programming limits one to Nvidia gpu.

Talking about the CPU side of shit.

 

What is he gonna do when he wants to virtualize?

[brob]

34 minutes ago, Jrock said:

Talking about the CPU side of shit.

 

What is he gonna do when he wants to virtualize?

Install Xen or VirtualBox.

[AvocadosGuac]

Just now, brob said:

Install Xen or VirtualBox.

With 2 cores?

 

I have someone at my work that maxes 12 cores while PHP coding.

[brob]

Just now, Jrock said:

With 2 cores?

 

I have someone at my work that maxes 12 cores while PHP coding.

Yes, with two hyperthreaded cores. 

 

Web server development does require a fair number of vm if one wants to concurrently test a significant number of client platforms. The OP budget simply doesn't allow for this. Not to say that web development could not be done, just not as productively. Presumably your employer is willing to shell out sufficient funds to maximize your coworkers productivity.

[TDB14]

Thanks a lot for all your help guys. I appreciate your suggestion brob but I'm now just too excited about 6 cores so I'm going to go for the AMD. Here's what I'm going to go for:
 

1. CPU - AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ~£200
2. Cooler - incl. 
3. Motherboard - MSI - B350 TOMAHAWK ATX AM4 Motherboard ~£100
4. Memory - Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ~£120
5. SSD - Corsair - Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ~£70
6. HD - Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ~£40
7. GPU - Zotac - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Mini Video Card ~ £130 (mayyyybe 1060)
8. Case - BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case ~£25
9. PSU - EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 (EU) 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ~£80
 

£745