Ask HN: Custom Build PC (Workstation) recommendations for programmers

1 point·ludwigvan··3 comments

After the disappointing Mac updates lately, I have been thinking of building a PC for work instead.

What are your recommendations for a custom build nowadays?

oh boy, where to begin?

I am going to assume you're doing a lot of compiles? So something with good IPC (instructions per clock), so a CPU like the top end intel 6700 or the 6 core variant depending on cost.

Then as much ram as you can afford.

And then get the fastest SSD, preferably a NVMe one as I think it would help with many VMs running, many compiles, many tabs open, they benefit from high workloads. But given that consumer queue depths (high queue depths are better for SSDs) being so low you could save money on some solid SATA non-nvme drives like samsung's 850s or similar.

Case: find one that suits your aesthetic tastes and has good airflow.

Power-supply: Something 500W or better, modular ones make for better building experience (in my experience anyway) but you probably already knew that.

etc... hope that helps

Thank you, it does. Thinking about getting 6700K. Hadn't heard of NVMe before, will research that further.

that's a good chip and with a decent cooler you can get some good (and free) speed ups with overclocking. The chip also has TSX which could be fun to experiment with when doing multithreaded programming. Good sites to read for hardware reviews are techreport.com and their build guides, hardocp.com, and anandtech.com. Good luck!

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