What laptop do you use for personal development?

The_B_Man

Ye I know what you're talking about. I once got OSX running on an old AMD machine!! :P
When I got this laptop, I consciously tried to get specs similar to a MBP in order to dual boot. I never got it working though. I think it's related to the BIOS, as opposed to UEFI. I do have a working VM but the performance isn't great. I might revisit the native booting actually.

If this laptop dies, then I'll google other laptops that work perfect out of the box, but like I said, this laptop is working too well to replace it.

Colonel Panic

In work, we use desktops. Mine's a Dell workstation of okay spec.

At home, I do a lot of stuff with graphics and GPU compute, so it's desktop again, but prior to that, I used my 2011 MBP for development.

DefinitelyMarc

Folks, after much deliberation I'm strongly thinking about going for the 15.6" Optimus 8 from PC Specialist.

My reason for not going for the 17.3" is because it doesn't come with the 4K screen.

• Processor: I7 2.8GHz that can be turbo'd to 3.8GHz
• RAM: 32GB (DDR4 for some corsair brand. There are two, and the 2400MHz one is cheaper. I have no idea what this means if I'm honest.)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1050Ti 4GB
• Hard Drive:At the moment I'm looking at a 960GB Kingston SSD. It's 540MB to read, 500MB to write (A second I think?). It mention 6GB in there somewhere too, but I've no idea what that refers to. Probably a cache or something.

The hard drive is where it gets tricky. There's a load of options and the SSD's get expensive VERY quickly. In total, the cost comes out at €1940, including vat. Does anyone here know if customs will wreck my **** financially when this thing is shipped over? Also, should I be getting a better SSD?

I'd also like to thank each and every one of you here for taking the time to post, I've read all of your posts and appreciate the help!

The_B_Man

The most expensive part there is probably your hard drive.
If it was me, I'd skimp on things that are easily replaceable/upgraded, like RAM and HDD/SSD and then get them myself after for cheaper.

Also, looking at that Optimus, it supports M.2 drives. Maybe get one of them instead and install your OS on that. I reckon 250GB would be plenty. Then afterwards, get yourself a second hard drive for storage. Something like a 2TB HDD. Similar with the RAM, price it elsewhere yourself. It might be cheaper to get 4GB and replace it with 32GB you bought on your own. Or even get the one stick of 16GB and install another 16GB yourself after. Whichever is less hassle.
Doing this, you'll probably get that €1900 down to about €1300.

Also, consider getting a second power adapter or battery. They were the first things to go with my laptop, after a few years, so having them already there will save you a lot of hassle.

deconduo

DefinitelyMarc wrote: »

Does anyone here know if customs will wreck my **** financially when this thing is shipped over?

You should be fine as they're based in the UK. You may end up paying a slightly higher rate of VAT when you checkout (23% vs 20%) but that would be the only thing.

14ned

DefinitelyMarc wrote: »

[*]Hard Drive:At the moment I'm looking at a 960GB Kingston SSD. It's 540MB to read, 500MB to write (A second I think?). It mention 6GB in there somewhere too, but I've no idea what that refers to. Probably a cache or something.

I wouldn't touch a Kingston SSD. Remember when SSDs fail, they go immediately, not like HDs which usually warn you beforehand with enough time to get your data off.

Any SSDs by Samsung are safe. Failure rate is below 0.5% per annum. Any Intel developed (not rebranded) Intel SSD is safe. The rest I'd leave off, though I have a Crucial M4 SSD here used for temporary build storage and which receives many gigabytes written per day which has been very reliable over the past three years, and it takes a battering.

As the other poster mentioned, SATA SSDs are inferior to NVM SSDs, if you can afford the latter (Samsung or Intel only) then they are great. But SATA SSDs are far better than a HD.

BTW ignore throughput benchmarks. Look into random 4Kb i/o, that's where quality SSDs shine over the cheap ****e SSDs and it's what you'll notice in terms of daily use latency.

Niall

DefinitelyMarc

Anything wrong with this one actually?

http://www.adverts.ie/laptops/alienware-17-r4-i7-6700hq-gtx1060-16gb-ram-128gb-ssd-1tb-hdd-pny-gtx-1070-alienware-graphics-amp/12696698?notification=5a4f2ea435451f6fdde22f024db8057e-1494587527#comment_85383147

Seems like i can get it for €1750. Is that a good price for the hardware?

Creamy Goodness

DefinitelyMarc wrote: »

Anything wrong with this one actually?

http://www.adverts.ie/laptops/alienware-17-r4-i7-6700hq-gtx1060-16gb-ram-128gb-ssd-1tb-hdd-pny-gtx-1070-alienware-graphics-amp/12696698?notification=5a4f2ea435451f6fdde22f024db8057e-1494587527#comment_85383147

Seems like i can get it for €1750. Is that a good price for the hardware?

TBH I find the idea of a 17" laptop comical. You'll break your back carrying that around. It's way over specced for what you want the gfx will be wasted unless you game on it regularly enough

srsly78

Yeah gaming laptops are a load of rubbish. Too big to be portable, too power-hungry to operate without mains, too weak compared to desktop. Double cost of desktop!

Dubba

This Lenovo looks good for ~€600 (note you can't upgrade the ram)

http://touch.adverts.ie/laptops/lenovo-x1-carbon-3rd-gen-512gb-ssd-8gb-touchscreen/12785002

I got a similar model second hand and had no issues at all. Obviously your millage may vary.

DefinitelyMarc

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

TBH I find the idea of a 17" laptop comical. You'll break your back carrying that around. It's way over specced for what you want the gfx will be wasted unless you game on it regularly enough

Yeah, but is it a better deal than the pcspecialist one I mentioned?

The weight wouldn't bother me one bit, it's more "How much value can I get for my money" that I'm trying to go for.

Dubba

There's a lot of value in the Lenovo I posted:

i7-5600U
512gb M.2 SSD
WQHD screen

Not being able to upgrade the ram, could be an issue for you tho.

threein99

DefinitelyMarc wrote: »

Folks, after much deliberation I'm strongly thinking about going for the 15.6" Optimus 8 from PC Specialist.

My reason for not going for the 17.3" is because it doesn't come with the 4K screen.

• Processor: I7 2.8GHz that can be turbo'd to 3.8GHz
• RAM: 32GB (DDR4 for some corsair brand. There are two, and the 2400MHz one is cheaper. I have no idea what this means if I'm honest.)
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 1050Ti 4GB
• Hard Drive:At the moment I'm looking at a 960GB Kingston SSD. It's 540MB to read, 500MB to write (A second I think?). It mention 6GB in there somewhere too, but I've no idea what that refers to. Probably a cache or something.

The hard drive is where it gets tricky. There's a load of options and the SSD's get expensive VERY quickly. In total, the cost comes out at €1940, including vat. Does anyone here know if customs will wreck my **** financially when this thing is shipped over? Also, should I be getting a better SSD?

I'd also like to thank each and every one of you here for taking the time to post, I've read all of your posts and appreciate the help!

Would using Parcel Motel not get you over any customs issues?

srsly78

UK is still part the EU, so why would customs matter?

OP - if weight is no issue for you then get a desktop >.<

DefinitelyMarc

Dubba wrote: »

There's a lot of value in the Lenovo I posted:

i7-5600U
512gb M.2 SSD
WQHD screen

Not being able to upgrade the ram, could be an issue for you tho.

It's a good price, but I'm looking to spend more than 600. I tend to buy more expensive stuff that'll last longer/I can use for longer.

Thanks for the link though, I'll keep it in mind.

srsly78 wrote: »

UK is still part the EU, so why would customs matter?

OP - if weight is no issue for you then get a desktop >.<

I don't think costa would appreciate me lugging one in :pac:

DefinitelyMarc

Okay, so I ended up ordering the following for €1,662.00:

Chassis & Display: Optimus Series: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Widescreen (1920x1080)

Processor (CPU): Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 7700HQ (2.8GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo)

Memory (RAM): 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (1 x 16GB)

Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti - 4.0GB GDDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12.1

1st Hard Disk: 500GB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

M.2 SSD Drive: 512GB INTEL® 600p M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD (upto 1775MB/sR | 560MB/sW)

Weight: 2.5KG

Ended up buying two intel 500GB SSD's instead of any hard drives, only one stick of 16GB RAM (I can get another later), and an extra charger in case something happens to the first one. I maxed out on everything but the RAM and storage, since I can buy more RAM later if I really need 32GB's of it and I can't see myself using more than 500GB for anything (And I already have an external hard drive. Might buy another one though). I also paid for the 5 working day delivery and better thermal paste.

I'll let you all know what it's like when it arrives! :pac:

The_B_Man

Let us know the weight of it too.

DefinitelyMarc

The_B_Man wrote: »

Let us know the weight of it too.

2.5KG's :cool:

I'll update the original post.