Fast computer for Visual Studio development

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Tom van Stiphout - 23 Nov 2006 05:08 GMT

I find my 2 year old Dell Precision (typical config 1 GB RAM, 2 SATA
drives, 3Ghz CPU, built-in Video) sluggish at best while working in
VS2005. We exclusively write business productivity software, no gaming
or CAD or otherwise high-end stuff.

For example on an ASPX page switching from Source view to Design view,
or opening a big XSD file, it may take several seconds. One of our
developers is working on a WinApp with a detailed graphics file as the
background image: it can take 10-30 seconds to load the form, and
another several seconds switching to another tab on that form.

I have an opportunity buying a new PC before the end of the year. What
should I be looking for? I'd like to think in terms of "what if I
could invest an extra $500 - would I buy more RAM, a faster RPM hard
drive (we have one workstation with 15000 RPM SCSI drives - not
performing any better than the SATAs except 40% (2 out of 5) of the
SATA arrays have crashed) or - as someone suggested - a better video
card? Gaming cards for developers?

Ideas? Data to back it up?

Thanks,

-Tom.

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Tom Dacon - 23 Nov 2006 18:10 GMT

More memory. My VS2005 runs noticeably less sluggish with 2GB than with one.
On another of my dev machines I went to 4GB but didn't see as much
improvement as I got from the first additional GB.

Tom Dacon
Dacon Software Consulting

>I find my 2 year old Dell Precision (typical config 1 GB RAM, 2 SATA
> drives, 3Ghz CPU, built-in Video) sluggish at best while working in
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> -Tom.

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Bob Moore - 23 Nov 2006 22:22 GMT

>I have an opportunity buying a new PC before the end of the year. What
>should I be looking for? I'd like to think in terms of "what if I
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
>SATA arrays have crashed) or - as someone suggested - a better video
>card? Gaming cards for developers?

More RAM. Bang-for-the-buck-wise, it will give you the best result.
All a faster disk will do is allow your hamstrung machine to page
memory faster :-) I got a very nice performance jump in VS2003 going
from 1G to 2G, and my hard disk works less hard as a side benefit.

Interestingly, I spend *most* of my time in VC6, and that works
absolutely fine on machines with 0.5G RAM or even less. It's just
bloated beasts like the VS.Net family that act like memory black
holes.

The only reason for putting a fancy graphics card in a dev machine is
to get aero support for Vista. Well, that and the pre-Christmas
deathmatch party :-)

--
Bob Moore
http://bobmoore.mvps.org/
(this is a non-commercial site and does not accept advertising)
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bill - 25 Nov 2006 23:30 GMT

I agree with the others - add more RAM. I have a 3GHz Dell Optiplex at work,
nothing fast, just your standard business PC. VS 2005 was crawling with 1GB,
Ever since they upgraded me to 2GB It runs very fast. I would bet that HD,
video card, and CPU make minimal difference.

Except for RAM, I think your current PC's are more than adequate, if it was
me I would just upgrade the RAM and save your money for something more
important - like Beer.

>I find my 2 year old Dell Precision (typical config 1 GB RAM, 2 SATA
> drives, 3Ghz CPU, built-in Video) sluggish at best while working in
[quoted text clipped - 20 lines]
>
> -Tom.

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Michel de Becdelièvre - 26 Nov 2006 10:11 GMT

> For example on an ASPX page switching from Source view to Design view,
> or opening a big XSD file, it may take several seconds. One of our
> developers is working on a WinApp with a detailed graphics file as the
> background image: it can take 10-30 seconds to load the form, and
> another several seconds switching to another tab on that form.

> Ideas? Data to back it up?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Tom.

I'm using a 2Gb laptop (= not very fast HD) with Core Duo for ASP.Net /
NT Service / Database development. I'm running 1 Oracle instance, VS2005
(ASP.Net (IIS or built in server depending on the test) + NT Service), TOAD
and a lot of crap at the same time, it works fine.

I think the 2 important parts are 2Gb RAM an Duo : take a biproc /
double core to get real threading : this is CRITICAL for ASP.Net since you
will work with at least 3-4 processes at the same time : IE/FF + IIS +
VS.Net + worker process. There are bugs you won't even see on
monoprocessors.

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Fast computer for Visual Studio development

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