need advice on low budget development box

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texaganian

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Dec 15, 2009
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I need to build a new development box but my budget is quite limited.

This is just for development work, no games, no viewing movies, etc.

What I do need is:

    At least 32GB memory capacity, although I'll only populate with 16GB at first
    Ability to drive at least 3 video displays, 4 is better


All the rest (case, power supply, etc) can be as vanilla as possible to hold down costs. I don't need an OS, keyboard, mouse, displays, etc.

I used to build boxes all the time but I haven't built one in at least 10 years. The landscape has changed pretty dramatically since then, so I could use some help & advice.

Doing just a tiny bit of research, I thought I might start with this motherboard:
MSI A88X-G45 GAMING FM2+ / FM2 AMD A88X (Bolton D4) HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130754

Even though it's listed as a gaming motherboard, I like all the memory capacity and it's gotten great reviews. Is this one reasonable or is there one as good for less money that I overlooked?

And what would you recommend for video? I'd like to be able to drive four displays but if three is significantly less expensive to do, I could live with that.

Any suggestions on moderately priced case, power supply, etc would be much appreciated.








 
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ScrewySqrl
ok. I will assume by development, you mean coding, not, say, creating graphics for the movies.

right now, almost ant GPU can hand 2 screens, most mid range GPUs can hand 3 for web browsing and basic work, only 1 screen for games, and top end cards can handle 3 sceens fo games. Extreme top end cards can handle 6 screens, but cost as much as a basic system on its own.

I'm going to suggest an AMD 7000-series APU + R7 250, which will handle 4 screens doing basic work about as cheaply as you'll get (2 on the 250, 2 on the gpu build into the cpu). It'll also game decently one one screen at medium settings.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-7700K 3.4GHz Quad-Core...
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texaganian

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"Development" may not be entirely accurate. Usually nothing terribly heavy as far as compiling, etc. But I do tend to bleed 8GB systems dry on memory and I need lots of screen real estate for the way I tend to work. No need for big CPU power though. I'm sure even low end processors today will be fine (you wouldn't believe the old junk I'm running on now).

And budget? I know it sounds like a cop out but as little as I can manage and still have reliable components. The reality is that it is going to cost more than I really have budget for, so other than memory capacity and multiple displays everything else has to be as vanilla as possible.
 
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ScrewySqrl

ScrewySqrl

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Aug 2, 2010
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ok. I will assume by development, you mean coding, not, say, creating graphics for the movies.

right now, almost ant GPU can hand 2 screens, most mid range GPUs can hand 3 for web browsing and basic work, only 1 screen for games, and top end cards can handle 3 sceens fo games. Extreme top end cards can handle 6 screens, but cost as much as a basic system on its own.

I'm going to suggest an AMD 7000-series APU + R7 250, which will handle 4 screens doing basic work about as cheaply as you'll get (2 on the 250, 2 on the gpu build into the cpu). It'll also game decently one one screen at medium settings.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A10-7700K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock FM2A75M Pro4+ Micro ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($59.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($129.99 @ TigerDirect)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R7 250 2GB Video Card ($74.78 @ Newegg)
Case: Sentey CS1-1420 PLUS ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $519.71
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-04-07 09:43 EDT-0400)
 
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