|
My financial circumstances dictate that this is also the case for me.
My current system is about two years old and unfortunately the increase in energy prices and the recent cold weather have almost wiped out my 'new system pot'.
It therefore looks like, barring a catastrophic failure, this one is going to have to last at least 4 years, if not more.
Henry Minute
Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain
Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?"
“I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
|
|
|
|
|
But that is a difficult question to answer because I have no schedule and I add items that are less than $100 frequently. At home I upgraded the main development box in late November because the price was right. With the help of live.com it was around $400 US for a 2.83GHz quad core Q9550 + 6GB of quality ddr2 memory + a quality motherboard (ASUS P5Q pro) + 650W ANTEC 80+ power supply. This upgrade is 1.5 to 3 times as fast (at building code) as the dual core machine it replaced and it consumes less power at idle and significantly less at full load.
John
modified on Monday, March 9, 2009 12:21 PM
|
|
|
|
|
You r right, I have no schedule too. I upgrade the system when the price is good or say low.
I think servey has missing option : When Price is Low 
|
|
|
|
|
I'm currently doing a proof-of-concept, and was given a P3 with 384 MB RAM and 10 GB HD.
It's running fine . . .
That's because it's running Ubuntu Server 8.10.
So, imagine how it could be if most people ran Ubuntu and other Linuxes.
Upgrade because the old beast is just too tired do play any more - and not because you're forced to support the new market of the latest and greatest - which cannot run on your current system. And, Ubuntu (at least) allows you to image the setup on a USB flash drive - so cloning becomes rather easy (Did you hear that, Bill?)
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to stop bothering them and just go away?" - Balboos HaGadol
"It's a sad state of affairs, indeed, when you start reading my tag lines for some sort of enlightenment. Sadder still, if that's where you need to find it." - Balboos HaGadol
|
|
|
|
|
Balboos wrote: So, imagine how it could be if most people ran Ubuntu and other Linuxes.
Nothing to imagine - until last year Linux was my primary dev environment. Linux needs fewer resources than Windows only if you install less functionality. A Linux desktop with features comparable to Windows will consume more resources than WIndows. We were running OpenSuse and it was visibly slower than Windows XP on the same hardware. Then I installed a bare-bones CentOS (without a graphic desktop environment) and accessed it from a Windows machine with putty - it ran like a charm.
|
|
|
|
|
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: Linux needs fewer resources than Windows only if you install less functionality. A Linux desktop with features comparable to Windows will consume more resources than WIndows.
Isn't that exactly the point? In general, who needs all of Windows' functionality? Each version contains additional layers of bloat. That you can bog down Linux? That's no surprise - why not? The point is how little is required to run pretty much every application that 'users' need.
What do developers need? Lots of extras - as noted by others, it also takes me days to load a fresh install. As a general case, software (often) doesn't even run the same on development systems. Haven't you ever said "Well, it works on my machine" ?
A substantial driving force behind the (major) developer upgrades is that the consumers are buying physical system/operating-system combination of ever increasing magnitude. Vista came out and so much software was broken - and then the dev's need a Vista-capable PC if they want to develope for Vista.
I don't see this particular scenario as part of Linux - perhaps due to the nature of open-source systems and applications: Allow - but do not mandate.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to stop bothering them and just go away?" - Balboos HaGadol
"It's a sad state of affairs, indeed, when you start reading my tag lines for some sort of enlightenment. Sadder still, if that's where you need to find it." - Balboos HaGadol
|
|
|
|
|
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: A Linux desktop with features comparable to Windows will consume more resources than Windows.
I know this not to be true, both in servers and desktops, from extensive experience with both OSs (except Windows 7) for more than 10 years. Windows has always required more disk space and more RAM than GNU/Linux for similar environments and work loads.
Performance is far more difficult to compare but I can give some examples (e.g. 3D desktop, desktop responsiveness under heavy disk load, network transfers on gigabit ethernet, MySQL, Apache, GIMP) where GNU/Linux clearly outperforms Windows and some (e.g. ATI 3D OpenGL, OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird) Windows outperforms GNU/Linux.
Application and driver performance probably depends more on the amount of effort the developers put in optimizing it for a particular OS than on the OS performance itself, making performance comparisons more difficult and potentially misleading.
|
|
|
|
|
PedroMC wrote: I know this not to be true
You know this not to be true, I know this to be true - to each his own 
|
|
|
|
|
Fair enough! 
|
|
|
|
|
I replace my dev box roughly each year, and recycle the old one as a server.
However, I upgrade continuously.
I have added 1TB of RAID 1 disk and another 8GB RAM to my current dev box since I built it about 9 months ago. It has a motherboard that supports the new 1600MHz FSB Xeons, as I hoped that I could plug in a pair of E5472's, but they are still too expensive so I guess my E5420's will stay.
I spend about £1500 ( $2000 ) per year on hardware which is about a week's pay. I buy 'economy' parts, because the premium for the 'latest and greatest' is not warranted IMHO. However, I have had dual processors, RAID 1 disks and plenty of RAM in all my boxes since '95.
Nick
----------------------------------
Be excellent to each other
|
|
|
|
|
i think the problem is not to upgrade the hardware,
the problem is to setup everything on the new hardware, for me as driver developer it takes about 2 days until everything is installed
everytime i need to install:
msvs2003
msvs2005
msvs2008
directx sdk
windows ddk
our own library
windows media sdk
wxwidgets
vmware
eclipse
java
and many many other things, and to much updates
i hope that microsoft includes in the next windows a system to transfer EVERYTHING inclunding the software and not only the files and documents
|
|
|
|
|
My development environments are installed in VMWare virtual machines. So my time to upgrade is only an hour or so:
- Install VMWare
- Copy virtual machines
|
|
|
|
|
Does that really work with product codes, changes for hardware drivers etc?
|
|
|
|
|
A VMWare image stores the entire state of a machine. It should work
|
|
|
|
|
 Well unless you have one of the latest hardware-vm cpus, virtual machines tend to be slower than running your tools on the real hardware, especially with an ring 0-intensive OS such as Windows. So until recently (much more recently than latest hardware replacement), this was not much of an option.
 I might consider it next time round though.
This message is hasty and is not to be taken as serious, professional or legally binding.
I work with low level C/C++ in user and kernel mode, but also dabble in other areas.
|
|
|
|
|
I am running a W2K8 Server with virtual machines for development, and god, it flies!
modified on Tuesday, March 10, 2009 10:32 AM
|
|
|
|
|
Until recently W2K8 was not available...
Two questions:
- On what CPU does W2K8 virtual machines fly?
- Is the guest OS W2K8 too (W2K8 in a W2K8 VM uses private speedup tricks to avoid heavy instruction by instruction Ring 0 emulation, these are not available if either host or guest is an older Windows version such as XP).
This message is hasty and is not to be taken as serious, professional or legally binding.
I work with low level C/C++ in user and kernel mode, but also dabble in other areas.
|
|
|
|
|
It's an... ummm good dual core - I'll check the specs tomorrow if you like.
Guests are XP and W2K3. I haven't compared to running them natively, but I am generally hapyp with the performance.
The one comparison I have is a VMWare Windows 2000 guest (can't use Virtual PC on that). Of course it flies against the original PC - some mass market machine from 2000 - but it also builds the main project in about 80% time of my main development PC which is mostly stumped by not-so-fast disks.
|
|
|
|
|
you should take a look at WPI, the Windows Post Install wizard.
|
|
|
|
|
hardware upgrades are only needed if new software needs more power. As the Vista Windows needs more power. So Windows 7 wont need new hardware. 
Greetings from Germany
|
|
|
|
|
True!
My upgrades are usually memory.
Even Vista, from my experience, if the XP box was decent, a new pair of DIMM's pushing it to 4Gb and a not so bad graphic card if you care about Aero will do the trick.
Vista needs memory... feed it!
|
|
|
|
|
I buy a new laptop each 4-5 years
Wormhole is the God divided by zero
|
|
|
|
|
Danila Korablin wrote: I buy a new laptop each 4-5 years
Do you develop on a laptop? I have yet to find one that I would use for this purpose. The hard disk is way too slow for me to do real work and I can not type at all on the small keys of the keyboard.
[EDIT]I forgot one. The display is way too small. [/EDIT]
John
modified on Monday, March 9, 2009 1:26 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
I also develop on a laptop.
I got a 17" monitor which gave me a full keyboard.
Now work follows me very easily - anywhere I go.
I don't think I would switch back to a PC machine unless I really needed a LOT more power.
Miro
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
