Decent PC for software development

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reven

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#3392810 10-Jul-2025 14:49

Its the memory usage in Task Manager / System Monitor.

Not really wanting to argue. Go with however muich RAM you want.

Personally I'd get 32GB and spend any extra money I had on the CPU. RAM is easier to upgrade if you ever need to. For my development, 32GB is oddles.

timmmay

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#3392811 10-Jul-2025 14:53

I was just curious if windows used much more ram or if the windows ram usage included disk cache.

Handle9

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#3392822 10-Jul-2025 15:36

jayj:

Thanks all for your feedback, @ShinyChrome I see what you mean about the ITX tax, as much as I want a mini PC I'd rather save the money and put it elsewhere, taking that feedback I've put it towards mATX instead.

If you really want a mini pc why not an actual mini pc like the Minisforum MS-01?

eonsim

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#3392956 10-Jul-2025 18:33

reven:

Your problem there is you mention Visual Studio, so thats Windows. Linux uses a lot less RAM.

Linux
- 3 instances of Rider
- 3 browsers (vivaldi, firefox, chrome)
- VS Code

Im sitting under 20GB

Windows
- 2 instances of Rider (2.4GB)
- 2 browser (1.5GB each ish)
- SQL Server Management studio (70mb)
- Vscode (350mb)

I'm sitting around 33GB

---

Its honestly not something I really think about, but, damn, what is Windows wasting it on.

Uh no, Visual Studio Code is the semi-open source cross platform one that runs on Windows/Linux/MacOS and I run it on both MacOS and Linux. It can be memory heavy with an LSP running in the background + compiler. Not to mention like a lot of modern tools it's based on Electron and thus is a bit of a memory pig.

Also it really comes down to the type of code and work your doing, if you are looking into AI/ML, Data science (python, R etc) or using AI tools in the IDE, RAM gets used up very very quickly.

These days every program seems to start at 1GB of RAM an go upwards from there (dropbox ~1GB, Outlook 1GB, Firefox ~10GB, Teams 1GB, VScode several GB).

TwoSeven

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#3393017 10-Jul-2025 20:16

In answer to the original question, take a look at the Asus Nuc 15 pro as an example. They can be loaded up a bit and have Thunderbolt 4 which is useful for expansion. I was looking at getting one along with a Mac mini which is about the same size and stacking them.

If it is useful, happy to post up the hardware and software load-out for my workstation if it gives some ideas. Although it may be overkill for the specified requirements.

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alinz

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#3393060 11-Jul-2025 03:49

There's pretty good pricing on the 7700 from AliExpress at the moment. It's about 44% cheaper than locally.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008522014723.html

6000 cl36 can also be had about 28% cheaper from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTHXMYL8/?mr_donotredirect=undefined&th=1

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timmmay

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#3393069 11-Jul-2025 07:10

Would you trust anything expensive or critical from Ali Express? Also having a local warranty is useful. The last PC I built I got everything from PBTech including paying for installation, when something didn't work right they worked it out and fixed it - faulty power supply from memory.

Handle9

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#3393070 11-Jul-2025 07:15

The last PC I built I bought the motherboard and CPU came from AliExpress. They have both been fine as have the other PC stuff I’ve bought from AliExpress.

If you are buying from a seller with a high volume of sales it’s relatively low risk.

jayj

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#3393124 11-Jul-2025 08:19

Thanks all for your help! Went to PB Tech, got the parts and installed everything up. Total cost came to 1.25K. got the Ryzen 7 7700 CPU for $425 (Notbadtech). Would be cheaper on ali for sure, but nothing beats same day build.

One FU was I didn't realize how large this mATX case was. Here I was looking for the smallest form factor, going mATX and accidentally buying the largest monster there is... So much empty real estate. The one flip side is it hides the fixed PSU wires well.

Re RAM I kept 32gb in the end. Cashflow. If I do need 64 in the future, with prices reducing over time I feel like it should be ok.

I guess I plenty of room for a GPU when I inevitably have to start AI processing.

jayj

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#3453713 16-Jan-2026 22:14

reven:

Its the memory usage in Task Manager / System Monitor.

Not really wanting to argue. Go with however muich RAM you want.

Personally I'd get 32GB and spend any extra money I had on the CPU. RAM is easier to upgrade if you ever need to. For my development, 32GB is oddles.

I actually upgraded to 64gb soon after my last post and am so glad I went and got the 64gb of ram now. Paid $300ish back when we were all discussing it, exact same pair is now $1400. The world has well and truly gone insane.

Reven, you weren't wrong of course. I was actually the wrong one assuming prices would reduce for ram over time, just glad I didn't listen to myseld. Just crazy how in such a short timeframe things can change in the PC market.

SpartanVXL

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#3453796 17-Jan-2026 13:18

jayj:

reven:

Its the memory usage in Task Manager / System Monitor.

Not really wanting to argue. Go with however muich RAM you want.

Personally I'd get 32GB and spend any extra money I had on the CPU. RAM is easier to upgrade if you ever need to. For my development, 32GB is oddles.

I actually upgraded to 64gb soon after my last post and am so glad I went and got the 64gb of ram now. Paid $300ish back when we were all discussing it, exact same pair is now $1400. The world has well and truly gone insane.

Reven, you weren't wrong of course. I was actually the wrong one assuming prices would reduce for ram over time, just glad I didn't listen to myseld. Just crazy how in such a short timeframe things can change in the PC market.

It’s very much an outlier thanks to AI. Every other ddr gen reduced in price as it got older.

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sidefx

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#3453806 17-Jan-2026 13:58

This is an interesting thread. More and more I wonder how much value there is in high spec'd dev\lab machines. Most cloud platforms have free or cheap tiers where you can run a heck of a lot of stuff these days. Generally with the systems I tend to work on trying to run everything locally becomes a bit of a pain, so I tend to run small parts of the system locally if I need to debug or actively work on something, while relying on a known state cloud hosted dev environment for the majority of it.

Not to mention IMO there's sometimes value in having an under-spec'd dev machine as it sometimes encourages people to think about how they can do things more efficiently ;D

PS: Not suggesting this would necessarily work for OP as mobile emulators are one area where a decent spec local machine is good to have.

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