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I have a 6yo T420 with a Samsung SSD and 16GB of RAM. It was $400 with a new battery. It easily outperforms the MBP 2015 monster I had before on my daily progra

by herbst 9y ago

I have a 6yo T420 with a Samsung SSD and 16GB of RAM. It was $400 with a new battery. It easily outperforms the MBP 2015 monster I had before on my daily programming tasks. Point being. Most hardware is overkill anyway. You'll want enough RAM and the fastest SSD you can afford.

PuffinBlue 9y ago
I hope you're right, I just bought an IBM stamped (so maybe not Lenovo made) T61p off ebay to have a go with. It's not arrived yet but every review says the hardware is bulletproof. I know it's very old but hopefully once I've finished putting the SSD in and a lightweight Linux distro it'll be enough to work on.
lj3 9y ago
I have a 4 year old W530 and I built my own PC this year for the first time in over a decade. There's no comparison. If you can deal with the lack of portability, you'll see a huge benefit. Also, if you're a programmer, there's no such thing as "most hardware is overkill anyway." Not in this age of bloated and slow software and tools. It's worth it anytime you can shave a couple of seconds off the time it takes to compile and/or interpret software. When it's something you do a couple hundred times a day, the time you save adds up fast.
- herbst 9y ago
  I build a $3000 beast like half a year before i bought the laptop. I also had a MBP 2015 before. While given i dont do compiled language very often i dont fully agree. My VM startup times barely differ (dont most scripting languages boot single core anyway?) but i notice a real difference when working with huge databases compared to my MBP because i simply have better RAM and a faster SSD. However surely my desktop build was even faster.
  - lj3 9y ago
    Yes, single core speeds matter quite a bit. I can get faster single core clock speeds for a desktop for a lot cheaper. It is useful to have a lot of cores for running multiple VMs, but I would agree it's not worth spending 3k+ for a 16 core machine unless you're doing something that can utilize those cores. In my mind, where the desktop rules is ram, bus speeds and cost. You can build multiple desktops for the price of a similarly priced MBP.

by herbst 9y ago

PuffinBlue 9y ago

I hope you're right, I just bought an IBM stamped (so maybe not Lenovo made) T61p off ebay to have a go with. It's not arrived yet but every review says the hardware is bulletproof. I know it's very old but hopefully once I've finished putting the SSD in and a lightweight Linux distro it'll be enough to work on.

lj3 9y ago

I have a 4 year old W530 and I built my own PC this year for the first time in over a decade. There's no comparison. If you can deal with the lack of portability, you'll see a huge benefit. Also, if you're a programmer, there's no such thing as "most hardware is overkill anyway." Not in this age of bloated and slow software and tools. It's worth it anytime you can shave a couple of seconds off the time it takes to compile and/or interpret software. When it's something you do a couple hundred times a day, the time you save adds up fast.

herbst 9y ago
I build a $3000 beast like half a year before i bought the laptop. I also had a MBP 2015 before. While given i dont do compiled language very often i dont fully agree. My VM startup times barely differ (dont most scripting languages boot single core anyway?) but i notice a real difference when working with huge databases compared to my MBP because i simply have better RAM and a faster SSD. However surely my desktop build was even faster.
- lj3 9y ago
  Yes, single core speeds matter quite a bit. I can get faster single core clock speeds for a desktop for a lot cheaper. It is useful to have a lot of cores for running multiple VMs, but I would agree it's not worth spending 3k+ for a 16 core machine unless you're doing something that can utilize those cores. In my mind, where the desktop rules is ram, bus speeds and cost. You can build multiple desktops for the price of a similarly priced MBP.