In this article I'm going to go through the custom PC I built for software development in November 2019.

  • Why go custom?
  • What I wanted from the PC
  • Parts List
  • Workstation Score
  • Conclusion

Why Custom?

TLDR: it works out cheaper and you get higher quality parts for the price you pay.

I was sick of developing on my 2014 Macbook Pro. It would take a long time to compile projects in Visual Studio and just didn't have the power (or the OS) I needed to run the stuff I needed simultaneously ( Visual Studio, Chrome with multiple tabs, VS Code, SQL Server Management Studio, Spotify).

I first started looking at pre-built units on the likes of www.awd-it.co.uk . They were reasonably priced, much better than what you'd get in your local Curry's / PC world. However, the components such as the power supply, cases , RAM weren't fantastic.

I'd built a PC around the year 2011 so I thought why not do it again. It's pretty straightforward. I began by visiting  https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ and got going from there.

What I wanted from the PC

I wanted to build a great workstation first and foremost. Gaming performance came second. I don't play games often but wanted the option to run new games on high settings @ 1080p. FOMO innit?
The likes of photoshop / blender can be also be graphically intense. Lastly, my CPU of choice didn't have any onboard graphics capabilities so a graphics card of some sorts was needed...


Parts List

The PC was built around the very affordable and high performing AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.2GHz 8-Core processor.

I went with the previous generation at the time as it was significantly cheaper than the  Ryzen 3700x. The performance gains with the latest gen weren't significant enough for me to move up either.

  1. CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 2700 3.2 GHz 8-Core Processor
  2. CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition
  3. GPU - Sapphire Radeon Nitro + RX 580
  4. Motherboard - MSI B450 Pro Carbon AC
  5. RAM - Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32GB (2 x 16GB)
  6. SSD - ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB M.2-2280 NVME
  7. Power Supply - RIOTORO ENIGMA G2 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX
  8. Case - Fractal Design Meshify C ATX Mid Tower Case

PCPARTPICKER List : https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/2rJ9Xb

It should be noted that I bought these parts all around Black Friday / Cyber Monday so I was able to get some good bargains. For example, the CPU cooler was half price.

The Ryzen 2700 includes a decent CPU cooler but if you want to overclock then it might be worth investing in something a bit better like the one I've linked above.

The Power supply has a 10 year warranty which is fantastic.

I picked the Carbon AC motherboard as it had Bluetooth and WiFi built in. I've never had great luck with USB WiFi antennas or Bluetooth dongles so went with something a bit more stable. I planned on moving my PC around a bit so the WiFi capability was important to me.

The total cost to me at the time was €850 which is around $1000 and £750 as I write this. I had two monitors , a good mouse and keyboard already so didn't need to purchase those.

The parts for my custom PC build focused on software development with a sprinkle of gaming.
The parts for my custom PC build focused on software development with a sprinkle of gaming.
The Sapphire Radeon RX 580 8 GB PULSE Video Card after posting for the first time.
The Sapphire Radeon RX 580 8 GB PULSE Video Card after posting for the first time.
The Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition 57.3 CFM CPU Cooler doing cooler things ...
The Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition 57.3 CFM CPU Cooler doing cooler things ...
The MSI B450 Pro Carbon AC motherboard
The MSI B450 Pro Carbon AC motherboard

Benchmarking

UserBenchMark
Once the PC was built I went straight to userbenchmark.com to see how it performed.

The UserBenchmark score for the build running at the stock CPU clock speed of 3.2GHz. Gaming is 63%, Desktop is 112% and Workstation is 97%.
The UserBenchmark score for the build running at the stock CPU clock speed of 3.2GHz

I was really happy with this score, the gaming performance as expected was the lowest as it isn't a gaming focused build.

Benchmark - Development

Next up was a dev based benchmark. I started by building Orchard Core. Orchard core is a large .NET CMS application.

Following the same steps as Steve on his benchmark I first did a dotnet restore and then ran measure-command { dotnet build }, twice.

First build for Orchard Core from cold came in at 40 seconds.
First build for Orchard Core from cold came in at 40 seconds.
Second build of Orchard Core came in at 15 seconds.
Second build of Orchard Core came in at 15 seconds.
CPU profile during the cold build of Orchard Core. Reached 100% a few times
CPU profile during the cold build of Orchard Core.

Benchmark - PassMark PerformanceTest 10.0

I ran the Passmark PerformanceTest 10.0 a few days after I published this blog. Here's the score.

PassMark PerformanceTest 10.0. Score is 5576
PassMark PerformanceTest 10.0

To me, this is a respectable score for a machine that is relatively cheap. For comparison, Scott Hanselman's rig had a base score of 6075, Steve Smiths machine came in with a score of 7690.

I have a decent CPU cooler so I have room to overclock but don't see a need to just yet.


Conclusion

I've had the PC now for over a year. It hasn't missed a beat and performs really well day to day. I often have Visual Studio, VS Code, Chrome with multiple tabs, SQL server management studio plus other programs open at the same time and it shows no sign of slow down.

Compilation times for Angular & the .NET Core projects I work with have come way way down and the machine is generally a joy to use.

I'd highly recommend people to build their own PC. There's lots of support out there if you're a total novice e.g. on Reddit. It's like putting together Lego once you get the right parts ordered.

The advantage of building your own PC is if you buy decent quality foundational parts ( Case / Power supply / Motherboard) you can easily upgrade in a few years without the total outlay of a whole new build.