A good system for running Visual Studio 2005

Hey guys and gals,

Just wondering if you might suggest a decent system for programming in Visual Studio 2005. I will NOT be gaming on this system. I most likely will not be overclocking either (unless I can get it to be very stable) since I want to shoot for maximum stability.

I will be working with moderate sized solutions, so performance can be sluggish.

OS: XP Pro SP2
RAM: 2GB

I'm shooting for a tight budget. I'm just trying to consider if I should go:

1) AMD 64 X2 5200+ CPU (Complete system w/20 inch widescreen LCD monitor costs about $720 from Newegg)

-or go all out and go for a fast Intel CPU-

2) Core 2 Quad Q6600 (I'll have to pay about $200 more for the CPU + MB)

I read somewhere for VS 2005, it comes down more to memory than CPU. For those who know for a fact, any suggestions on if it's worth the extra $200?

quad core wold be good if your areprogramming for diff OS's and can run virtualization, also, but i think due to amd high floating point some visual studio runs better on amd?

vam said:

I'm shooting for a tight budget. I'm just trying to consider if I should go:

1) AMD 64 X2 5200+ CPU (Complete system w/20 inch widescreen LCD monitor costs about $720 from Newegg)

-or go all out and go for a fast Intel CPU-

2) Core 2 Quad Q6600 (I'll have to pay about $200 more for the CPU + MB)

I read somewhere for VS 2005, it comes down more to memory than CPU. For those who know for a fact, any suggestions on if it's worth the extra $200?

Click to expand...

I'd go with a Core2Dual, maybe E6600. You won't need a quad!

You will want the 2 gigs of RAM, and a good monitor. I'm not sure a widescreen is needed, but if it fits in your budget, OK. LCD's are good for saving on heat and electricity, both.

No, I wouldn't recommend overclocking for this rig. You want stability, and you'll have enough speed.

I run VS.Net 2005 standard on my pentium M 1.5 GHz with 512 mb of ram. Speed is not an issue. More ram would help. I do ASP.Net/SQL programming.

I've got VS 2005 Pro on my two machines at work. One is a P4 2.4 with 1GB ram. VS runs pretty good although loading is a little slow. I'm working on a VB project right now with about 950 lines of code and it's taking about 120 megs of ram. On my other machine, Dual core P4D @ 3.4 with 2 gigs ram it runs very smooth. I would go with more RAM personally, and I don't see any reason to go quad unless you are developing specifically for quad systems. Take that extra money and get a bigger monitor or save it.

seadave77 said:

I've got VS 2005 Pro on my two machines at work. One is a P4 2.4 with 1GB ram. VS runs pretty good although loading is a little slow. I'm working on a VB project right now with about 950 lines of code and it's taking about 120 megs of ram. On my other machine, Dual core P4D @ 3.4 with 2 gigs ram it runs very smooth. I would go with more RAM personally, and I don't see any reason to go quad unless you are developing specifically for quad systems. Take that extra money and get a bigger monitor or save it.

Click to expand...

I currently have an AMD 2500+ with 1GB RAM and one of my project has about 19,000 lines of code. It sometimes takes 30 seconds or more just switching from design view to code view and vice versa. The coding will just increase so...

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll do the math on an E6600 vs a 5200+ to see which one gives me what benefit. I think the E6600 with an Intel MB will cost at least $120-$130 more. I might also consider upping the memory to 4 GB, but I know Windows XP 32-bit version only limits you to 3GB or RAM.

VS 2005 runs best when you have 2Gb of RAM. 1GB is sufficient but with the extra RAM VS can fly. I use a Dell Inspiron E1505, Intel T5300 @1.73, 2GB RAM, and an 80GB 5400RPM SATA HDD. My system flys and I use VS 2003, 2005, and the 2008 Beta since Beta 1. By the way, 2008 is set to release next week at DevConnections in Las Vegas. I would HIGHLY recommend reading up on it as it works with all projects in .NET 2.0 and you can easily switch between 2005 and 2008 IDE on the same project.

VS 2008 probably won't be out till spring. Beta 2 was just released on Oct 29th. It's got a ways before it's done. I went to MS Event on it earlier this month. It has a lot of cool new features (expanded css controls, intellisense for javascript, etc.). Its very cool but I'll wait till it's out of beta.

FYI, All VS 2005 (2.0) projects will (should) work in 2008 because .Net 3.5 is comprised of the 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 libraries. When you install .Net 3.5 it will install .Net 3.0 and 2.0 if they are not already installed.

I have Visual Studio Running fine on both my signiture rigs, the E4400 runs better but that has VMWARE running on it also!

Ebola said:

VS 2008 probably won't be out till spring. Beta 2 was just released on Oct 29th. It's got a ways before it's done. I went to MS Event on it earlier this month. It has a lot of cool new features (expanded css controls, intellisense for javascript, etc.). Its very cool but I'll wait till it's out of beta.

FYI, All VS 2005 (2.0) projects will (should) work in 2008 because .Net 3.5 is comprised of the 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 libraries. When you install .Net 3.5 it will install .Net 3.0 and 2.0 if they are not already installed.

Click to expand...

Actually, VS2008 Beta 2 and .NET 3.5 Beta 2 were both released July 26, 2007. Here is the link to ScottGu's blog detailing the release and giving some tips on making AJAX.NET 3.5 work with AJAX.NET 1.0 side-by-side. If you look on DevConnections.com, the conference in Vegas, you will see them advertising that each attendant will recieve a Standard version of VS 2008 with no mention of the beta, and this would coincide with the release of 2005. I was there for 2005's release.

...Wow... I wish my projects were "sluggish" with that kind of hardware

I used to develop on a spare GX150 (P3 ~1GHz, 256MB RAM, Windows XP) we had lying around the office up until a few months ago when my boss gave me his old computer. That was sluggish.

I'm quite happy with my new single-core P4 3.6GHz with 2GB of RAM RAM really makes a difference in the snappyness of VS (and the computer as a whole), so don't skimp on it. CPU will help with compile time, but there are some advantages to long compiles

JigPu