Dev Machines

“Just as in financial investing, you must invest in your knowledge portfolio regularly.”

― Andrew Hunt, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

As developers we also need to be constantly investing in updated hardware and good software.  

As a family man I sometimes fall behind in my diligence in this area,  

kids teeth cleanings, healthcare premiums, and back to school clothes can take their toll on the budget. 

Recently though a little wiggle room came in the budget and I purchased a new machine and a few new monitors!

ASUS GL753VE (08/21/2017)

This machine replaces a 7 year old HP machine dv7-4295us. I 

Memory        16 GiB of memory
CPU                i7-7700HQ @ 2.80 GHz
Graphics       GTX 1050Ti 4GB
Hard Drive    512GiB Samsung 960 Pro
                        2TiB Firecuda
OS                   Windows 10 Professsional


Cost                           $1,596.06    (Laptop/Win 10 Pro/Samsung Pro 960/2 TiB Firecuda)

Cost w/monitors    $1,943.90

Upgrades:

512 GiB Samsung 960 Pro NVME drive... its super fast

2 TiB  Firecuda drive

(I like having 2 hard drives on my machine, maybe when 1 TiB SSDs get cheap I may change my mind)

Monitors:

I picked up two 27" Monitors from Costco SE2717HR.
One I paid full price $180 and the other was on
sale at $150 :)


I am not really ready for 4K.  It would be nice...
But between price and it not being mainstream yet...
I think I will wait another 2 years or so then maybe
when I replace this laptop with a new one I will go for the
4K monitors.

Other notable pieces of hardware I use with this machine are...

Yeti Microphone

A great microphone for making screencast, podcasts, or even just for Skype

Skullcandy Hesh 2 Headphones


Good sound at a reasonable price and you can easily replace the cord, which I have had to do.