Single Best hardware upgrade for the money?

Question

If you could upgrade one piece of hardware on your coding machine what would it be?

Answer 1

RAM, with a second monitor a close second.

Answer 2

Without a shadow of a doubt it's memory, unless of course you already have 4GB. It's relatively cheap these days, tends to speed everything up pretty darn well and just seems to have the best 'bang for your buck' when it comes to hardware upgrades.

Answer 3

I would reformat

Then add more ram

Answer 4

It really depends on what you computer has in it now, and what you use it for. For a gaming box, for instance, a better graphics card is almost always the best upgrade. For a development machine, I'd probably say do the following things (in order):

1. If you have less than a 1gb of RAM, upgrade to 1gb.
2. If you have any chance of running out of hard drive space, upgrade to at least half a terrabyte on your data drive.
3. If you have only one standard sized monitor, upgrade to two monitors or a big (>=24") widescreen.
4. If you have a single core processor, upgrade to dual or quad cores.
5. If you have less than 2gb of RAM, upgrade to 2 gigs.
6. If you have a 7200 RPM HD for your OS drive, upgrade to a 10,000 RPM disk.
7. If you have one big widescreen or two standard monitors, upgrade to double widescreens.
8. If you have less than 4gb of RAM, upgrade to 4gb.
9. Upgrade to the fastest available processor.

Answer 5

Upgrade to a 64bit cpu

Answer 6

LCD Monitor. This CRT takes up such a large footprint, and isn't as crisp. Either that, or a proper desk and chair, which is cheating, but what are you going to do? :p

Answer 7

Adding RAM is usually the best choice, although remember you need a 64 bit OS if you're going above 3GB.

Two large monitors are the second choice.

For greatly increasing performance on Linux machine[1] swap the hard drive for two identical 7200RPM drives (32MB buffer preferable) and run them as RAID10 in f2 (far-2 near-1) layout - it's cheaper than 10kRPM drives, faster (you get 2x the drive speed, whereas 10kRPM drives are about 30% faster than new 7200RPM ones) and more reliable (this setup can survive a single drive failure without any loss of data)!

[1] you are probably using Windows, but I just wanted to share what I had recently upgraded :-)

Answer 8

Use a WD Raptor or even VelociRaptor as system disk and have a larger lower noise disk for your data.

Answer 9

10,000 to 15,000 RPM drive. I built a quad core with 4gb ram but only reused my 7,200 RPM drives. I'm assuming you have a decent CPU and at least 2gb ram though.

so my suggestion in order would be

• min CPU: Dual-Core
• min RAM: 2GB
• min HD : 10,000 RPM

Answer 10

Its funny, I'm quite happy with my core2 / 2GB and just one wide LCD. What I miss the most is a keyboard that gives a very nice tactile AND audible response to keystrokes.

If I could find someone that made modern, high quality keyboards (built to last) that clicked like the old original PS/2 keyboards, I'd happily spend $250 to get one.

Answer 11

The best value/money is probably RAM, since it's cheap.

I'm picky about keyboards, so I bought a Happy Hacker keyboard.

http://www.pfusystems.com/hhkeyboard/hhkeyboard.html

Other than that, a nice monitor.

Answer 12

The best upgrade "for the money" would be nothing since the machine's fine as it is :-)

Answer 13

I have occasional PEBCAK issues, so I'd have to go with an upgrade in that area.

Answer 14

Personally, I want to upgrade to a desktop. My laptop's keyboard has become sticky, and it's quite uncomfortable. At least, 2 gigs of RAM make the whole thing more bearable. But the thing I really want is a larger LCD.

Answer 15

A good SSD . The performance profile on these is perfectly suited to software development. They are just starting to come down to an acceptable price level.