Hi there,
I am planning to buy a new window machine/laptop. All those who have experience in programming can you please guide how much minimum hardware(RAM, processor, etc) is required while using these simultaneously:
Currently, my laptop is 4GB and Desktop 8GB both have poor performance.
Perhaps try Linux if you use FileZilla to connect to a Linux Server.
I have an ancient laptop with 8Gb and performance is OK using Ubuntut 21.04.
Also using a 500 GB old non-SSD drive 
After this Lockdown is over I’m looking forward to browsing the local computer mall for an upgrade to replace my old desktop which gave up the ghost
I have a Sony Vaio from the 2008 purchase and a desktop from the 2012 purchase.
Just checked and the only date I could find was:
Have you tried downloading Linux and creating a thumbdrive which will boot and run comfortably with 4Gb of ram. Ubuntu is to be recommended or Linux Mint. There are many other Linux systems available but I prefer older versions which have a vast amount of online support information. The only application I miss is Adobe PhotoShop.
No. I am completely 0 in Linux.
I find this article slightly insightful, but some concepts were bombastic for me as I dont know in detail about hardwares → https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/comparing-intel-i3-i5-i7-processors/
Most modern multicore processors should do it, but I would recommend 16GB Ram as a minimum - and of course the fastest processor you can afford - and get a GPU that can handle illustrator (4GB should run it smoothly). The old workstation I build in 2012 with 24GB Ram, 6GB GPU, still runs everything I throw at it. I’m almost using it more than my new haha. Thinking a few years ahead is always smart when getting a new puter, as everything is happening quite fast these days.
Agree that the machine should be future-ready to some extent, I am planning to go for 16GB RAM default, the machine should have 2 slots, and it should be expandable to 32GB total.
FWIW I found 8GB RAM to be sufficient for purely web dev purposes in Windows, it was never a problem.
Though I have upgraded, but that was for the benefit of graphics and video apps that I use which struggled with just 8GB.
But certainly no harm in having more.
Many of my friends and colleague have given the same opinion.
I have seen laptops where defaults installed RAM they are giving is 8GB installed on one slot out of the two, though the slots can accommodate = 16GB + 16GB
16GB ram if purchased independently costs around 100$, but if you ask these companies to replace the default 8GB with 16GB in one slot they charge 150$-250$ extra.
The best is to move with default configurations and later upgrade with an extra 16GB RAM in the 2nd slot.
8GB + 16GB = 24GB will be sufficient.
In the future, if additional RAM is needed 8GB slot can be replaced by 16GB slot making a total of 32GB, maximum possible RAM.
If you go for a desktop get a machine that has 4 slots with dual channel, and get 2x8 first, expandable with 2x8 later.
For web dev purposes there’s no need for a very powerful computer, anything moderate by today’s standards will be fine. 8 GB of RAM is perfectly fine today. Last year I got myself a new computer with 16 GB just to be future proof. RAM will certainly help if you run virtual machines. I have found people usually exaggerate how much RAM is necessary - 2 years ago I still had my old machine with 4 GB of RAM with Windows 10 64-bit and I was surprised how much it could handle - simultaneously an IDE, local server, local database, Photoshop Elements, GIMP, a few small virtual machines, a few browsers with some tabs open and I couldn’t bring it to its knees! Swap memory works a lot better with SSD than HDD…
As to the processor last year I bought Ryzen 3200G with 4 cores and it was perfectly fine, nothing to complain about. Recently, I replaced it with Ryzen 4650G (6 cores/12 threads) only because I found it in good price and wanted to make my computer more future proof. But to be honest I find it a bit overkill for web dev - looking at the task manager most of the time the cores rest unused. The only time I use all the cores is when I compress large amounts of data for backups. I expect to keep this machine for many years.
This topic was automatically closed 91 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.