Hi everyone and happy holidays! I was wondering: I am learning to be a full time programmer but I also like drawing and game art as well. I am looking for a good computer that would run the programming side quickly and efficiently and something I could do art work on along with photoshop, maya, Java, etc… any suggestions ??

Don't get a Chromebook.

Noted! Any suggestions on a good one?

There are many good computers. You can build your own or have a good computer store build it for you. I'm rather lazy in that department so I usually have the store do it especially since if something is messed up, they have to fix it. If you do have it built (or build it yourself) do some research into parts, especially the mother board, to make sure you get something reliable. I personally always go for reliability over max performance.

My general advice is DON'T get a laptop unless you really need it to be portable. In the long run they tend to have a lot more problems because the cooling tends to be more of an issue. Also they are harder to upgrade and harder to repair when something breaks. Also I generally don't like to waste a lot of money on fancy high end gaming mice or keyboards. The most important thing is the ergonomics and again, reliability. If you have extra cash get a good monitor, or even two. Screen space is a big deal for development.

Thank you tons for your input. I’ll definitely look into getting one built. And I’ve always been told desktop is the way to go. Thanks a lot!!!!!

Last time I tried to build one from components at Fry's Electronics, I discovered that it was actually more economical to just buy an off-the-shelf Dell that already contained everything I needed.

Decide how much RAM you want, how big a HDD you want, what video and audio capabilities you need. This assumes Windows, of course (not Mac).

just buy one off the shelf, u won't save much building one yourself, been there, done that many times…i have never saved enough;

if money is no issue, go high-end; but if money is an issue, then go mid-range, don't go low-end (leave this to your sister ?).

Pick a pc or laptop that has at least the minimum of these guys:

• intel i7 3.6ghz, 32GB of DDR4, 500GB NVMe SSD (don't pick an HDD), nvidia gtx 1060

i repeat that's the minimum you want if you want to code, do art, and stuff; if you go lower than this then you're on your own! -lol-

if u can get anything off the shelf with anything faster or bigger than these and money is no issue, go for it (i9, 10, ryzens etc… 2T… 128GB ….)

Now the truth:

remember, u should get a pc that will last you long, not just for the sake of having bang on specs! For years and I mean it for years, i have worked on an optiplex 755, Pentium dual-core that used to take 30min to build my million-line codes -lol-, the graphics card was a mere ATI radeon hd 5650 low-profile that supported ogl4.0 and dx11 -no shame right lol-;

i had photoshop running on, devstudio 2019 running on and many more apps running on a mere 2GB RAM and 1GB VRAM -kinda like the raspberry of desktops lol- i was able to code all sorts of thing, never bothered upgrading it, i have only this year now switched to a top end pc, but this old one is still kicking the devil out of it and now serves as a reference repository and test pc…

so choose well ?

ddlox said:
SSD (don't pick an HDD)

Agreed. My bad.

Awesome info and thank you! Definitely a bit to consider, for sure. Definitely wanting something that will run things without a problem, so I’ll look for those specs as well. I wouldn’t mind building one, but if it’s the same as finding the same (or almost) cost off shelf, I’m cool with that too.

@Tom Sloper

Tom Sloper said:

Last time I tried to build one from components at Fry's Electronics, I discovered that it was actually more economical to just buy an off-the-shelf Dell that already contained everything I needed.

Decide how much RAM you want, how big a HDD you want, what video and audio capabilities you need. This assumes Windows, of course (not Mac).

Last time I bought 2 dell computes for my business it was a nightmare. I had an extended service contract and had to have the service guys in immediately because the graphics cards simply didn't work. I had to wait a week after I bought two brand new computers before they would come in. Finally the service guy came in and among other things reinstalled the OS. He wanted to leave before the computers were actually working and he started complaining about going into his lunchtime. He swore up and down the computers would boot up with no problems, yet as we were arguing both computers crashed loading up the OS. He wasn't even slightly apologetic about it and actually seemed pissed at me that I was making him do his job. Finally the computers booted up, but later after he left they crashed. I ended up looking though the manuals and configuring them myself. These kind of things used to be so prominent with Dell that the term “Dell Hell” came to apply to when you had to call their service.

Granted this was about 12 years ago. Perhaps they are better now but I've never bought a Dell since. I had a VERY similar problem with an HP computer I had ordered from a store.. However to their credit after hearing my complaints they actually cut me a check for $500.00 for my trouble. In my personal opinion having a store you can go into and deal with directly is worth a lot. But certainly I have bought trouble free off the shelf computers also.