ZeRaW wrotewhy would you develop and play video games on the same machine?
My personal opinion:
Development Machine:
Processor : i5 661
Motherboard : Intel DH55HC
Memory : 4-6GB DDR3
i5 661 has a built in GPU, not very fast for new games, but enough for dev. usage.
No need for graphics card, and you can spend the extra money on a nice SSD.
Budget for the above + PSU, Case, Screen, should not be more than 800$. (my current dev machine cost me 530$ and it is just 4GBDDR3).
Now spend the extra money on:
a PS3 @ 400$
an xbox 360 @ 350-400 max
a small laptop to browse the internet when you do not want to sit on a laptop.
all under 2.5k.
Well, apart from the fact that I already have the following: PS3, Xbox, Wii, iPad, HP DV8, LG X200. I'm lacking a powerful system that can handle insane graphics and perform just as well when it comes to virtualization and development.
