Laptop hardware components for fast compiles

Hello,

I would like to ask what specs are the minimum for decent compile times in Eclipse and fast read/write and edit operations in Adobe Flash CS5.
I think that CPU,Memory and hard drive define that, right?

With my current laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 1.8 GHz 2MB L2 Cache, 2gb ram,120GB 5400rpm Hitachi) I get an average of 20'' on every compile of my project in Eclipse. It drives me crazy..

Code:

8542120 bytes written to file in 20327 ms

What specs would you recommend to have at least in order to get decent compiling times? I am asking because I dont have the money to buy the best out there.

Thanks in advance.

 

Generally it is the CPU that does the main job in your case... so put a spell on it.

 

The weakest link over there is the HDD. 120GB 5400RPM should be very slow. Replace it with a 500GB 7200RPM.

If you are still unhappy, increase your RAM to 4GB.


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Seems like you are in need of a mobile workstation...and unfortunately you can't really get one without giving up an arm and a leg. And please, please don't try to do business work on a consumer grade notebook, it leads to more issues down the line. Save up for an M6400 or a M4400, or check out the Dell Outlet store.

 

Yes. Your best bet would be to wait a month or two until the Sandy Bridge chipset issues are resolved and then buy a laptop with the cheapest quad-core Sandy Bridge (the 2630QM unless they have updated it by then). RAM is pretty cheap nowadays -- 4GB is standard, but you can get 8GB without spending a lot of money. Hard drives are also pretty cheap; a 7200RPM hard drive is more or less standard with the bigger ones also being a bit faster than the smaller one.

 

CPU and drive speed is the key for project compilation. RAM in general play a lesser role as most project compilations are sequential in nature. Though if you are already short on RAM(eclipse can use quite some RAM), you would be using page file as your RAM which worsen the situation.

So first make sure you don't need the page file(i.e. add more RAM). Then get a SSD(as that is easier to upgrade than CPU) and finally think about CPU.

What is the size of your eclipse project (i.e. how many java class we are talking about) ?

Software development in C#/Java etc. needs everything to be fast except GPU(which is not involved at all).

 

You will probably be better served on stackoverflow.com; here is a good thread:

performance tuning - Tricks to speed up Eclipse - Stack Overflow


From what I gathered:

When compiling, use a computer without an anti-virus program running/installed.

Max out your RAM and put the JVM in a RAM disk that is at least 10% bigger than the JVM.

Optimize your Java version (make sure you use SUN).

Optimize your Eclipse ini file to use your resources more effectively.

Turn off Indexing on Win 7 / Vista systems.

Use the latest Eclipse version.

Turn off the Auto Publish and Auto Builds (same?).

Turn off any Validators you don't need.

Close open projects which are not in use.

As far as HDD's(or SSD's) making your compile times shorter - they won't.

See:
Solid State Disks - Joel on Software


My suggestion with this limited 'research' I've done for compiling is getting the right 'platform' with the RAM maxed out and using a reliable RAM disk with the above mentioned optimizations.

An SSD is still a good idea - but keep in mind it won't directly affect your compile times either.

So, what is the right 'platform' today? Wait (if you can) for the 'B3' stepping (ie. 'fixed') of the Sandy Bridge notebooks and you'll be set for a couple of years of happy compiling.

Oh! I too recommend a 'workstation' class system too.

Good luck.

 

that message IMO is contradicting with itself. RAM disk is just very fast storage and SSD is fast(well not as fast as RAM disk) storage.

And in many case, one cannot use the latest eclipse as many people have specific plugin requirements that only works for a particular version of eclipse. Same situation also happens in the C# world. I have all three version of visual studio, two version of eclipse and two version of netbean installed.

 

Contradicting? Not at all.

Different people gave the different tips.

The link to Joel on Software is very specific that the Intel G2 160GB SSD made zero difference on compile times.

The other responses I read stated 40 second compile times vs. 4 minutes (times are approx.). using a RAM disk.

You don't need to do all the suggestions btw (re: use latest version), just the ones that make sense for your particular situation.

Cheers!

 

The hard drive should play little to no role in the performance of what he is doing. This stuff is pretty strictly determined by the CPU and RAM, and occasionally the GPU.

 

And that is the contradiction I mean. RAM disk is just very fast storage for eclipse(or any other tools) so it can read/write needed stuff faster, and nothing more. SSD serve exactly the same purpose, and nothing more.

So if one is right, the other is wrong. You cannot have both right.

I of course would say SSD help because I am seeing it every day in my line of work(comparing with the time before I changed to SSD). And RAM disk would help even more but I need to speed up visual studio as well which cannot be put on RAM disk. Eclipse is the only IDE that I know of that is using the old style one directory contains everything you need(no installation required and why it can be put on RAM disk).

 

an ssd improved general ide performance and compile time for me when using crap languages (like c++). for my main language, c#, compile times where always 1second max, so there isn't much to improve.

the ssd helps for those fun moments where you want to add a component, and it wants to show you all the available components on the system, and immediately scans all the dlls for available components at the same time. this could, on a bad laptop hdd, block everything for over an hour. on an ssd based system, the longest it blocked my system was 5 seconds.

and at no point on a hdd was my cpu at 100% while compiling. it was always disk bound. might depend on the type of code?

 

Bold (above) by me.

You can have both right.

What you're failing to acknowledge is that the RAM disk is so many times faster ( at everything) than even an SSD which is not many times faster at everything, just some things, that in Joel's case made zero difference.


davepermen, I can't tell if you're just trying to make a point or not: would the same operation you specify really take over an hour with a mechanical HDD vs. 5 seconds for an SSD?

I really find that hard to believe - I'm sure I would have seen it myself somewhere in the last ~18 months of SSD exposure?

My best/closest example would be compacting my 8GB pst file on an i3 350M - on the Inferno (with all tweaks applied; stamatisx and jjb tweaks) the compacting was close to 5 seconds. Now, on the same system but with a Scorpio Black and my custom partitioning in place, it is just over 12 seconds.

The SSD is much faster (especially %-wise), but not really the over 7 times improvement you're stating. But, I also don't directly work with these programs either, so I'm open to learn something here.

 

I am lost at what you want to say but never mind.

 

There is no contradiction, it's just two different usage scenarios. In the case of the Joel article, he mentions that compile time did not change for him when going from a hard drive to an SSD, but he says absolutely nothing about RAM disks. The reason it did not change is that his compilation is CPU-bound and the I/O makes no difference. I guarantee you that if he had tried a RAM disk instead of the SSD, it would make no difference either because the CPU is still bottlenecking the entire process. On the other hand, there are other compilation tasks where the I/O does make a difference and in that case a RAM disk would speed things up -- but so would an SSD.

The apparent contradiction comes from conflating the two scenarios: if you give an I/O bound task to the RAM disk and a CPU bound task to the SSD, you will arrive at an erroneous conclusion about the effect of each. The proper way to go about this is to try both tasks with both kinds of hardware.

 

Wait a year and get an Octo-Core Ivy Bridge

 

that is what I am doing. Though Octo is not going to help much in this particular case. Quad is more than enough. Compilation actually usually only use single core.

It is the RAW speed of the CPU that counts, assuming one has already sorted out the I/O bound part.

 

If you compile large stuff (e.g. the project that I work on has 6.2M lines of java code with tens of thousands of java files) you will see that HDD is the most important thing. Sure, CPU does the main work but I have never seen that my CPU is maxed out due to access latencies.


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Actually, CPU is important. It is not maxed out usually because there are more cores. During compilation of very large project(be it C# or java), one core is maxed out all the time.

Though you are right that I/O is a very important factor as well.

GPU is the most unimportant one(compilation can be done headless) unless newer java/c# compiler now knows how to use GPGPU which I don't aware of.

 

What compiler do you use? Except for very simple programs that cannot be split up, if you use, for example, GCC and tell it "make -j4", it will happily load up all 4 cores.

 

To be honest - while I agree with a part of your statement, another part of that I view as utter and complete rubbish.

There is nothing wrong with doing business grade work on a consumer grade laptop - NOTHING - yes, it might take a little bit longer as the OP experiences, and this can lead to frustration. But in the end, creating something in flash on some 50.000$ workstation or an atom netbook will give the same result - just one needs a few seconds while the other would possibly need a few minutes for the same task.

On that note - yes, a mobile workstation would make life much easier for the OP, however they also have some serious downsides -> they are only mobile in that you can travel with them with a lot of effort, you can forget battery life, something most consumer laptops offer. Look for example at a Sony Z -> nice battery life and a good amount of processing power.

 

I've just seen too many people try to do business work on consumer grade laptops, then the consumer grade laptops break and then they lose the laptop for 1-2 weeks, AND they rely on that 1 machine for their business machine.

Business warranties cost more for that reason, to get on site repair and next business day repair. That and for the most part they are built better, are easier to service and share components among different generations making it easier on IT departments. I'm not going to get into an argument about it but there are just too many reasons not to buy consumer laptops for work period.

To make a long story short, people try to buy consumer grade notebooks and expect them to perform like business class machines and I'm sorry but you get what you paid for. Why spend 800 dollars on a consumer grade notebook when for the exact same amount you can get a Latitude or Precision and have a business class support.

 

Nothing wrong with better warranties for a business laptop - and if you get a next day repair service, yes, that costs - question is, do you really need it. (Answer varies)

But a consumer will not break because you do business work on them - on that premise gaming laptops should fail regularly. If a laptop breaks it's either a general design flaw (can happen to business models too) or the user has been abusing them - e.g. dropping them.

 

By Consumer laptops he means the laptop like the OP has. Meaning average build quality, nothing great, sometimes it's bad. Standard 1-4 week warranty, etc. Specifications are probably on the lower end, more then likely components, chipsets, bios, and other options are limited and or lower quality.
Business laptops are typically overkill in most aspects such as cooling, design, build quality, warranty, etc..

If you are using that laptop as your main computer for work the question is WHO can afford to go without their laptop for weeks. By work I mean, exactly that, work.

 

I compile PCSX2 and Java(Eclipse) on my computer. I'd say 4GB minimum RAM if you're doing any actual programs, not just little java practice programs. Frankly I'd benefit from 8GB of RAM when using Visual Studio 2008.

As for my CPU, I have an i5 520m and it handles it just fine.

I don't know what people are talking about with breaking down... store your items on a drop box or an external, I see no issue. Besides, my computer hits 70C max when compiling, hardly dangerous temperatures.

 

A strategy is to replace it when(if) it breaks. That in many cases ends up cheaper than restricted to 'business' notebooks. If I purchase 10 Inspiron for office use and get one, may be two spare. It may end up to be a better strategy cost wise and the downtime may not be as much as one expect.

But that is off topic already.

 

huh ? a consumer grade notebook can perform as good as business class. The performance of a notebook depends on hard numbers like CPU speed, RAM size, HDD speed. In this front, I fail to see any difference.

 

Except you get a better built laptop, better warranty, and on average more options in terms of I/O. Typically consumer laptops come with 5400 rpm hard drives, while business laptops are often 7200 rpm.
I could go on about consumer vs business laptops, specially when you consider the price points are quite close once you hit the $800~ mark.

Now are all consumer laptops bad? Nope. Some are very well built. Also remember some work tasks require pretty hefty hardware, if your talking office environments where the most use they will see is Microsoft Office suite, then perhaps sticking with lower end laptops or better yet desktops would be best, however for people like the OP, perhaps investing in a workstation may be something to consider.

 

Even standard laptops come with a 2 year warranty where I buy my tech - and 1 year in most other places... yes I live in Europe.

 

replacing a 5400rpm HDD should be pretty simple task and it actually may save some dollars if one wants to use SSD anyway(or choose their own instead of what the vendor throw at you).

As I said, you can go on and on but that is completely off topic. A 'consumer grade' machine is just as good performance wise doing OP's task.

RAM are upgradable(and usually cheaper), HDD are upgradable(and usually cheaper and better), CPU very little difference. What else ? so for the same price(including self upgrade), the end result is a more powerful machine.

 

Absolutely.
Performance is a function of CPU, RAM and HDD. If you put the same components on a consumer grade laptop, you will get the exact performance that the business grade machine has.

The difference comes from the build quality. One uses carbon composite casing with a backlit keyboard, the other uses a plastic casing with a classic keyboard. You may also have a lower grade screen too. But these do not affect the performance anyways.


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Correct, performance is a function of hardware, however a 1 year depot warranty is hardly continent when using the computer for work. Perhaps for those who don't utilize their computers for non essential tasks will learn that a few days in down time can mean a world of expense.

 

As mentioned, there are lots of way to handle this situation. For this particular case where development work is assuming the 'critical task'. The following is what I would advice for those who is really paranoid.

1. Install a VM player like virtual PC or VMWare or VirtualBox
2. Install your workhorse OS and the related tools under it
3. get a good online source repository system like bitbucket or github etc.
4. Backup your VM image daily and sync your source as well

Whatever happens to your hardware, buy/borrow/rob another machine and re-do (1) above. copy back your VM image and you are in business again.

This would beat any turn around time of business class machine, assuming that losing your PC for 24 hours would cost you 100K.

 

Brilliant thinking. Except there is one fatal flaw:
1. Security.
The biggest reason some business' work stays on the laptop is for security reasons, the data they may be storing on the laptop is more valuable to them then a pesky $5,000 workstation with warranty and security features. A consumer notebook would offer no such protection in terms of immediately security like TPM, Contactless Card readers, Biometric fingerprint readers, etc. Imagine if that consumer notebook was stolen, do you know how easy it is to get by windows passwords, and hard drive password's a massive no no to a company, one forgetful day=thousands lost.

Perhaps you need to start thinking like a business, not like someone who is trying to save a little money, and trying to save face.
Anyways it's up to the OP to see if he will need a business class machine with business class warranty, or a consumer notebook with consumer class warranty.

 

huh ? why do you keep on throwing out new requirements ?

The VM container has full security in place and you can even use Bitlocker, what security is breached ? Other than TPM, what else is missing in a 'consumer grade' machine ? Finger print reader ? My XPS has it.

Didn't I mention that it is for the OP's particular case ? Did I say every business should do it this way ? He didn't even mentioned that it is for business.

You guys are trying to justify your recommendation after the fact.

BTW:
I worked for that huge finanical company that requires government bailout for quite a while(say 6+ years) so I know very well about business concerns. I would say I am not the one who tries to save face, someone is.

EDIT:
what new requirement this time ? which is already completely absolutely off topic.

 

Bitlocker... really? Wow. Okay. You do realize there is pay-for software to bypass Windows Vista's Bitlocker (I am sure Windows 7 is following suit). Also Bitlocker is only available in what? Windows 7 Ultimate or Vista Ultimate, both of which are nonstandard on consumer laptops. Unless you talk upgrade then well you might as well take that money and put it into a Business class laptop, it would be cheaper.

I keep throwing out requirements because you speak of consumer machines to be the end all for business when that simply is not the case.

Now I am unsure if you have ever owned a business machine like a Dell E64** E65**, M6500, M6400, M4500, or Thinpad T61's, T400s, T410, T510, W510, W710, or HP probook, elitebook (P/W series). (I won't go into older Dell Latitudes, as some where complete crap but as far as HP/Lenovo (IBM before) they were great)
Compared to machines like Asus Gaming series, and even Clevo/Sager (In the case of the W710/M6500/M6400/Elitebook "W") they are major differences.

 

I am using a D830 right in front of me.

When did I say consumer machine to be the end all for business ? You are trying to put words into my mouth.

Also, please don't mix up software (whether a bitlocker is available in Home Premium) and hardware like TPM.

Let us review from the start:

1. OP was asking about performance and nothing more
2. someone out of no suddenly making recommendation and is saying consumer grade machine is not fit for his task which was still about performance (and was explain that performance is not the distinguisher between these two class)
3. someone else tries to further justify the non-suitability of consumer grade machine by talking about reliability and lost of access which can be costly due to lose of work and time which again can be solved in a better way
4. to find that little advantage for justify the original recommendation which is not relevant, security has been thrown in which proves to be no difference again in business class and consumer grade machine except the TPM which actually was not introduced until 2006+.

well you can go on and on and there is no point any more for me to continue because you are not interested in engaging a productive discussion and more importantly all these are completely off topic.

I would stop here.