There was a question lately about music. I wanted to get understanding of what is favorite hardware you like to use for programming competitions.
- what brand, do you have preferences, maybe some history of how you got to using it
- is there some must about computer you're using (like if it must have specific screen resolution, or multiple screens or you like to have multiple cores)
- if you prefer desktops or laptops or you don't have much choice
- any specific keyboard / mouse brands which you find convenient for yourself
Also if your hardware is provided by employer, would be nice to hear about it (as long as you feel comfortable disclosing).
Answers like "Doesn't matter, I can code on anything which has at least one button and one pixel" are also welcome.
NB: By commenting in this thread you agree not to make any offensive comments regarding race, religion , computer brand, make, other people's preferences.
IMO, good hardware is not very important for competitive programming (at least, if you're not as fast as tourist).
Anyway, I have a gaming-grade Asus G56JK laptop and I have no complaints when I use it for programming, especially when I have my Cherry G80-3000 LSCRB-2 clicky mechanical keyboard attached :).
Very beautiful laptop. I was wondering if somebody uses gaming grade laptops. I used to have ASUS G70 long time ago and generally like ASUS.
I absolutely agree that good hardware is not very important for competitive programming, though sometimes, like in Facebook Hackercup or Google Codejam if you can run testcases in parallel and use something like Intel® Core™ i7 4710HQ, you can get away with slower solution (like cubic solution in this year's trees & squirells problem). But of course it doesn't make sense to pay more just to get this little advantage.
My attitude is more like some people's attitude to cars — I spend quite a lot of time sitting with my laptop, so I want to enjoy it.
My attitude is the same. Also there is one thing I'd mention: a legacy 5-years old high-end PC still remains comfortable to use and even can compete with modern low cost ones, unlike, for example, old netbooks or cheap office desktops.
As for me, I use my Apple iMac (21 inches display, fall 2012 edition) for about 2 years.
Probably I should have started with myself.
In my recent history — before 2008 I was using desktops, actually there was only one desktop bought by myself (without parents' financial help) and at that point I tried to fulfill my teenage dreams about having very nice machine, so it was very good for 2008. But I didn't do any competitive programming back then.
After I moved from Russia I switched to using laptops ever since. I think upgrading your PC became less of a trend, laptops at some point got on par with desktops (almost no sacrifice in performance) and I needed to be more mobile. So my first big laptop was ASUS G70 in 2008. It was a good one. I didn't care about the size of it, but I wanted to get as close to desktop as possible.
Since then I started having following set of requirements for laptops I own:
1) 1980 * 1024 is a must, as well as 17 inches — I don't like small screens. The larger editing window I can get the better.
2) I prefer to have two hdds — it probably comes from idea that even if one of them dies I can quickly get up and running without ordering a new one. Plus I could do back up without attaching anything external. Getting a new HDD could get difficult in the place I live.
3) I want to have NumPad, so full size keyboard a must. Let's say I completely ignored NumPad for most of my life. Reason is simple and funny — ZX Spectrum didn't have NumPad, so I didn't get used to it from the beginning :). But then I forced myself to get through Numeric part of "Соло на клавиатуре" trainer and since that I can't live without it.
4) Machine must be servicable where I live (sadly, this is where ASUS failed even with their "Worldwide warranty" program.)
After ASUS G70, in a little bit rushed purchase (during vacation in US) I bought HP Envy 17 in 2011. I am not big fan of HP, but it was servicable where I live and it met criterions above. I wasn't very happy with it — it had one big annoying problem which manifested itself almost immediately and which i had to live with for very long time. The problem is cooling. Cooling system was awful — every 3 months I had to completely disassemble it to get access to the fan (40-50 screws out, including removing keyboard and taking motherboard out completely) and clean it up, replacing thermal paste in the process. After that it run smoothly for another 3-4 months.
But this laptop actually gave me another thing which I want to see in my laptop now. I really enjoyed having 4 cores with hyperthreading. I loved it while using Python to participate in GCJ (Python with 4 cores solves all GCJ problems within timelimit, guaranteed), and while going through Discrete Optimization course at coursera — it was such a fun to run 4 computationally intensive threads and still get reasonable response rate for everything else.
so:
5) 4 cores with Hyperthreading
and I also had one more change in perception of my laptop
6) If I spend proably 10-20% of my time working with my laptop, it is OK to spend sizeable amount buying it. We often spend money on experiences which are much smaller timewise. 10% of 4 years is 5 month of my lifetime. If you think that spending more money will improve the experience over 5 months interval of your life and you can spend more money — do it.
A few months ago I decided to replace HP Envy (after another cleaning and having troubles trying to buy thermal paste locally) with something new. Started searching. I limited myself to looking through Dell, HP, Apple (the only brands servicable on my island).
Applying my list of requirements to their model rows was painful — Apple was crossed out immediately (I am also Windows guy, still). HP Envy was obvious choice, but it seems that they stopped combining top video with top processors in their models — you could get one or another. Probably because of cooling issues. Dell was also hopeless. And I was quite sad at that time. I was thinking about getting myself ASUS (risking without normal warranty), but then one local firm said that they can deliver me Dell's Alienware with full warranty.
It's a little bit funny that I ended up owning top gaming laptop (I really hoped that my requirements can be met by something simpler and cheaper), but since end of March I am happy owner of Alienware 17. Probably I will even get "converted" to replacing it with the same model in a few years.
Another funny thing is that for serious competitions, annual ones, I prefer to go to work and use my desktop there. Why? Because it has two screens (I love keeping problem description on one of them and IDE on the other) and this is the only way "happy father of two" can get some silence and concentrate ;)