SharePoint Development Server Build - Part 2, The Build

In the previous post, SharePoint Development Server Build - Part 1, I outlined all the components I was looking to get for the build of my SharePoint 2013 development machine.  This was a general list of items and aimed at getting the most power/space for the least amount of money.  Well now all the parts are in and the build is upon us.

This is a 3 part series that inlcudes:

• SharePoint Development Server Build - Part 1, The Specs
• SharePoint Development Server Build - Part 2, The Build
• SharePoint Development Server Build - Part 3, The Install

So let's take a look at what the final inventory looks like along with pricing:

• CPU - AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor FD8150FRGUBOX ($159.99)
• As before, AMD was an easy choice over Intel.  8 cores vs 4 cores and at ~$40 savings.  Plus, its 8 cores!  How awesome is that!
• I was able to get a discount on this item, its normally $189.99.
• Motherboard - ASRock 970 EXTREME3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX ($84.99)
• This was a highly rated board from NewEgg and was compatible with the FX-8150.
• RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9S-8GBXL ($24.99 x 4)
• Highly rated RAM from NewEgg, plus all G.Skill items have a lifetime warranty, big plus!
• This was purchased on sale, its normally $34.99 a stick.
• SSD - Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive) ($95.99)
• Highly rated SSD and it was on sale!
• HDD - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive ($69.99)
• I wanted a beefy HDD at the best price, this fit the bill.
• Video - EVGA 01G-P3-1312-LR GeForce 210 1GB 64-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Low Profile Video Card ($29.99)
• I wanted a basic video card as the motherboard had no on-board video.
• Power - Rosewill CAPSTONE Series CAPSTONE-450 450W Continuous @ 50°C, 80 PLUS GOLD Certified, Single +12V Rail, ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V ... ($59.99)
• This was recommended via a forum post on a builders forum.  It came highly rated, and I appreciated the advice as power supplies are not my area ;)
• Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm ... ($49.99)
• Its a case, but it has neon!
• Cables - Rosewill Model RCAB-11050 18" SATA III Red Flat Cable w/ Locking Latch, Supports 6 Gbps, 3 Gbps, and 1.5 Gbps ($3.49 x 2)
• Wanted some cool red cables to hook up the drives!

The grand total with shipping was $660.77.  I think this is a pretty good price for the specs I have.  I was lucky that I was buying during the holiday season, so NewEgg was throwing deals just about every day.  While this price is good, it could be better.  Here are some options that would easily trim the price down:

• No SSD - Take the SSD out and you're shaving ~$100 off that price tag.  In all honesty you don't need it for a dev machine, but I wanted the warm and fuzzy feeling of having a super fast boot.
• CPU - Move down to a 6 core processer and you'll save some money.  6 cores is still a lot of power.
• Motherboard/Case/Video/Power - All of these components could be less expensive.  More aggressive price shopping here could save some money as well.  My goal here was the highest rated I felt comfortable spending on.
• No Monitor - I plan on using remote desktop, so that obviously saved $$.

With the cuts above I suspect you could get this dev machine down to around the $525 mark pretty easily.  Its all about your needs and budget, but hopefully this will dispell the myth of needing to spend massive amounts of money to build a quality dev machine.

Now on to the build!  I'm not going to go through all the steps, below you'll find some pics and high level descriptions.  One thing to note is I did not get any optical drives, so no DVD/CDs here.  The motherboard supported boot from USB, so I used the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool to create a bootable USB drive from an ISO.  This tool was great!  I bought a new 8GB USB drive for $14 as this tool will format the drive in the process, so I wanted something that didn't already have any files on it.  Once I was done, I just deleted all the files and I have a new flash drive.  w00t!

Here are some pics:



Here is the empty case with the motheboard in the background.



Motherboard with CPU and heatsink installed.  This was my first build and this part made me nervous.  It took a lot of pressure to get that heatsink installed, I thought for sure the board was going to break!



Motherboard installed in the case with all the RAM installed.  At this point everything is installed and I just need to connect all the wiring.



This was the first power on.  The ASRock motherboard has a nice GUI interface.  Everything looked good!



Final product sitting at a Windows Server 2012 login screen.  From power on to login screen takes about 10 seconds!  Power of the SSD!

So that's it.  A beefy development machine for well under $700.  I hope this post shows that you can build a well spec'd out machine for relatively little money.  In my case, SharePoint and .NET are my career path so dropping that money was truly an investment in my future.  I plan on using this machine to build a SharePoint 2013 Farm, as well as several stand alone machines for various purposes.

Enjoy!