This looks more like a gaming PC.
Evaluation of competitor's products is a necessary part of any business. a casual survey indicates an i5 6600K and a GTX970 are the highest minimum specs for PC titles released so far in 2016. If the competition has that kind of hardware spec to work with, maybe I should too. This rig should meet minimum spec for 2-3, or maybe even 3-4 years.
For DirectX development all you need is a potato with the Target API of your choice.
But you still need the target platform for testing.
Some really low-end GPUs aside (Think intel hd) it's actually not a bad strategy to tune your projects to run well on systems running a *50/*40 gpu, and lower end processors.
I won't be requiring 4 cores, 4.2Ghz, or a GTX1080 in my current projects. But I will be requiring more than an AMD 1.3Ghz E300 and AMD HD6310 (what I'm using now), at least for Caveman 3.0.
If i went 2 core multi-thread with background terrain chunk and collision map generation on the second thread, sure, i could probably get it to run on a dual core @ 1.3Ghz. But 1.3Ghz is a joke these days, so why bother? its time for a new PC.
Something like half the folks on the steam hardware survey are running 4 cores at 3Ghz and a gtx900 series card or better.
I do recommend a monitor upgrade if your going with that GPU. Otherwise you can just settle on < 1060, and probably be fine at 60fps on ultra in most titles.
So i can spring for a big screen or suffer along with what i have, eh? that's what i figured.
Basically no point in putting a 425cc big block in a hot rod, and only taking it on Sunday drives to church in busy commutes.
In real life i put a 688Hp, 489 CID (8.0 liter) big block in a chevelle and drove it to 7-11 for cigarettes! <g>.
The 27" 2560s are running around $400 right now,
I hadn't really started looking at monitors yet, but i did notice prices seemed a bit lower than i expected.
What about these 3 foot wide curved screens? any good? seems like it might be a little weird to use for coding....
the only downside I can see is that at the rate prices are falling, you'll always be able to get a better deal if you wait a few months.
Tell me about it!
AMD just cut MSRP on their 460 and 470 cards.... Zen is about to come out.... there's always something better or cheaper due out in 6 months. But you have to buy sometime. I guess I'm sort of betting Zen won't outdo the i7 6700K - maybe / probably a safe bet.