what Mac spec is going to be bare minimum for software development?

[iMore Question]

Howdo folks

I am a software dev, Visual Studio 2010/2012/2013 and am looking at a new lappy for work. Currently using a Sony Vaio with a 2.5Ghz i5, 6Gb RAM. The machine is coming to a couple of years old and the more I use the more I can tell.

Anyhow, I am a PC man, bought a fancy 27" iMac that looks lovely but I never got into the mountain lion OS, guess I just wasn't ready, well question is probably the eternal PCvMac one, why should I shell out a hell of cash on a MacBook instead of a PC lappy, and if I do plump for a mac, what spec is going to be bare minimum for software development? Issues with my current rig are if I have > 1xdevenv running then machine starts smelling, takes a fair while to startup now,if I am running test suite then other apps hang.....etc..etc....

Cheers

 

[anon(4698833)]

Visual Studio is not available for OSX, but can be run on Windows if you boot camp it on the machine.

The same specs on the mac would really be applicable to any computer you bought...like Karen said, a minimum of 8GB of RAM, and the highest processor your budget will allow. Running your machine's OS off an SSD will also increase performance and loading times of large software and/or projects.

 

[mikeo007]

Bare minimum spec for OSX development is going to be anything that will run Mavericks. If you're just buying a MacBook to run windows, I honestly probably wouldn't. They're the best quality laptops out there IMO, but you pay a premium for the combo of OSX, quality, specs, battery life, weight, etc.