Budget PC config for good speed MERN stack development and OK speed for beginner level Android dev (Intel i3-12100, Gigabyte H610M K, 16 GB DDR4 RAM)

Last updated on 1st Feb. 2025

Quick Info

Budget PC configuration of Intel Core i3-12100 processor, GIGABYTE H610M K motherboard, 16 GB (as 2 x 8 GB) Crucial DDR4 RAM, 240 GB SSD, 400 Watts SMPS (550 Watts SMPS would be safer), PC cabinet, 22 inch. monitor, keyboard and mouse seems to be good for MERN stack development and OK for, at least beginner level, Android app. development with Android emulator.

Details

Decided to put up this post as it may be useful to students (and others) who are on a tight budget but want to learn and develop MERN stack web apps and mobile apps using React Native. This post captures in short, the upgrade of my PC and testing my Next.js Gita app build & run and tiny Android app build & run using Android Studio and Android Emulator.

This post follows up on my previous post: Upgrading my AMD FX-4100 quad-core utility desktop PC to budget web app and mobile app software development PC,  https://raviswdev.blogspot.com/2025/01/upgrading-my-amd-fx-4100-quad-core.html .

Upgrade objective: Budget PC configuration for MERN stack software development on PC and also possibility to do Android app. development using React Native and Android Emulator (and so not limited to only using Expo Go or physical Android devices).

Upgrade specs:

The upgrade I had ordered (on 16/17 Jan):

1) Intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Processor, 

2) GIGABYTE H610M K Ddr4 Micro_ATX 

3) Crucial or Silicon RAM DDR4 2 x 8 GB RAM (total 16 GB)

I am reusing from my old PC:

1) 240 GB and 60 GB SATA SSDs.

2) PC cabinet

3) 400W SMPS

4) 22 inch. TFT monitor

5) Peripherals like keyboard & mouse.

The upgrade supplier is based in Bangalore. He got the upgrade components on 20th Jan. On 21st Jan, over video call he opened the sealed components, assembled them (motherboard + CPU + CPU fan + RAM) and tested it. He showed that the basic hardware was working as it displayed the BIOS screen on a monitor/display. The RAM was Crucial RAM.

On 22nd Jan, he visited my flat and installed the assembled components in my old PC and also did some servicing of my old SMPS. The upgraded PC hardware worked right away showing the BIOS screen. 

Windows 11 Pro was installed on my 240 GB SSD which was formatted in the process. Due to my 4G mobile Internet speed being low in late evening, I had to do the Windows Update later on. Windows Update took time but got done eventually. [The net speed in late evening, if I recall correctly, was an average 1 Mbps. I had not loaded the specific driver for my TP-LINK WiFi dongle and the default driver was giving lower speeds than what the mobile Internet connection was providing. I understood the issue a few days later and fixed it by installing the specific TP-LINK driver.] [A learning from this is that for large downloads using 4G Mobile Internet, it may be much better to connect the mobile to the PC using USB tethering as then the speed would (usually) be better than over WiFi dongle.]

Over next few days, I tested the PC, installed software development tools/environment and tested them.

Even before software development tools installation, around 68 GB disk space was taken up on C drive [154 GB free of 222 GB]. If I had installed Windows 11 Pro on my 60 GB disk, I would have run into major issues. If I recall correctly, Windows 11 minimum disk size requirement is 64 GB but, especially for MERN/Android app software development, I think 128 GB should be considered as minimum requirement and 240/256 GB size being comfortable.

Then moved on to software development tools/environment installation. I first downloaded latest stable versions of Node.js, VSCode and Android Studio (for Windows 64-bit). Next step was installation.

Node.js (latest version: v22.13.1) itself got installed quickly. But on Windows it required chocolatey installation along with some packages, which was much bigger size and took longer. I also tripped up on visualstudio2019-workload-vctools download as my (4G mobile Internet -> WiFi dongle) net speed was low (average 1 Mbps, if I recall correctly; at that time I had not fixed the default WiFi driver issue mentioned earlier). But retrying download and installation of it separately seems to have got done. I had the option of simply delaying the installation to a later time like after 10 to 10.30 PM or early in the morning at which time the net speeds were much better (even with default OS driver for WiFi dongle) but I felt that trying it out while the net speed is around 1 Mbps would be a good test for the PC and also I would know about whether with retries one could finish the downloads needed as part of installation on a 1 Mbps download speed net connection.

Installed VSCode, git etc. Using VSCode, opened my Next.js Gita app project having only source code, built the app and ran it. It was fast in building and running. So looks like this upgraded PC config is good for MERN stack development.

Then installation of Android Studio (Android Studio Ladybug Feature Drop | 2024.2.2) itself went through smoothly. But as a next step, it had to download SDK components some of which are very big in size (in GBs). On my 4G mobile Internet connection at late evening time (peak time), I faced lot of socket timeout errors. But Android Studio provided a retry option in a dialog (chocolatey did not provide that but simply gave info. about what could be done to fix the issue using some command variation). I used retry option many times to eventually get all SDK components installed. Retry seems to pick up from where it had previously installed but that is not clearly stated and so I am not sure. Android Emulator seems to be the biggest download of these components with size of around 1.6 GB.

Then tried out simple Android app: https://developer.android.com/codelabs/basic-android-kotlin-compose-first-app .It took 5 min 33 secs for the template to get built. Lots of stuff downloaded. 'Build & Refresh' step got over fast (perhaps 15 seconds or so). The preview greeting message, 'Hello Android' was shown in the right pane (Design view).

Android Emulator took some time to start. Once started, I could use Google Search and Chrome on the emulator at decent speed. Was able to run app (super trivial app) in emulator. The speed was acceptable. Start is somewhat slow but still acceptable. Once started, changes get reflected quickly (for this super trivial app). 

Checked out Task Manager -> Performance for Android Studio + Emulator + above tiny app running in emulator. Showed 100% CPU utilization for some seconds for steps like building app, loading emulator, and loading and running of app in emulator; showed RAM usage as 12.5/15.8 GB (79%).

Then without closing Android Studio or its running emulator (1 device), I opened my Gita app Next.js project in VSCode and ran it. It ran very quickly. RAM usage was 13.6/15.8 GB (86%).

The upgrade provider suggested: Windows Settings -> System -> About -> Advanced System Settings -> System Properties -> Advanced -> Performance ... Settings : Change from Let windows choose ... to Adjust for best performance. With 'Adjust for Best Performance' setting, the RAM usage came down to 11 GB in one case and 10.3 GB in another case with Android Studio and Android Emulator and running very tiny Android App. So it came down by 1 to 2 GB from around 12 to 13 GB RAM for same workload with 'Let Windows choose ...' setting. Note that this is for a very tiny Android app. For larger and more real-world apps, perhaps it will take more RAM. Even with 'Adjust for Best Performance' setting, for tiny Android app. we need 10 to 11 GB RAM. So I think safe bet for Android app. development work is still having 16 GB RAM.

Also Android Emulator documentation: "Run apps on the Android Emulator", https://developer.android.com/studio/run/emulator states, "For the best experience, you should use the emulator in Android Studio on a computer with at least the following specs:" .. "16 GB RAM".

So I do think that 8 GB RAM for Integrated Graphics (GIGABYTE H610M K motherboard and not using a separate Graphics card) will be too low for Android Emulator related Android app. development. I think 16 GB RAM is the safe bet though 12 GB RAM may also be OK.

Later on, I reverted to "Let Windows choose ..." instead of "Adjust for best performance", as I felt it is safer to go with defaults and anyway I have enough RAM.

30 Jan. 2025 update

I built the React Native Expo tutorial app 'Add Navigation' step (completed),  https://docs.expo.dev/tutorial/add-navigation/ on the upgraded PC a few minutes ago. After 'npx expo start' which perhaps ran faster than on old PC, when I ran the app on web and on android phone (using Expo Go), it was significantly faster in loading the app than on old PC. On old PC I had to wait quite some time for the app to get loaded either on web or on Android phone. On new PC, I had to wait just for a few seconds (though I did not measure it). That's an awesome improvement in performance. Don't know how much CPU and/or how much RAM contributed to improved performance. Task Manager shows 7.9 GB used (but this is after the app is loaded).

End 30 Jan. 2025 update

1 Feb. 2025 update

The upgraded PC enabled me to comfortably run all the chapters of the above mentioned React Native Expo tutorial on Expo Go. Later, I was able to comfortably build a development APK as well as a production APK of the completed tutorial app using Expo Application Services (EAS). Then I was able to comfortably run both the development APK and the production APK on Android Emulator.  Note that when running these APKs one is NOT using Expo Go app sandbox. Also, I successfully installed and ran these APKs on my Samsung M21 phone.

The upgraded PC performed satisfactorily without me having to wait for very long for PC related work (EAS cloud build time is not related to PC performance). Android Emulator takes some time to load which I have not measured but I think it is well under a minute. Once loaded, running apps on it is fast. Even installing the tutorial APKs was fast. While the tutorial app is quite a simple app, it has more code and functionality than a trivial 'Hello world' app. So I would say it is a simple app but not a trivial app.

This has given me confidence that, if needed, I will be able to develop small to medium complexity React Native and Expo Android apps and run the associated APKs on Android Emulator on this upgraded PC.

 

Notes about the above work can be read from 30th Jan. 2025 entries onwards in my post: Notes on React Native, https://raviswdev.blogspot.com/2024/12/notes-on-react-native.html .

end 1 Feb. 2025 update

Miscellaneous Notes

1. I installed Gigabyte App Center which installed some drivers and I chose to install its other software like System Information Viewer (SIV). SIV seems to be a useful utility app to get system data like Motherboard, Processor and RAM details, CPU fan status and also temperature info. through Hardware Monitor.
2. Windows Delivery Optimization was downloading stuff in the background. Task Manager showed Service Host: Network Service as the download hog. Expanding it showed "Delivery Optimization". Set it off through: Select Start  > Settings  > Update & security  > Advanced options > Delivery Optimization. Also changed the WiFi Internet connection to Metered. Even with above, the downloads continued! I had used Phone Link app on PC to transfer pics from my phone to PC using 'Link to Windows' app on phone. Saw in Task Manager that Phone Link and Mobile Devices were also downloading. Removed Phone Link and Mobile Devices from App startup list. That seems to have fixed the problem. Task Manager does not show Windows Delivery Optimization doing download. Ref: How to Turn Off Delivery Optimization on Windows 11, https://www.makeuseof.com/turn-off-delivery-optimization-windows-11/ .
3. Sound Recorder audio capture volume was low. How to Amplify/Boost/Increase Microphone Volume Windows 11?, https://www.minitool.com/news/amplify-boost-increase-mic-volume-windows-11.html provides useful info. I increased Microphone Boost to +20.0 dB. It had a good effect.
4. Net Speed Meter, https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9nmbx01pxz4l?hl=en-US&gl=US seems to be a good solution for showing net speed on Taskbar. The previous app. (NetSpeedMonitor) I was using on Windows 10 comp. did not work even when using compatibility options (it is an old app that needs older Windows OS compatibility setting).