The last time I built a PC was before the pandemic, in upstate, before we moved down to Long Island. Before that it was way back in England before we moved to America. The last PC I built I couldn’t decide how much I would use it, and so I stayed fairly mid-range too, whereas this time I had more of a sense that I would make a lot of use of the machine.
I was a little more purposeful this time in choosing components. The prices of graphics cards seem a little out of control, and I knew I didn’t need something that was totally at the top of the line. I was targeting open source software development and some games but only really at 1440p (skipping the whole 4k thing for now). I game a fair bit on PS5 too and find my curved 1440p monitor to be ideal for me.
One thing I researched a fair bit was parts that were not filled with LEDs! I know, I probably sacrificed thousands of frames per second, but if you look at that photo it is really only the graphics card that has anything lit up. On the other side of it I got a case designed for airflow and I filled it with big fans. I also got a closed loop AIO water cooler for the CPU, I doubt I really need it but I wanted to play with one.
All in all I was happy with the look, and it came in at mid-to-high end and when I stress the system the thermals look great even when maxing out all of the cores or GPU. It is pretty quiet, and it has the overall black aesthetic I appreciate in my possessions! My son gets the old PC to play with and I can now turn up pretty much everything to max in games at 1440p.
I do have the pain of setting things up again, but I have always liked the periodic cleanse and then only setting up what I need. Dual boot Arch Linux with Windows for games and occasional needs of proprietary crap. I still don’t understand how people use Windows as a serious operating system, it seems to get lamer with each release but we all know that Linux never quite went mainstream. I don’t think I am all that mainstream though…