My new PC
This is one of those ‘living’ posts that gets constantly updated - it turns out to be a Extremely Useful Thing when I am Googling issues or asking for help
In 2023 I replaced my old mac-mini with a desktop - despite being a computer science PhD (and a processor design one at that) I’ve been using laptops (and effective laptops like the mac-mini) since I arrived at Uni and I felt like I had little clue about which processor and so on to choose.
In the end I used PC specialist. It has a nice interface that says things like “The motherboard you choose doesn’t work with the processor you choose, are you sure?” and thus saved me lots of money and heartache (they also have a nice (and presumably profitable) feature that will recommend you upgrades and which I have since used)
My ambition is that the machine lasts 10 or more years with occasional upgrades (I suspect it will end up being passed to a child before then because I will have a 15 and an 12 year old).
The system I ended up with is this one:
| Component | Specification |
|---|---|
| Case | PCS PRISM TG BLACK ARGB MID TOWER CASE |
| Processor (CPU) | AMD Ryzen 3 4100 Quad Core CPU (3.8GHz-4.0GHz/6MB CACHE/AM4) |
| Motherboard | ASUS® TUF GAMING B550-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.2, 6Gb/s) - ARGB Ready! |
| Memory (RAM) | 8GB PCS PRO DDR4 3200MHz (1 x 8GB) 2 x 8GB from July 2023 |
| Graphics Card | 8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3050 - HDMI, DP, LHR |
| Graphics Card Support Bracket | NONE (BRACKET INCLUDED AS STANDARD ON 4070 Ti AND ABOVE) |
| 1st M.2 SSD Drive | 512GB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (3300 MB/R, 2200 MB/W) |
| 2st M.2 SSD Drive | 1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (3500 MB/R, 3200 MB/W) From July 2023 |
| DVD/BLU-RAY Drive | NOT REQUIRED |
| Power Supply | CORSAIR 550W CV SERIES™ CV-550 POWER SUPPLY |
| Power Cable | 1 x 1.5 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead) |
| Processor Cooling | STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER |
| Thermal Paste | STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING |
| Sound Card | ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD) |
| Network Card | 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT |
| Wireless Network Card | Asus (PCE-AXE5400) AXE5400 Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band PCI Express Adapter, Bluetooth 5.2, OFDMA & MU-MIMO from Jan 2025 |
| Main Monitor | TCL 43P610K 43-Inch 4K Smart TV |
To make matters more complex I, who have been using OSX for the best part of 20 years, took the opportunity to move over to Ubuntu - this was much easier than I expected - I’ve been heading in that direction for years and I’m starting to know my way around the terminal. To make matters even more complex I’m running i3 on top of ubuntu. I absolutely love it.
My vim setup can be seen in this github repo and my i3 setup can be seen in this one.
Everything is lovely and fast (I had to boot up the old machine for something recently and it was painful ) and I’m enjoying it very much.
Upgrades
My expected upgrade path is:
- A faster (and bigger) 1st SSD.
- Another monitor
…but also peripherals. At the moment I have quite a cheap setup for keyboard, mouse, and headphones.