My current computer (pictured) was a mid-range laptop at the time of purchase, some three or four years ago. It’s a 9th gen i7, with 16gigs of RAM, 1TB SSD, 1660ti graphics card and a 17″ 2k screen. At home, it is connected to a 27″ 2k monitor. It was, at the time, perfect for the gaming, photo editing and surfing that are my prime use cases. I’ve been very happy with it. However, I’m now trying to game at 1440p resolution and all those pixels are stored in the tiny 6gigs of video memory on the card. This is not enough and so main RAM is used, causing stuttering.
Worse, the poor thing has started overheating. Hence the phrase “Cooling fans to takeoff power!” I have some rather nice Edifier Exclaim speakers attached to it. They are unusable when the fans are running at high speed. I mean, I mostly use a headset anyway (Steel Arctis), but it would be nice to use the speakers for a good blast when I’m alone at home, ya know?
So I have had to bite the bullet and order a desktop. The problem with putting high-end hardware in laptops is that their small size makes it very hard to cool them efficiently, causing them to either run noisily and/or thermal throttle to protect themselves from overheating, affecting performance.
Here, for my fellow geeks, is the full spec. of the rig due to be delivered this week:
i7 14700KF
RTX 4070ti Super 16 gb graphics card
B760M Aorus Elite DDR5 motherboard
CoolerMaster TD500 Mesh v.2 white case
Gigabyte 850w Gold modular power supply
2x DDR5 Kingston Fury 32gb sticks at 6000Mhz
2xKingston 2TB NVME drives
4TB HDD for data (mostly my Photos)
Extra white fan for case rear (case inexplicably comes with 3x120mm on the front only)
Glacier white 360mm AIO CPU cooler
Windows 11
I am not a fan of flashy RGB light shows *understatement alert* and so did not specify extras in that department. In fact, I am likely to leave it set at a steady pale blue (the front fans are RGB).
For backup I am researching an 8tb external HDD and software to automate the process, This is proving to be a PITA, so if any of you have suggestions, please leave a comment.
I will keep the laptop for when I’m out and about on my various travels, so it’s not being pensioned off. It will have a gentle retirement of web surfing and temporary photo storage when I’m on camera adventures.
My desk looks, I am told, like the bridge of the starship Enterprise. 27″ monitor, 17″ laptop, iPad, iPhone, headsets, externals SSD etc. Soon to be joined by the mid-tower PC. Well.. I like it! I also like (muted) lights, bings and bongs (as my wife calls them).
Update on blog posting day: the new shiny arrived unexpectedly early and is now set up. Now for the several-day slog of getting all the software installed and things just how I like them.
