Brand new build

[Bigguy]

So, my last computer was not doin so well, lol. I had a bit of money burnin a hole in my pocket so I built one. Here are the specs:

AMD Ryzen 5 5500 (6 cores, 12 threads)
MSI B550 gaming Gen 3 motherboard
nVidia Geforce GTX 1060 6gb video card.
Ram 16 gb ddr4
Samsung SSD 980 nvme  1TB drive.
WD HDD: 1.4 tb (Free and old)
DVD Burner (Free)
New (old) case: bought for 40 bucks. Notice the wire comin out the bottom....thats the power switch, lol.
Gaming chair(Used):40 bucks

Prices:

CPU: 140.00
MoBo: 165.00
Ram: 60.00
GPU: 60.00
Case: 40.00
SSD: 160.00

[Skhilled]

Nice! I'm so jealous! I want to build a new one but might have to wait until I get my tax refund. LOL

[Bigguy]

I got a few more things to do but it's runnin good right now.

[Neša]

Nice, dust shields are a pain to clean.
How do you like the performance upgrade? I went from a i7 2600k to a Ryzen 5 3600 I noticed a massive improvement in compiling software under Gentoo 

[Bigguy]

Nice, dust shields are a pain to clean.

Yeah, I'm not gonna like that to much, lol.

How do you like the performance upgrade?

For gaming it's real nice. I find the desktop to be not much faster than before but I can see and like the more power I have now for sure. In games I went from 10fps to sometimes 200 fps and everywhere in between, lol.

[Bigguy]

Oh, btw, I got a new video card. I found it on FB market place. Now I am runnin a nVidia Geforce GTX 1060 6gb video card. it cost me 60 bucks, so that was a good deal for sure...I think.

[Bigguy]

Here is a bit of an update. The other day I went out and bought a Samsung SSD 980 nvme  1TB drive. You wanna talk performance boost, lmao, omg. I go to turn it on and reach for my coffee and it's already booted up fully, lol. She's fast now boys, lol. All total, the entire build with used case and gaming chair was right around 600 bucks. Most of the parts came from amazon as we have very few computer stores in my town.

[Skhilled]

I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready! LOL

I'm about to do the same but can't decide if I want to build it myself or buy a pre-built or get a laptop (my last choice). A laptop is portable but I wouldn't want to have to get external drives for backups. With a tower I can always add additional drives inside the case. Choices, choices... LOL

[Bigguy]

Personally, I would build it myself. Even when I am using old computer parts I find it more satisfying than takin plastic wrap off somethin someone else had their hands on. I am however guilty of buying pre-built ones when they are cheap enough and over and above what I am using. I love building computers and this has been my first real build using new parts in a long time. It felt nice.

[Bigguy]

First post updated

[Skhilled]

I feel the same way although I haven't actually bought a pre-built in about 20-25 years. But with my time making themes, running the hosting (now that Les is gone) as well as my regular job with me running around all day lifting heavy things AND my cooking. I may settle for picking the parts and paying them to build it. At least, I'd know if something goes wrong they'll replace or fix it...not that I expect that to happen. LOL

I've always got my parts from Micro Center which isn't too far from me...about a 30 min drive.

https://microcenter.com

That place is amazing! They have everything! They even have separate rooms for most things like a separate one for monitors, software, etc. I've been going there for over 30 years. When I first went there it was to replace a faulty floppy drive. And, their workers know their stuff!

[Bigguy]

Sounds like your are a real busy guy for sure. In that instance I would probably do like you and pick the parts and have them build it. I was just on that site you posted and they have SSD's for a lot less than what I bought mine for. looks like the prices are good. 

Lol, I actually though about trying to put a floppy in this one....I actually still have some here. Dos and windows 3.1 for sure....and a bunch of games, lol. 

[Skhilled]

My too! I still have floppies in my attic with DOS 3, early Windows versions, MS Office separate software before there was an Office and a ton of old shareware games. LMAO

About 2 years ago I saw that you could buy floppy drives on eBay...

[Skhilled]

eBay has 5.25 and 3.5 drives:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=floppy+drive+5.25&_sacat=0

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=floppy+drive+3.5&_sacat=0&_odkw=floppy+drive+5.25&_osacat=0

I have both types of disks sitting in my attic for over 30 years.

[Bigguy]

Ahh, the good ole days, lol. I'd like to get an external floppy, that would be cool. So here is a price list of what I bought, Brand new and used:

CPU: 140.00
MoBo: 165.00
Ram: 60.00
GPU: 60.00
Case: 40.00
Chair: 40.00
Headset: 20.00
SSD: 160.00

Total: Around 685.00 Real nice build as far as I am concerned,


EDIT: I don't have the 5.25's sittin around anymore. I wish I did actually. I might have a 3.5 around.... but now that I think about it I doubt it, lol. Those drives might be worth money one day, lol.

[Skhilled]

I'm don't want to spend too much money on it but have always got what I need while looking to the future to see what's coming down the road. In this way, I am always able to upgrade at a later date and will hopefully keep it running a lot longer. My current one is 6-8 years old and still running great!    It's just that good things won't last forever. 

[Bigguy]

I've had computers I have built that last about that long. (4-5 years) I was heavily into building for a long time. I wish I never got out of it tbh. It did feel nice buildin this one though.

[Dave]

A fair few years ago now I bought an all singing all dancing PC from  our local Aldi store after getting it home I found that I couldn't install my Imation 120MB floppy drive into it. So I went straight down to my local computer store and bought a new tower and within 1 hour of buying the new PC I had stripped it and had it in bits on the table and started installing the motherboard etc into the new tower.

I was then able to add the 120MB drive into it and was off.

I, like both of you, have always been fascinated with the tech and used to mess around adding bits here and there.

My present set up, bought in 2021 is:

Device        Dell XPS 8940
Processor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz  2.90 GHz
Installed RAM    32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Edition    Windows 11 Pro
Version    23H2

All in the tower
NVMe CT1000P5SSD8 1TB
Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB
Samsung SSD 870 QVO 2TB

I also have 4 Synology NAS drives

1 to store all my music (using 2 x Samsung 4TB SSD drives not on RAID) my website is backed up daily via Webdav on this drive
1 to store photos and all other personal stuff ( 2 x Seagate 4TB platter drives on RAID = 4TB)
1 to act as backup for the music drive (2 x Toshiba 6TB platter drives on RAID = 6TB)
1 to store all my wife's photography photos (she has he own business) ( 2 x Seagate 2TB platters on RAID)

In case you're wondering my music collection is more than 2.67TB and it's growing all the time.

The reason for the drives in the tower is because every now and then, I try to remember to do it monthly, I clone my current 'C' drive onto the 'Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB' then if for any reason the current drive fails all I have to do is swap the drives over and all I've lost is 1 month of stuff.

I'm a great believer in backups 

[Bigguy]

That's a pretty nice system. I was running a DELL before this. They're not a bad system really. As for backups.....I should do more of them. I don't know why I stopped. I used to do them all the time but for some reason along the line I just stopped.....weird, lol.