On Wed, Mar 2, 2022 at 12:40 PM Philip Webb <[email protected]> wrote: > > After > 6 years , I'm planning to build a new machine ANB6. > The present machine ANB5 -- details at end -- continues to perform well, > but I can't rely on that for ever. > > I use it for everyday desktop work + fun. > The weekly Gentoo update is the main stressor, for which ANB5 is adequate, > but it's always nice to get a bit more speed & avoid too much heat-up. > > I expect to buy the parts from the local store > -- Canada Computers in Downtown Toronto -- & prices below are in CAD. > I'm price-sensitive, but willing to pay a bit more for a better part. > Here's the list + a few comments ; '*' denotes presently prefered item : <SNIP>
You've gotten some great answers/responses so far. I've just been through (and am still sort of sorting through) the same situation. My main machine was an i7 980 Extreme processor I built back in about 2013. I ran Gentoo on it until about 3-4 years ago when 2 things happened: 1) I was just spending too much time building code 2) Gentoo as a distribution went through a period when it seemed for me that I could no longer just run a stable version and get apps to work At that time I switched to Kubuntu which out of the box supported two commercial apps I run all the time - PixInsight and Mixbus. However about 2-3 years ago Google changed the processor requirements for tensorflow and I could no longer run that so finally about a month ago I built a new Ryzen 5950X liquid-cooled machine. Jobs that took 6 hours on the old machine are now done in under 10 minutes. It's a whole new world. A few things for you to consider: 1) Do you really need/want all your storage in this machine. Wol encouraged me a few months ago to look at using an old machine as a backup server. I settled on TrueNAS Core which runs great on a 4 core/8 core type machine. I built 2 of them, the first as a 24/7 file server and a second to back up the first. 2) The new machine, based on an Asus x57u0 motherboard, has 2 M.2 slots. I put 1TB M.2 SSDs in them. One has Windows and at this time the other has Kubuntu 21.10. 3) I also got a PCI Express card for a 3rd M.2 which has 128GB in it just for playing around. It's slower than the two on the MB. Cost was about $35 for the card and the M.2 In my case I seldom need all my data on my desktop machine. I do astrophotography which generates a few GB of data every night but the Raspberry Pi streams that onto the file server as pictures come out of the camera. In the morning I grab a copy over Gigabit, process locally, keep the result and delete the local copy. Same sort of story with Mixbus - studio level audio recording based on Ardour. I seldom work on more than 1 or 2 songs at a time so I don't need the 100 or so songs in my library to be local. If you go the M.2 direction - which you really want for speed - then remember they are installed with heat conducting tape and I suspect won't be easy to change a few years down the road. I currently have no traditional disks or SSD's in this machine. The machine isn't silent, but it's very, very quiet with an AIO (All-In-One) liquid cooler for the processor. I went overboard on the GPU getting a 3080 ti which is a dream for tensorflow and will, if I ever use Windows, be fun for gaming. However you could buy a used Honda for less than I paid for this card. I'm currently considering coming back to Gentoo but monitoring this list the number of maintenance problems people have scares me. Not sure I have the stomach for that anymore. Best wishes for your new build. I'm sure you'll love it when you make the move. Cheers, Mark
