Show your battlestations

Cozy looking corner you got there!

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Love it !

I just hang out in the clip launcher
playing loops until I trip out… :cowboy_hat_face:

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That is an OLD, cheap corner desk. What you can’t see if I’ve actually got a powered USB 2.0 hub on the right side mounted to it, and the USB-C dock is mounted on the left. So maximizing the limited area as much as possible.

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Age and price don’t matter to me as long as it’s functional…
Nearly al of my furniture comes from thrift stores.
If I buy something new, it’s cheap Ikea stuff.

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I also buy old, used furniture, and sometimes restore it myself. Very often, old furniture is better than new. It’s typically more durable and sturdier. If it is old, there is a reason why it survived for so long.

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H*ll, I love this forum!

It starts with macho “Battle Stations”, and ends with cats pictures and interior decoration. :wink: :slight_smile: :upside_down_face: :joy:

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I got IKEA bookshelves from the 50’s and that was and is panzer wagon sturdy. That is a perk I suspect you can’t get for the cheap if your not Swedish, and have the ability to enjoy the benefit of people not having book shelves any longer.

A friend did a kind of same thing when synthesizers actually produced good piano sounds, and bought a grand piano (really good one (Bösendorfer) for 50 US, if he picked it up)*.

The same went for turn tables when CD’s came… for a while.


  • I was so close to buying it instead, but it would have involved hoisting it up by a crane, nocking a wall out, and me sleeping under the piano, so no go. :wink:
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2020-10-09 14.14.56

A bit staged, obviously, as I don’t typically have all three machines running. That’s manjaro-i3 on the desktop, manjaro-gnome on the little tablet-notebook, and endeavourOS on the bigger laptop. When I have time over the holidays/between semesters I’m planning some hardware upgrades to the aging desktop (maxing out the RAM and adding an SSD) and replacing manjaro-i3 with endeavourOS + herbstluftwm, and some similar upgrades for the big laptop, which is relatively ancient. If I’m feeling particularly ambitious/well-funded then I may convert the current desktop into a server and buy a new (by which I mean refurbished) one to use as my daily driver.

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I really appreciate your desk - it has a certain familiarity to it! It hasn’t been as extensively modified as mine, but appears to have been identical to begin with…

What is this ‘refurbished’? Wouldn’t a build-it-yourself item be more in line with your needs/wants - and probably cheaper? I have always found that prices on tech have some very nice drops when newer things are introduced :grin:

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Wow, yeah, just scrolled up to find your pic, and it does look like the same desk. I got mine from a friend whose wife finally made him surrender it, but he had it for many years before that. I love it. Havent’ modded it much except that I had to take out the right top drawer to clamp the monitor arm, which left me with a great little cubby where the drawer used to be that’s where the laptops live when I’m not using them.

I’d love to build my own machine. It’s really just a matter of finding the time to learn how to do it. I doubt I’d be able to swing it just over the xmas break, and my dept. chair will have my head if I don’t get my book out soon, so I can’t dedicate next summer to it like I’d like to! As for cheaper, is it really?

Spec for spec, especially when you don’t require a Windows license, it is a bit cheaper when building current systems. If you’re buying a little older vs. building a little older, I’m not so certain.

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My experience has been that you can accumulate the pieces over a span of time, and by keeping an eye out for sales on what you actually want - do pretty well. Another bonus is that ONLY what you want goes into the build, where buying pre-built usually means they ‘added features’ of purely marketing worth (flashy doors on the case, unneeded RGB, lit-up logos) and skimped on a basic for price reasons. I’d have to know the hoped-for performance range to give examples - but I’ve put some real ‘cheapies’ together that have given good service (12+ years…)

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I enjoy long-term projects, so I like the idea of doing it over a span of time. Is there a particular guide or website you’d recommend on learning how to do it?

As far as the actual assembly, most of the time nowadays things are color coded. So the blue cable goes into the blue connector, and you literally can’t get it wrong. Not for EVERYTHING, but for the vast majority anymore.
As far as choosing parts, there’s https://pcpartpicker.com to help you make some choices and give you ideas of new costs, it’s useful to get an idea of relative cost of items.

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So, because I love looking at new systems, I put together a pcpartpicker system at the value level just to show how I use it. This is a nice quad-core/octo-thread Ryzen system, w/ 32GB ram and a 1TB SSD (although for SSD, I chose one the same price as what I’d use, because they don’t have the one I’d use in their DB) and a cool running, low power GPU that works wonderfully with Linux, and gave it plenty of power with good efficiency. Inexpensive (for a system w/ 32GB ram and a 1TB NVMe SSD), but pretty good parts (also note it’d be about $150 more expensive than listed as they don’t have prices for the 3300x which should be $120, but have been running a bit high).

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/c3nTW3

CPU: AMD Ryzen 3 3300X 3.8 GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($94.99 @ B&H)
Memory: OLOy 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon RX 550 - 512 4 GB PULSE Video Card ($88.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cougar MX330-X ATX Mid Tower Case ($41.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec NeoECO Classic 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $479.94

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Nice examples - but I might go for a G-model Ryzen - with graphics built in - maybe a Ryzen 5 3400G? Save the $ for the video card - and get a little more performance too… Almost unlimited possibilities out there - and the numerous YouTube videos and other posts about building today’s systems - and nearly everything is labeled and/or colour coded these days. It could be done in less than an hour, but take 2 or 3 :grin:

Yeah, the only issue is if you want some forward upgradability you can’t use existing APU’s in a B550 build (zen2 and newer only, no Zen or Zen+ compatibility), you’d have to go to a B450 build, and then while you could upgrade to a 4000 series APU (if they’re ever released retail) or a 5000 series CPU/APU (if the APU’s are eventually released), that’s it. That’s as far as the upgrades go. B550 AMD has promised will be upgradable for longer as it’s their current chipset. That’s actually the predicament I’m in, I have to consider upgading to a B550 if I don’t want to buy a 5000 series but DO want to upgrade my processor eventually. Of course, compared to Intel this is a good problem to have, since Intel uses a new chipset every single time they release a new generation of processors.

Hadn’t noticed that limitation on B550s - I went straight from a B450 build (Ryzen 5 2400G) to a X570 build (Ryzen 7 3700x) - and X570s can handle the earlier processors too. I guess it comes down (as usual) to the $$ now vs upgrades later decision!

I’ve been building systems for at least 25 years - but not often enough to satisfy the itch, as they tend to remain viable for FAR too long! (despite staying a generation behind) :grin:

Similar. My current build (B450) was the first PC I built in like 12 years. I built it a bit before B550 came out, and X570 was simply TOOOOOOOOOOO expensive, not paying $200+ for a motherboard when there’s no reason since it’s not like they have northbridge and southbridge anymore!!! Which coincidentally also happens to be my issue with building Intel, since their motherboards generally START at $200.

They DO have gen4 nvme support, though! B550’s weren’t out yet then either… Mostly I told myself I was saving money not getting a Threadripper, and I actually bought that as an excuse :grin: Added a Corsair MP600 (1 TTb) and am still smiling…