Post Your Computer Build

If someone can confirm: is it only me, or are GPU prices dropping right now?

 

Certain cards are trending slightly lower. HERE is a good place to check price trends per card.

 

Alrighty, I'm back home and have upgraded the GPU and RAM on my main rig:
R9 5900X + GB X570 Aorus Xtreme + 2x 16GB DDR4 3600MHz + XFX MERC 310 RX 7900XTX

While I was upgrading, I'd also gotten 2x 2TB NVMe M,2 2280 PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs. The Lunkup riser cable, though expensive, is worth every penny, no BSOD or WHEA error, runs the RX 7900XTX at PCIe 4.0 with SAM (Resize Bar) enabled.

And my 2nd rig is partially done, still have some tidying up to do, will post a pic or two completed rig when done
R9 3900X + GB X570S Aorus Elite AX + 2x 16GB DDR4 4000Mhz + Sapphire Nitro+ RX 6900XT

I've also added a 500GB NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen2 x4 drive for OS, and a 2TB Teamgroup NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen3x4 for games, including a 4TB Leven JS600 SATA SSD for games as well.

Oh yeah, OT, but while I was at it, changed the cables on my cans for shorter and more manageable ones which I'd gotten from Aliexpress. Also got a new pair of earpads for my Grado GS 1000i too.

 

I’ve always built my PC’s for years but last year for a few specific reasons I sunk my money into a gaming laptop instead.
It’s an Asus RoG Strix 14” with Ryzen 9 5900X and GTX 3060. We’ve been pretty happy with it for our gaming and usage. Since I bought it I upgraded to 32GB of RAM, added a Glorious Gaming customizable mechanical keyboard, a Logitech G Pro mouse and yesterday I added the Dark Matter 27” 240hz gaming monitor that I got at Monoprice for $104 (!). This monitor deal just blows my mind for the price after gaming on it for a couple of hours. What an incredible deal. Anyway, laptops are not interesting to look at but here’s a casual snapshot of my setup with a candy wrapper and some monitor trash. Now I need a bigger desk.

if anyone is ever looking for a great monitor cheap then I highly recommend this one. I wanted 1080p for maximum framerate and was worried about big pixels but psshh.. it looks fantastic and plays great with 240hz and 1ms response.

 

I have five computers at home! Three desktop systems, all running Windows 11: 1 desktop system for myself, 1 for wife, 1 for the hifi system. 2 laptops, one for me, one for my wife. These pictures are of the silent, fanless PC that I built for the audio system. These are old pics, the internals have all since been upgraded.



The case is a Streacom FC10 with the optional CD slot.



The card you see on the left of the PC is a RME HDSPE-AES32 professional sound card. It can output 32 channels of digital. It is mounted on a PCI-E riser. You may have noticed there is no PSU. I am using a LPSU (not pictured). I am using onboard motherboard graphics with no graphics card, because I don't play games.



The CPU is an Intel i9-9900. The heatpipes are bolted on to the side of the case, and the entire case is a passive heatsink. I get CPU temperatures of 50C (idle) and 60C (under load). As you can see: no fans at all. The PC is dead silent.



These are the LPSU's.



The monitor is a 22" touch screen mounted on an Atdec arm. From certain angles it looks like the monitor is floating on thin air. I can reach the monitor from the listening position and control music playback directly from the touchscreen, or I can use my tablet. The keyboard is a wireless Logitech K830 with its own trackpad and has dedicated media buttons. Pity they don't make this any more.

Why do I need such a powerful computer to play music? Because the crossover is generated in the PC. I bypassed the passive crossover in my speakers, and I bought an 8 channel DAC as well as 8 channels of amplification. The crossover is created in the PC, which sends 8 channels of digital to the DAC. The advantage is that I can also apply driver correction, time alignment, room correction, and upsample everything to DSD. All these require a lot of grunt. When I first built the PC in 2016, it had an i7-6700 in it which could not keep up with the load. The new CPU can.