Custom PC Build

I built this around 2020 with my buddy Dave helping me put it together, since I didn’t really know anything at the time. It started because I wanted to do some gaming and video editing, and I was being bottlenecked by a Dell Inspiron 7000 gaming laptop. The specs: Ryzen 9 3900X, 128GB DDR4-3200 RAM, RTX 2080 Super, 2TB WD Blue SSD, ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus motherboard, EVGA SuperNOVA 750W Gold PSU, all in an NZXT H710i case.

This machine has been great. It still works fine and has served me well. But it’s five or six years old now, and the reality of custom PC building is that if you wait that long to upgrade, nothing is really reusable. If I want more GPU power for local LLMs or whatever, I need a new motherboard, then DDR5 RAM, then a new power supply, and at that point it’s basically a brand new computer. The cool part about building is that if something breaks, you can fix it. But the “modular upgrade path” kind of falls apart when you skip five years.

One mistake I made: not enough USB-C ports. The case has a front USB-C port but the motherboard doesn’t have enough headers to power it. My next build will prioritize that. At this point, I’m also looking at whether a Mac Studio or something purpose-built for AI workloads makes more sense than building again.