Cav's Place

Nine and a half years after getting this computer, I finally got a new one! Then again, I had purchased the first internal component, the PSU, back in April, planning to put it in this computer first but delaying all this time, so it had been sitting on the floor ever since. But then I made use of the recent sales to buy the other components, so the CPU and NVMe SSD were delivered Tuesday and the following day the RAM and motherboard were ready to be picked up, so I did that. But I only got myself to put them together and do a first test today, with the motherboard and PSU on the floor and the old computer next to them, so I could connect its power, reset and disk activity connectors to the motherboard.

The new components are:
Motherboard: ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS
CPU: AMD Ryzen 8700G (planning to use the 45W cTDP setting)
RAM: Kingston FURY Beast 64GB DDR5 (2×32 GB, 5200MT/s, 36-40-40 latency)
NVMe SSD: Samsung 990 PRO with Heatsink 1 TB
PSU: Seasonic PRIME TX-650
And what I’ll be keeping from this computer, assuming that there won’t be compatibility problems, is:
SATA SSD: Samsung 860 EVO 250 GB
DVD drive: Sony Optiarc AD-7261S DVD-RW (silver)
TV tuner: Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-5525
Case: Cougar Volant White (including its 120 mm fan)
Case fans: Noctua NF-P12 PWM and Noctua NF-P12
And I’m also looking into adding 4 TB of additional storage, probably in the form of a second NVMe SSD, Kingston NV2 4 TB, but I’m still thinking it over.

So this also marks the moment when I did something that I was thinking, and saying, that I’ll never do, which is switch to AMD, since I want proper performance on all cores and better integrated graphics, because I don’t see myself as ever getting a dedicated graphics card again. But what may be even more notable is that I’ll be making another attempt at using Linux, so I put Linux Mint 22 Xfce on an USB stick and, after poking through the BIOS a little, I used that for the first attempt to actually boot the computer, just to see that it loaded.
Now, I also ordered two cheap Windows 10 Professional keys, since dad said that at that price he’d want one as well instead of “pirating” it if he’ll find himself forced to switch as well, but while they were supposed to be delivered yesterday, the delivery company seems to be moving them back and forth and processing them multiple times, the new estimated delivery date being Tuesday, so it remains to be seen what will happen with that, and whether they’ll even work, or for how long, seeing as they’re purchased from a reseller. That reseller seems to be regarded quite well and the purchase was made through the largest on-line store from here, and listed as being delivered by them, not directly by the seller, but on the seller’s site it’s stated that electronic keys should be activated right away, preferably within five days, to avoid potential problems. Then again, I initially ordered an installation kit from the same store that I bought this old computer, and the PSU for the new one, from, but when I realized that it was also produced by some third party and saw this much cheaper option, I gave up on that, though I still have until Monday to go and pick it up if I’ll change my mind before the order will get canceled. And, assuming that Windows 10 keys will still be available, they may get even cheaper as the end of support approaches. But, even though the main problem, the forced updates and the changes brought by them, is largely left behind now that it won’t be receiving feature updates anymore and will be completely left behind less than a year from now, when it’ll reach end of support, I still don’t want to be using any Windows past 7 if I can help it, so I’ll say again that I mean to give Linux a serious chance, with Windows 10 being there if needed… The problem being that, if it will be there, I’ll be tempted to try to make it work when I’ll have problems with Linux. But I guess I’ll see what happens in time.