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Computer Changes

2026-02-19

A lot has happened since November. I have a handful of devices in my house and had a major change with my work computer.

Work Computer

I had worked on an HP Z440 for almost seven years. Not bad, but the graphics card wasn’t good enough to run Windows 11 which kicked off my Linux journey.

I replaced this with a computer I built. I used ChatGPT to identify the exact components I wanted for the computer I wanted to build. I basically wanted to eliminate all weak points. I wanted a machine that I could do anything with - no restrictions.

So we worked back and forth over many days to build a list of components that would all work together and eliminate all of the concerns I had. I wanted a beast of a machine and didn’t want to buy all of this and have something not be compatible. A lot of time went into making sure and ironing this out.

What I built was:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D

Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 G2

Motherboard: MSI MAG X670E Tomahawk WiFi (AM5, DDR5, PCIe 5.0)

RAM: 64GB DDR5

GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

Storage: Samsung 990 PRO 2TB NVMe SSD X2

PSU: Corsair RM1000x

The Build

I had never built a computer before. The price tag on all of this was enough that I started to wonder if I should be doing this. I felt confident I could, but there was just enough doubt. I had used ChatGPT to pick all these components. A lot of work went into checking compatibility, but who really knows? It could have been hallucinating and telling me lies. haha. Then… What about installation. I didn’t need it telling me stuff that would destroy something.

I proceeded with extreme care and then realized how simple this actually was. ha

It didn’t take very long at all to build everything once I had it all. I was prepared for an all nighter and not long after I started I was in bios getting moved in. Major relief. I didn’t want to have to tell my wife I fried the CPU or something like that.

Moving In

I ran some benchmark stress tests to ensure things like the thermal paste was applied properly. Everything checked out. It was a flawless install. I could barely believe it.

I bought a higher end game to see what I was really working with. Absolutely amazing. No limitations. No lag. No compromise on graphics. My monitors are now the bottleneck.

For the first couple weeks I was constantly giving ChatGPT btop and NetData readings to check to see if everything was alright. If I heard the fans kick on I was nervous something was going on and hoping to fix it before anything bad happened. It has been the most uneventful few months ever as far as computer problems are concerned. This thing is a beast.