Create: 2025-12-18, Update: 2025-12-18
August 22-25 is the Hong Kong Computer Festival, I went there yesterday to buy myself some parts to build a new computer.
The computer I was using was built in 2019, it is almost 6 years old. It got an AMD 3600 and a RTX 2060 with 16GB of RAM. It was decent, the hardware never fail, just occasionally not booting into system because I do some stupid thing with the kernel.
I was using it as a gaming desktop, however, when the covid strike, I got nothing to do at home and start learning how to code. Back then I was still a university student waiting for my placement in the hospital. (Yes, I am a health care professional.)
I began to appreciate Linux. Converting to Linux was not that difficult with my previous macos experience.
I installed my Linux on hardware since 2021. The first Linux I used was Arch. I quickly hop to Artix because the unsatisfied experience with systemd. And I was doing dual boot most of the time.
Using Arch with my old computer was completely fine. But as more and more softwares I needed to installed from the AUR and compile from source. AUR is a pain in the ass when configuring. I was interested in Gentoo since then.
I hop from Artix to Gentoo in 2024. Gentoo is so much more stable. But with the price of compiling everything yourself. Gentoo recently introduced binary packages, which sort of alleviated the problem of some ridiculous package like chromium.
I always have the feeling that using binary is not true Gentoo. Or at least we don't get to realize the full potential of Gentoo in this way.
I selected and bought all the parts on my own. There were a few criteria.
The top CPU
AMD gpu
64GB RAM
I want the best CPU with a reasonable price. A threadripper is to expensive for me. So I settled with a 9950x3d.
I want an AMD gpu because I no longer want to deal with the proprietary nvidia drivers. I got an AMD GPU of whatever brand with the most ram while being the cheapest.
For ram, I don't like RGB. I prefer my system to be completely dark. So I got a pair of Corsair VENGEANCE 32GB x 2.
I wanted to get a noctua CPU cooler, but seems that it is not common in Hong Kong. So I have to get an AIO cooler from ASUS which is on sale that day.
The rest is just a ASUS X870-P and an ASUS 850W PSU.
I didn't realized how many Asus parts were in my list until I checkout and paid.
Apart from Gentoo updates, I barely notice any difference in my daily usage.
The fan noise of the computer is like rocket engine in my little bedroom.
And I no longer need to occasionally fix Nvidia driver issues.