I know no one asked, but I love to talk about technology and what I’ve got. This is not meant as a definitive “you should get these things” list, but I mean… it couldn’t hurt, right? ;)

Hardware

Desktop

  • CPU: Ryzen 9 5950x
  • Motherboard: MSI X570S Carbon MAX WiFi
  • RAM: 64GB of G.Skill Trident Z @ 3600 MHz
  • GPU: PowerColor Red Devil RX 6900XT
  • PSU: 1000W EVGA Gold

This is my daily driver system that’s meant for all of my gaming and programming needs. You may notice that these parts are all AMD, where is the Intel and NVIDIA stuff? Well, I deliberately made the choice to avoid NVIDIA because:

  1. Their drivers have historically not worked well with Linux and that’s a non-negotiable for me. (I have heard that the drivers are open source now, so who knows what the future holds…)
  2. Their graphics cards were $200-$300 more expensive than their AMD counterparts when I was building this system (even more expensive now!!!) and I didn’t feel that the upcharge was worth it (I don’t care about ray-tracing).

And I avoided Intel mainly because AMD was just cheaper at the time I was building this system, but I don’t have any particular loyalty to either-or. Both of their chips work perfectly fine on Linux as far as I’m aware.

I run Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC out of necessity and because I have an ISO with a license, but my daily driver operating system is Fedora Linux, which has been serving me well. Windows is only present to handle situations that Fedora can’t (games with invasive anti-cheat and proprietary drivers). When Windows 10 LTSC goes EOL, I am probably jumping ship to Linux full time (finally).

Laptop(s)

  • Model: Framework 16
  • CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
  • RAM: 32GB of Corsair DDR5 @ 5600 MHz
  • GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7700S

Aah, the Framework 16. Probably the best laptop I have ever used (and will hopefully use for the next several years). This laptop has done basically everything I’ve asked of it and it still gives me some wiggle room. If the time ever comes that this isn’t enough, most things in this laptop are fully replaceable, so as long as Framework is still around when I need to upgrade this, I’ll be set for a long long while.

I only run Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC on this laptop, however, because I only have one 2TB drive in it at the moment. If I buy another one, I’ll do the same dual boot setup that I’ve done with my main desktop.

This laptop has been my main workhorse when I’m out travelling or just don’t want to leave my bed that day. I have no complaints really, it does everything I want and more.

Recently, I’ve also purchased an M4 MacBook Pro to experiment and write software for MacOS. This is a long story, that definitely deserves a blog post (which may or may not be coming soon 👀).