I am a BIG tech stack weirdo, I enjoy having hardware tech as much
as I love software stack. But with that said, I’m not really that into
the newest hardware. As long as it works for my needs, I will use it;
brand new or used, low spec or not.
Currently, I ran a 3 PC setup which are tasked to do different things
in my whole home lab ecosystem.
PC #1 (aka SiliconTor)
Dell Optiplex 3020, i7-4790, 16GB, GT730
HP w1907, RCA TV, Generic Mic, Webcam, Mechanical Keyboard, Mouse, Speaker.
Win10 Pro,
This was a gift from my sister for my birthday 2 years ago. From a list
she provided, I told her to get me a Dell Optiplex 3020 Small Form Factor
PC. Around this time, this PC was really hot for PC builders who were
looking at cost effective budget builds.
Of course that is right in my lane.
First, I don’t actually use PCs’ to “game” – I do enjoy it and I have a
ton of them but overall, I like the ability to be able to play (albeit
somewhat in a lower setting format to get the performance I need) but for
the most part, I use my PC for various tech shenanigans mostly so I don’t
require an OP build, just fragile enough to do the things I want (compile
some programs, reverse engineer some programs, encode videos’, screen
recording and write various word vomit on certain topics)
PC #2 (aka MAINFRAME)
Phillips Monitor. ASUS M4A78L-M, AMD Athlon(tm) II X4 635, 8GB, GT710
KVM Controller. Generic Speaker. Steinberg UR-22, Win10 Pro
Currently my second PC but this was actually the first PC I bought and
created by myself. I handpicked every piece of hardware for META low
spec’ness lol. I actually just upgraded some of the core parts recently;
better processor, better GPU, more RAM and added more utility slots for
better QOL.
I mainly use this as a file server, media server and I ran various passive
projects on it if needed like machine learning shenanigans, running various
gaming servers or forex price tracker with an EA working in the background.
Eventually, I will use it for recording music and or as a streaming PC.
PC #3 (aka zupercb-HP113M)
HP 3115m, AMD E-300, 5GB. ArcoLinuxS
I tried to upgrade the RAM speed for SiliconTor but I think it’s not possible
to do it in a price range I want. I might get more monitors since one of them
is kinda damaged but I haven’t really decided. I might end up getting once of
those PC mini bluetooth keyboard as currently, I am controlling both PC’s with
the same keyboard and mouse with a KVM.
Overall, I will end up keeping this setup for a while as I have no aspirations
to change them unless I completely change the way I am thinking about doing
something that will force me to change my setup which is to probably get an OP
PC setup then relegate the other computers down the line.