#after those three i'd only be pulling for vertical investment

[leam1983]

Anticipation

Welp, the last nail's been set. My cooler's ordered, so's my case. I have everything else. Now all I need is time, and an extra pair of hands. Thankfully, I've got two of those.

An able-bodied PC builder and Network Admin wouldn't really need to make an event out of turning Thermaltake's latest open-air mid-size ATX case into a bleeding-edge gaming and video editing rig, but my prerogative is that I get to wait for one of Sarah's off days to order a couple pizzas. One of the pairs of hands won't be Walt's, my unpacking some of our calling centre's miniPCs in front of him frightened that bit of him that's eco-conscious. As yes, playing around with computer hardware is probably the least carbon-neutral hobby you could hope to have - especially if you're in one of those corners of North America's East Coast where FreeGeek or its equivalents just don't exist...

Now, the flip-side of all this is parental disapproval. You'll remind me I'm forty, a tax-paying adult whose only remaining ties to his progenitors are affective and genetic, and someone who now makes enough in two weeks to cover for everything, but the fact is that no amount of prior investment in three different share and bond portfolios is enough to assuage the Motherly Unit's impression that I've just burned a fat chunk of change. Nevermind how it doesn't concern her, she's long-since aced the ages-old martial art of Saying and Doing Nothing, but Doing These Two Things in Exceedingly Angry Fashion. Ever since she figured out the total cost for my parts list, she's been distant, self-effaced and physically closed-off. Dad took it in stride - he knows what I know, monetarily - but this is coming three years after my last build.

To be honest, I'm also worried, but for different reasons. It used to be builds I put together could last me ten years or more. Within eighteen months of my current setup, I'd noticed weird hitches and frequent FPS drops in the oddest of places. For all the tests I carried out, I came to the conclusion that Windows' provided backend is thicker than ever - even with debloat scripts used. The problem is you sort of need Windows to take advantage of something like an RTX 4090's full potential, as we're nowhere near native ray tracing on Linux. My workflow in DaVinci Resolve was chugging along - at 32 GBs, and I've never needed to render things in 4K - even if my 109000K's twenty cores were still more than serviceable.

I'm putting it down on a mixture of Windows bloat and bad silicon lottery, but three years with an enthusiast-level build is not long enough by my standards. This one needs to last me ten years or more - or bust - as I can't morally justify this kind of expense, even if I can afford it.

As it is, we're looking at a Rocket Lake i9 11900K with 64 GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR4 RAM, two 2TB Sabrent Rocket 4 NVME SSDs and my laptop's old no-name 1TB NVME as a third drive. It's video signal provider will be ZOTAC's RTX 4090 Trinity, all of it powered by a Corsair RM1000x PSU. Seeing as I've gone with one of Thermaltake's P-something-or-other Pro cases and that the resulting finish is quite test bench-like, I'll only be using the Corsair H150i Elite's three fans as the system's onboard cooling. The GPU's going to have free range of the open air around my desk, and the case includes what's needed to go for a vertical mount on the card. The resulting finish should be quite snazzy...

Now all that's left is my wrangling the niggling sense of guilt that hangs around for a few days after I pull a stunt like this. My inner Fun Police is particularly tenacious, my Internal Gestapo being ready and willing to prowl my brain's crevices for any trace of enjoyment. I wouldn't call myself excessively scrupulous and I never insistently project disapproval onto a convenient moral avatar - but it has happened in the past.

To some go the oddly fun mental projections of Cistercian monks admonishing them for their self-affirmation (see @scrupulosity-comics for more) mine's always taken the shape of a cigar-chomping mafioso cartoon weasel; effectively a forgotten member of Who Framed Roger Rabbit's Toon Patrol, more or less Don Vito Corleone with an elongated snout and a thing for permanent sunglasses. Don Weasel Biggs, head of the Biggs Cartel in my homebrew RPG setting, is money-wise, abrasive, rude, well-meaning, brutish and occasionally as kind as a caress dealt with fine-grit sandpaper - and he never fails to comment on how much of a maroon I am, when it comes to spending cash...

I guess I have an inner Scrooge, too - the suggested default would involve throwing every single cent from every single paycheck into something other than a bigger rent check split in threes...

Oh, well. A few hours in Faerün and eight or so spent in the land of Nod should shut the both of them up.