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Big Red:
Thought I'd try a "nothing is off-topic" thread, considering the nonsense we started in the other.

I used to build computers back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Built one for myself last week and it's the first computer I've ever built that had no removable media drive. Also, setting up the bios was trivial. I remember jumper configurations, ridiculous bios combinations, etc. I can't believe how easy it is. Threw all the pieces together and it booted into Windows without issue. So strange to me.

maxtog:
I build all my home computers- always have.  Ends up costing a bit more and requires more research, but I get the exact things I want and it is typically higher quality than anything I could buy.  Plus I can upgrade things and reuse things more easily.  Haven't made one yet without any drive bays.  Mostly because I still use removable trays for large spinning rust for the slow/big storage, and need a disc reader/writer.  M.2 is da bomb, for sure.

Current main desktop system (which is now 4 years old):

ASUS Prime X570-P Ryzen 3 AM4 with PCIe Gen4, Dual M.2, HDMI, SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 ATX Motherboard

AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-core, 16-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor with Wraith Prism LED Cooler

Kingston Technology HyperX Fury Black 32GB 3466MHz DDR4 CL19 DIMM (Kit of 2) Memory HX434C19FBK2/32

Corsair Force Series MP600 1TB Gen4 PCIe X4 NVMe M.2 SSD

UCEC 5.25" Front Panel USB, 2xUSB 3.0, 2xUSB 2.0, HD Audio (to supplement rear ports)

ZOTAC Fanless GeForce GT 730 DirectX 12 (feature level 11_0) ZT-71114-20L 1GB 64-Bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x8 lanes) Video card  (I am not a gamer, this is very old now, but hard to find fanless)

Cooler Master Centurion case mid tower with 5 x 5.25" external bays and 1 3.5" external bay and filtered front air flow.

Antec 750W power supply

LG 5.25" sata M-Disc Bluray writer WH16NS40

3 Connectland hotplug 5.25" sata trayless drive bays for 3.5" HDD (had 4, removed one to install USB front port panel)

Connectland hotplug 3.5" sata trayless drive bays for 2.5" HDD

3x 3.5" WD 4TB sata hard drives

1x 2.5" Sandisk 256GB sata SDD

(And ultrawide LG monitor, Brother multifunction laser, Creative speakers, Asus Linux router, Cyberpower UPS, etc)

Even though it is now kinda old, it is plenty fast enough for anything I ever throw at it.  Running Linux Mint, of course.

Big Red:
The one I just put together, which is set up as my gaming/home theater rig:

Gigabyte Z590i Aorus Ultra, Mini-ITX size, 1 PCIe Gen4 slot, single M.2, USB 3.2 Gen 1 and Gen 2, HDMI, 6gbps SATA, 2.5Gbps LAN, Wifi 6 built in, 3200MHz ram support native

Intel i5-11400f, 6 core, 12 thread

Thermarite Assasin X120 cooler

Team Group CL16 DDR4 3200MHz 2x16Gb ram

Team Group M.2 1TB NVMe SSD

WD Blue 1TB 5.25" HDD (for large game installs)

Seagate 2TB 3.5" HDD (For my PLEX server)

Front-ish I/O panel, USB 3.0x2 and audio

No-name 600W ATX PSU

MSI GTX 1070 full-size dual fan GPU

Cooler Master Q300L Mini ATX case, with 4x120mm fans. Went with that case because it sits in a hi-fi cabinet and anything less wouldn't have enough airflow.

All hooked up to my 65" TCL TV that was like $300 for Black Friday.

Cost right about $500 to build, other than the HDDs, which I already had.

dboogie2288:
Hahah yeah me too! I worked for about 2 years a local computer renaissance. Remember those?! They were awesome! Our store rocked....it was run by this Chinese lady and she was a ball buster. Other CR stores looked like a semi had just unload a full trailer of machines at any given moment, but our store was pristine. Always clean, always organized. It was something to be proud of.

I was promoted to assistant manager within my first year and I made a killing there. Made some commission on my service work, commission on my sales/builds, and then a pretty nice base hourly...I think it was 14 bucks an hr at the time. I cant tell you how many PCs I built in that period, but we had new and used for every budget. We even had a customer that came in every 6 months or so for a custom build gaming machine to run quake on. I remember this massive voodoo3 card we installed in one of his new machines. I was proud of those, hand built, tested fully, confident that it would last him years without issue. Of course they weren't as flashy as they are nowadays with the glass cases and RGB LEDs and crap. But he would have a powerhouse machine in a plain beige case built by a local shop. Of course, he was back in to get the latest and greatest in no time....not because of a bad machine, just because that's what he wanted.

I miss those times, simple times. Build PCs, go out with friends, hang out with my girl, go home and do it all over again. Growing up sucks.

Big Red:
I still think there's a couple Computer Renaissance stores around

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