My main workstation
A lot of people prefer using laptops to get work done, but the main computer I use to get work done has always been a desktop computer. My current desktop computer is a real “Frankenstein” creation.
- Motherboard: Atermiter X79 Turbo motherboard
- CPU: XEON E5-2690 V2 (10 cores, 20 threads with a base clock of 3.0GHz)
- 64GB DDR3 ECC 1333MHz RAM (4 x 16GB DDR3 ECC RAM sticks) in dual channel
- Samsung 1TB 970 Evo Plus NVMe Drive
- LG WH16NS40 Blu-ray drive (upgraded with firmware to appear as a 1st gen WH16NS60 for better 4k blu-ray decryption)
- Gigabyte AMD R9 285/380 PCIe video card with 4GB RAM
- 2 x BenQ 24″ GW2470 monitors connected to the video card via DVI
I’ve only recently upgraded my desktop’s CPU from a XEON E5-1650 v0 3.2GHz 6 core, 12 thread CPU to the 10 core, 20 thread CPU. I used the E5-1650 6 core CPU for about 2 years and it’s been a really great CPU for compressing video, but when the chance came up to buy a CPU with more cores and threads for only $99CDN I took the chance. Though the base clock is slightly lower (3.0GHz vs 3.2GHz) there is a noticeable performance (time) difference when compressing video.
While I do have a license for Windows 10 on my desktop computer I haven’t booted the Windows partition since I swapped out the CPU, so there’s a chance the license may no longer be valid. About the only reason I have to boot Windows 10 these days is just to run updates and work on developing a game using GameMaker (but I’m leaning towards developing with Godot, so I no longer need Windows at all).
My Laptop
I own a Lenovo Thinkpad T430s with the following specifications:
- i7-3520M (2.90 GHz, 4MB L3, 1600MHz FSB) CPU
- 16GB DDR3 SO-DIMM RAM
- 500GB Samsung SSD
Both computers run Xubuntu Linux. My desktop runs Xubuntu 20.04 and the laptop runs the latest Xubuntu 22.04 LTS.
My Cell Phone
I use a Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 8.0. It works for me and I don’t need anything fancier since I don’t develop mobile games (yet).
Our Media Centre
Back in the mid 1990’s I bought a VHS player and started collecting movies on VHS. Later on that evolved into me also recording movies from analog cable via a home-built PVR using Mythdora, a distribution of Fedora Linux designed specifically around the open source Myth TV PVR software. When our cable company went all digital I dropped cable TV altogether and started collecting DVDs and backing them up on to a Linux desktop with XBMC (XBox Media Centre). XBMC evolved into what’s now known as KODI.
Currently our KODI media centre rocks:
- Intel Core i7-2600
- 16GB DDR3 RAM
- NVidia GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 video card
- 500GB SSD boot drive running Xubuntu
- 2 x 8TB Hard Drives (1 for storage, 1 for backup – via rsync)
- Xubuntu 20.04 Linux + KODI
Because we don’t have a lot of space I store our physical media in binders designed to hold CDs/DVDs, and keep the jacket liners in shoe boxes.