New Desktop Computer

In December 2020 I decided that it was time to replace my aging desktop computer. With an Intel Core i7-5820K 6 core processor and GTX770 video card, the old computer was a great machine when I got it in 2014 and still works quite well for most things. However, faster CPU’s with higher core counts are now available for reasonable prices so I decided it was time for an upgrade.

For my new desktop I decided to go with a Asus TUF X570-PLUS motherboard, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12 Core processor, AMD Wraith CPU cooler, 32Gb of memory, a 750 watt modular power supply and an AMD RX 5600XT graphics card. I don’t really do any gaming so a mid-range graphics card is more than adequate for my needs. I also chose a 1TB M.2 NVMe drive as my primary storage device. With lots of cores/threads, 32GB of memory, and fast storage I can comfortably run a bunch of VM’s, convert video files, or just about anything else imaginable without negatively impacting performance of foreground applications.

After unboxing I installed a fresh copy of Ubuntu 20.04 and booted it up. The first thing I noticed was that it boots really fast. Once the bios screen goes away, I’m at the logon screen in a couple of seconds. I initially had some crashes when running virtual machines. I found that the version of the bios on the motherboard was a few months old so I updated the bios and that seems have resolved the problem.

I’m very happy with this new machine and expect that it’s going to be around while. Between the fast CPU, 32Gb or memory and the fast NVMe drive, I once again have a nice fast computer.