Planning a new PC

Here we are then: I want something a bit faster than my much loved MacBook. I'd love to get an iMac Pro. But... I don't have >£10k spare (because it would obviously have to be the best iMac pro i could spec).

I then looked at laptops. Maybe update my MacBook Pro to a new one. So... that would be nice. I looked at the spec I could realistically get. The main problem is I'd want more memory than the laptop I have now, which means opting for a pretty expensive laptop. Which wouldn't be the end of the world, but I suspect I'd then want an external GPU, and that adds extra cash.

Next stop - what if i bought a non-Apple gaming laptop. Similar kinds of prices, but I'd get a pretty good gpu. And I'd really quite like one of those new Razor Blade gaming laptops, they seem a lot more portable than the previous gen gaming laptops (two power supplies, 100kg, size of a small truck, chucks out more heat than our wood burner).

And that obviously leads to - what about a non-laptop gaming PC? Got to be cheaper, and more powerful. And i can always just either remote in, or use Jupyter remotely. I could also use spyder with a remote kernel, which looks pretty cool.


Looking at pre-built and store custom PCs they don't look like that good an option. Or, to be more correct, that economic an option. Getting just what I'd want configured is not so easy, and when i can configure something acceptably, then the price is unreasonable.

I remember the last time i wanted a PC (hmm, 15 or 16 years ago), I had the same problem. My issue then was building a media PC - I actually wanted mostly low end specs to reduce power draw, but good memory, and large fast hard disks. All in a nice case. It was something no-one at the time seemed to want to configure. Back then I just built what I wanted, with a pretty nice TV capture card. Eventually i decided i didn't really need the capture card as  rarely watched TV, and replaced it with a Raspberry Pi to serve mostly as a media player. I'm not sure what happened to that RPi, lost in a move I guess.

Hmm. a Raspberry Pi probably isn't going to serve as a good tensorflow accelerator, so it's build time again.

So - the starts-fun-becomes-a-nightmare-ends-desperation process of picking parts for a self build computer begins.

I'm sure everyone knows this, but pc part picker is awesome for checking comparability and looking at price.

What are my goals for a new computer?

Must have room for expansion.
Must have a GPU.
Doesn't need to be cutting edge, but needs the ability to add 'bluntish edge' components in a years or so. I.e when that core i9 18 core processor is a bit cheaper, I want to be able to shove that in.
It will be my main desktop computer.
It won't just do hobby dev and ML type stuff.

Reading up various sources on ML beginner machines, the general view was you don't need a super powerful CPU, you don't need gobs of memory. A good GPU (nvidia), and disk space if you are going to be working with data are needed.

What did i end up with?