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2026-06-22: Desktop Building Endeavors

After, frankly, many years of procrastination, I've recently opted to begin building a new, more perfomant desktop computer.

The realization of this started officially June this year, when I initially selected the parts I would purchase and utilize on pcparticker.com. Then, a couple weeks later, the parts were ordered and ready to be composed into something perfectly modest yet perfectly capable of the occasional 2560×1440, medium-high-settings gaming (or game development, or really any relevant productivity task), targetting mostly older, less-graphically-intensive games, which, coincidentally, tend to be among my favorites.

Here are those parts I selected for this project of mine:

• XFX's QICK Radeon RX 6750 XT 12 GB GPU.
• The central piece of this build! This card is exactly perfect for my productivity and gaming desires. It should have absolutely no issues supporting my workflow.
• I originally purchased this card on sale about two years ago, but life happens—as it does—and I did not finally purchase other parts to "consummate" its purchase, so to speak, until very recently. If I was purchasing a video card today, I'd definitely opt for something in the 7000 series; these are more cost effective.
• AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X CPU.
• As far as I can tell, this card is a perfect match for my GPU and my (not exactly opulent) budget, although the 5600X3D may be the more "technically ideal," and expensive, complement to my build.
• Corsair Vengeance's LPX 16 GB (2×8 GB) DDR4 RAM.
• Perhaps this is on the low end for modern AAA gaming, but it is still more than adequate for my needs. I have had these two sticks of random-access-memory for something like six years now, and I'm borrowing it from my previous build due to the gross RAM prices of present.
• MSI's B550M AM4 motherboard.
• This motherboard is also being reused for similar, aforementioned reasons. It simply does what it needs to do, so I have no desire to replace it with an AM5 motherboard, especially since that would entail purchasing (expensive!) AM5 memory.
• MSI's MAG A750GL, Gold Certified power supply.
• It does what it needs to; I purchased it with a nice, ~10% off coupon; what more can be said? This power suppy will support me for many years to come, and it fits perfectly in the chasis of my chosen case…
• Lian Li's A3-mATX case.
• This case is everywhere for a reason. It is pretty, functional, and manages to nicely balances size, part-compatibility, flexibility, and ease-of-building.
• Coming from a full-sized case, the difference is night and day. I only wish I had purchased a medium form factor case sooner.

I have absolutely preferred Linux since I first tried it at thirteen years old, where I used Manjaro Linux and myriad amateur internet guides to light my path towards the "technological freedom" that is Linux—although, at that time, I was more interested in ricing my desktop than appealing to some stupid, philosophical techno-ideal.

So it should be no surprise that this build will also be running Linux, especially given the current state of Steam's Proton.

I'm going to be using Fedora Workstation, which is arguably the best "just works" distro that is viable for most Linux users, seasoned or otherwise. However, I'm not going to thoroughly explain here exactly why I prefer GNOME to other popular desktop environments: I'll instead just cite cohesiveness and simplicity as my primary reasons. At the same time, I appreciate Mango as a more "minimalist" window manager that better enables me to develop my own workflow through custom-made bash scripts and the like. I may install Mango alongside GNOME. In fact, I may write more about my relationship with GNOME, Mango, and other desktop environments soon. Just for fun, I guess.

Hey, thank you for reading!