Reply To: Computer Setup
Yeah, that’d work if you’re looking for pretty basic. You may want to upgrade the cooling a bit if you go with it, though. In my experience, the mass market brands often cut corners with the cooling so things can get a bit hot when you’re playing a game. Should also run No Man’s Sky, which I highly recommend you try at some point 🙂
Upgrading can definitely be tricky. I did it with an old Sony Vaio twenty years ago. I didn’t run into any hardware incompatibilities but the cramped space was an issue. I upgraded the video card and PSU and the space was so tight, I really cut up my hands. I also tried upgrading the hard drive but couldn’t get enough space to maneuver the drive (it was mounted vertically on the front air intake) so I used the drive in my next computer. Upgrading RAM won’t be an issue since that’s a simple pop in.
Yeah, System76 overhauled their product offerings a few months ago, removing most of their AMD offerings for some reason. Luckily, I got mine before they made those changes. They did, however, upgrade the case design (which I missed out on) with better airflow, more fan mounts, and front ports for audio and USB. If you don’t mind forgoing a pure AMD build, their systems are quite nice.
The other option is to get one from a standard custom vendor, preferably with more than one drive, and install Linux on it. Granted, the wireless chipset is the usual compatibility issue though (most Broadcom chips have poor Linux support) so you’d want to check the motherboard specs before you buy. Maingear was my second choice as they seem to have a pretty solid reputation and were very responsive when I was researching vendors. They do ship internationally but it doesn’t sound as though they have international shipping insurance and the cost for overseas shipping may be rather prohibitive.
