Hey, Ask Lemmy, we all know that people love to talk about themselves, and I’d love to hear about some of your pleasant experiences. So, please, no matter how big; no matter how small, tell me something that you are proud to have made :)
Hey, Ask Lemmy, we all know that people love to talk about themselves, and I’d love to hear about some of your pleasant experiences. So, please, no matter how big; no matter how small, tell me something that you are proud to have made :)
It was ridiculously expensive, I could have built an RTX 5090 gaming system for the money… in 2025. But what is the fun in that? (Almost) anyone ready to shill out that money can do that. I enjoy projects where I can design and build something to my own specifications, something that ends up being more or less unique, yet functional.
So I built a 7.5 L small form factor PC based on a Strix Halo with the best iGPU on the market (with RTX 4060 levels of performance), completely fanless, operating at 100W TDP sustained for CPU and GPU combined. This was rather nerve wrecking given the investment and how it could have easily ended up as paper weight or with my custom cooling solution just being not up for the job, as the first prototype is also the final thing. But it worked and that’s why I am pretty proud at it, even if it means something only to me.
https://smallformfactor.net/forum/threads/monochrome-2-my-custom-fanless-7-5-l-strix-halo-system-completed.20177/
Interesting stuff, what do you use itnfor?
I use it when my main system, a Mini-PC (Ryzen 7640U), doesn’t suffice (complex CAD models, modern 3D games) and as it is a system with 64GB unified memory (crazy amount in this day and age) I also experimented with local GPU run LLMs, for example Gemma 4. I honestly don’t use LLMs that often in general but when I do, it is nice to have the option of actually having one that is really private.
Sounds cool, I never got the chance to build in the before times. Seems odd to have a custom sff and mini pc. I am out of my depth though, maybe that is as powerful as a bulky pc.
Indeed. It is a replacement for my previous “bulky PC”, with some capabilities that go far beyond that system but in terms of graphics it is pretty close to it. So it can play even current demanding games, on moderate resolutions, if you aren’t an fps fanatic. It is about 3-4 times more powerful than the iGPU on my Mini-PC. Due to the big unified memory it can handle locally some LLMs that even high end cards like a 5090 can’t handle but at a moderate speed only.
The CPU side is actually pretty powerful, so it is a pretty strong productivity system, helped by the large unified memory as well.