I have a B450 motherboard, 16gb DDR4 3200 RAM, 1660 Super gpu and a Ryzen 5 2600 CPU. I don’t plan on updating the GPU this time, because I don’t play a lot of games that require anything more, I’m playing a lot of older titles currently. The problem is this also makes me feel like I shouldn’t update the pc at all.

I think I mostly just want to mess around with a decent home lab, but because I dont have an intended use case I’m struggling to justify. I also had parents who don’t like to spend money on this sort of thing and I’ve got their disapproving voices in my head.

The plan is to upgrade to a 5900XT and 64 gb of ram and probably run a lot of virtual machines in a little lab environment but I’m not sure how often I’ll have them all running so it could be overkill. The upgrade is about $700 all up too so not small but not too much. I know I’m extending the lifespan of a computer instead of e-wasting the entire thing but I’m still a little apprehensive.

Good idea or nah?

P.S. I run Linux Mint on all my machines if that somehow changes anyone’s mind or is somewhat helpful? Can’t let the arch users be the only ones to announce.

Edit: thanks for the replies. I went to bed so I’ll try to reply to people as today goes. Thanks for the ideas and the one person who asked if I was a sex worker, you’ve made me laugh and think.

  • RagingToad@feddit.nlEnglish
    6·
    2 days ago

    You could buy a second hand SFF machine. These are cheap (100€/$) and can run a lot of containers.

    • JoshCodes@programming.dev
      OPEnglish
      3·
      2 days ago

      My first question is storage, how much do they come with and how easy is that to upgrade? Cos my pc is a tower I can easily upgrade by adding bigger drives and I’ve got like 3 full size drive bays plus some smaller ssd holder things. Point is I’m a little space conscious and while I’m happy to investigate, I’ve got space in my pc for any extra storage requirements.