How I've used computers

Laptops have been my main computing medium for the entirety of my education. The portability, cost, and convenience have made purchase decisions easy in contrast to the time investment required to build a standalone desktop computer. However, the issues with my current workflow have been made noticeable and have led to less productive sessions.

The compute power/cost of a desktop is almost unmatched especially when compared to a traditional thin and light laptop at the same price. Activities such as gaming and 3D-CAD on a Ultrabook are guaranteed to pollute your experience with fan noise and sweaty hands due to the inevitable thermal issues that arise. In addition, the biggest threat to my workflow is the lack of focus a laptop brings me. While portability has its obvious benefits, personally I find that the flexibility to work wherever encourages procrastination (e.g. working on my bed). When the pandemic started, I realized that my summer internship would be conducted remotely. As a result, I knew that I had to identify and isolate my desk as a workstation. I ended up tying my laptop down with an assortment of cables, a USB-C dongle, and zip ties. I wanted to designate my desk as a WORK ONLY ZONE and in the process, I treated my laptop as if it was a desktop too heavy to move.

This change of environment brought a new work ethic as well. I found myself to be more productive and even taking on side projects after I had finished with the work day. Some of these activities, such as playing esports titles and using Fusion360, started to reveal my need for an increase in computing power. This realization, along with a small and diminishing amount of non-expandable storage, prompted me to decide it was time to look into building a desktop workstation.

My laptop

Bought in 2016 for around CAD $1000, my Lenovo IdeaPad has been the center of my workflow for the past 4 years. Its main weak points are its memory and storage. For most people, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD provide a comfortable amount of storage, decent read/write speeds, and light multitasking capability. However, this was not ideal for someone like myself, who tends to dual boot operating systems and is always installing new programs to keep up with an engineering curriculum.

Part	My Laptop
CPU	Intel Core i7-7500U
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce MX150
iGPU	Intel HD Graphics 620
RAM	8GB
Storage	256GB
IO	1 USB-C, 3 USB-A 3.0, HDMI

The included dedicated NVIDIA graphics card only offers marginal performance improvements but contributes to the overall weight and adds additional heat that can’t be effectively cooled. This machine will still remain with me for the foreseeable future and I have no plans to upgrade. The plan is, however, to move the majority of my workflow to my newly built desktop.

Compute needs

As a student

During the completion of my core engineering courses, I had used programs such as Solidworks and SPICE which required a decent but doable amount of processing power. However, running Eclipse Java IDE, Microsoft Word, and ten Google Chrome tabs made my system sluggish. I attribute this mainly to the 8GB of onboard non-expandable memory. Nowadays, my curriculum includes digital logic and FPGA design, so simulating and writing computer hardware are a big part of my needs.

As a developer

The main tools I use for everything from WebApp development to writing a CLI are Visual Studio Code/Vim, Docker, and the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Unless I’m writing Java, I tend to not use IDE’s in favor of lightweight text editors. I also found myself wanting better hardware for training deep learning models which I tend to experiment with. This along with a small number of other reasons is cause to choose an NVIDIA GPU over Team Red.

As a designer

Experimenting with 3D Modelling and physical product design has been a hobby of mine since high school. The quality of my renders and a consistently sluggish workflow has impeded on the regularity of my production output. Learning the program Blender, and making 3D models and scenes has been something I have been interested in as well. However, my laptop lacked the space for the install itself. Along with that, I primarily use Figma for UI/UX design with Framer for animation prototyping.

As a gamer

I mainly stick to esports titles such as League of Legends and Valorant. Occasionally I play indie games that aren't as graphically intensive but focus more on gameplay and story (e.g. Hollowknight).

TLDR:

• Multitasking Capability
• Increased Storage
• Decent graphical power

My new desktop

Parts

Part	My Desktop
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3600
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 1650S
Motherboard	Asus Prime B450-A/CSM
RAM	XPG Gammix 16GB 3200MHz
Storage	WD Blue 512GB NVME SSD
Wifi Card	TP-Link Archer T6E AC1300

This build ended up being around $900 CAD and it covers everything on my wishlist. The centerpiece of this build is the Ryzen 5 3600 with its great clock speeds and even better multicore performance. 16GB of fast memory also compliments the Ryzen processor. I decided to shell out a little more for an NVME boot drive and opted to purchase a larger SATA SSD later. The GTX 1650S is all I really require in a GPU. It performs well enough for hobbyist deep learning experiments, light gaming at 144 fps, and achieves good render times in Blender Cycles.

Notes

Older stock B450 boards don't support Ryzen 3000 series processors out of the box. If the packaging doesn't explicitly say it, then you might need to use a 1000/2000 series processor to flash an updated BIOS on the motherboard. I would spend a few extra bucks and get an MSI B450 Tomahawk just for the piece of mind, since this motherboard supports an easier method of updating the BIOS without the need for a temporary previous generation processor. Thankfully I recieved my Asus B450-A/CSM with a Ryzen 3000 Ready badge on it and didn't have any additional headache getting the system to post.

Conclusion

I have been using my new machine for about two weeks now and haven't looked back. I feel more productive doing 3D modeling in Blender and am confident of leaving the system running for more than an hour without fear of thermal issues. The system runs quietly while playing League of Legends on ultra-high settings at 240 fps, running multiple chrome tabs and various applications in the background. So far I have not pushed the capabilities of this system far enough for me to notice performance dips or thermal issues. In the future, if I take up 4K video editing or streaming I am curious to see if this system can keep up. However, I strongly believe that my new desktop will last me a long time before an upgrade is needed and will be an essential part of my workflow for years to come.

My PC