From reading the case hoarding therapy group thread I got the inspiration for a thread where us mere mortals who don't (yet!) have a double-digit number of cases (and piles of other hardware) lying around, but nonetheless spend a (too?) large portion of our mental energy on PC hardware.
ITT: What hardware (current or future/yet to be announced) are you currently waiting for, saving up for, dreaming of, losing sleep over, or otherwise obsessed by? Are you working on a build (or several?), planning a mod or build, looking forward to an upgrade, longing for the last weird/custom/one-off part to come in to finish a long-running build, or otherwise somewhere in the incessant plan-build-test-replan-upgrade-rejigger-start over cycle of PC hardware?
Me (in order of increasing realism/chance of happening):
ITT: What hardware (current or future/yet to be announced) are you currently waiting for, saving up for, dreaming of, losing sleep over, or otherwise obsessed by? Are you working on a build (or several?), planning a mod or build, looking forward to an upgrade, longing for the last weird/custom/one-off part to come in to finish a long-running build, or otherwise somewhere in the incessant plan-build-test-replan-upgrade-rejigger-start over cycle of PC hardware?
Me (in order of increasing realism/chance of happening):
- Dreaming of downsizing my main rig from the current NZXT H200i. I might not have a pile of cases, but I definitely have the "no case is perfect/every case is too big" bug. This won't happen for quite a while, given that it would require a move back to air cooling or significant time and expense to fit my water cooling into a smaller case, as well as a new GPU and non-ATX PSU. Too many sources of uncertainty to have even the foggiest idea of a suitable case.
- Hoping that 10GbE switches with >4 ports at semi-reasonable prices will appear at some point. I'd even settle for 5GbE if the price was right, I just want >90MB/s to/from my NAS. Doesn't currently seem to be very realistic, though, as the current trend in network gear seems to be exorbitant prices for little real-world gain.
- Long-term planning: a standalone HTPC build to relieve my aging A8-7600-based HTPC/NAS of those duties and to get the Node 304 out of the living room. "Planning" = waiting to save up the money (this is a bit down the list of priorities) + waiting for Zen 2 APUs + a good enough excuse to replace a perfectly functional PC and disrupting the current living room setup. Current plan involves a Lazer3D HT5, MeanWell internal AC-DC PSU, and an Arctic Accelero S1 modded into a CPU cooler. Might change dramatically before being realized.
- Alongside this I'm playing with the idea of modding the Node 304 to fit a 180mm front fan instead of the two 92mms it currently fits to lower the pitch of its fan noise. We'll see if that ever happens. I might just get a more suitable NAS case if it doesn't need to sit below the TV.
- I'm dreaming of a GPU upgrade in the next year or so. The Fury X is still doing fine (currently playing ME:SoW at 1440p mid-high around 60fps), but it's starting to show its age. Four years is very good for any GPU, so I'm happy with that. The hope: An AMD GPU that can deliver a >=80% performance increase over my Fury X (~RTX 2080 performance) at 200W or lower. Preferably at a sensible-ish price and with a reasonably sized PCB (HBM would be nice).
- Along the same lines, hoping that Zen 2 matches expectations and improves ST performance significantly. If so the GPU upgrade will probably also include a motherboard+CPU upgrade. Getting rid of the kinda-buggy Biostar X370GTN will be nice.
- Currently: waiting impatiently for a new riser for my dumpster-dived near-zero budget Optiplex 990 SFF mod. I've learned that $10 risers (the IDE cable style ones) are no good. Go figure. Stepped up to a $25 riser with better cables, but AliExpress shipping is still dog slow.
