Building my first Custom PC - Stephan's Digital Garden

# Building my first Custom PC Planted: 06 November 2025 Last tended: 06 November 2025 As someone who prefers Apple devices for both hardware and software, I've often been labeled a "fanboy." This preference, however, doesn't come from blind loyalty but from a strong aversion to the Windows ecosystem and a history of negative experiences with Android. In eight years of using Apple devices, from ancient Power Macs I played around with for fun, to the first generation Mac Studio, I've never had a single hardware or software issue (knock on wood). Their reliability and design have been my primary reasons for staying. Despite this, I've planned for a long time to build my own custom Linux PC, for both my artwork and gaming. As much as I love the reliability of macOS and iOS, I've wanted to switch to Linux for quite some time, as I've always considered it the best OS available and have had nothing but great experiences using it professionally, (for render servers mainly). Thus, I've decided to finally put together a component list and start the project. ## Components This list is a work in progress and may change, but these are the components I'm currently considering for my first custom PC: | Component | Model | Notes | | ----------- | ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------- | | ==CPU== | AMD Ryzen 7 7800 X3D 8C/16T, 4.20-5.00GHz | | | ==CPU Fan== | Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 (120mm) | | | ==Case== | Fractal Design North XL Tower E-ATX | | | ==GPU== | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | | | ==Motherboard== | MSI MAG X670E TOMAHAWK WIFI | | | ==PSU== | Be Quiet Dark Power 13 1000W | | | ==RAM== | Kingston, D5 32GB 5200-36 Beast | In total 64GB. | | ==SSD== | Samsung M.2 1TB 970 EVO plus | Thinking about going for 2TB. | > While writing down the components, I noticed how funny the product names actually are. Phantom Spirit? Dark Power? Beast? It's certainly a unique naming culture.