Overview of the Astaroth desktop

Throughout this blog, I'll be referencing Astaroth, my custom-built desktop named after the demon in the Ars Goetia. This post will serve as an overview of the system and its capabilities.

Astaroth is an AMD Ryzen-based full-tower desktop PC designed for both gaming and workstation applications. It is the first desktop built entirely on my own, and represents the largest investment I've ever made into any computer, emphasizing long-term performance, scalability, and upgradability. Here are the specs:

• ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Extreme AM4 EATX motherboard
• AMD Ryzen 7 1800X (8C/16T @ 3.6–4.0+ GHz)
• Corsair H100i v2 240mm liquid cooler with AM4 retention bracket
• 32 GB (2x16GB) G.SKILL Ripjaws V DDR4-3200 memory (operating at 2933 MT/s)
• EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Gaming (3584 CUDA cores @ 1569–1683+ MHz, 11 GB GDDR5X @ 12 Gbps)
• 1 TB (1,024 GB) Samsung SSD 960 PRO for boot and applications
• 1 TB (1,024 GB) SanDisk Ultra 3D SSD for bulk storage
• 500 GB Samsung SSD 860 EVO for virtual machines and scrap space
• Seasonic PRIME Titanium 850W power supply
• Corsair Graphite 760T full-tower case
• Dell S2417DG gaming monitor (23.8" TN, 1440p 144+ Hz with G-SYNC)

Astaroth will serve as my primary platform for much of my benchmarks, gaming, and performance tuning. I've posted pictures of the rig on Flickr if you'd like to take a closer look.

Draco

Hello, world!; or, an introduction to the Dragon's Journal

Last updated February 19, 2019.

Welcome to the Dragon's Journal! Here's some relevant background for those of you who are new here:

• Much of this blog will be about technology, especially as it relates to desktop computing and gaming. I'll be writing about developments in PC technology as well as on experiments with my own computing gear.
• You might see lots of references to italicized names like Astaroth, Stolas, or the Dragon. More often than not, these refer to one of my computers:
• Astaroth is my custom-built high-performance desktop, built around an AMD Ryzen 7 processor and a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. This demon is equipped with 32 GB of RAM and a total of 2.5 TB of all-flash storage. While I consider this to be my flagship PC, it's now used primarily for more demanding applications like gaming and photo editing because it consumes more power at idle than my main laptop Stolas (below) does under load. More details about this system can be found in this blog post.
• Stolas is my primary laptop, a 2018-model HP ENVY x360 13. This 2-in-1 laptop is equipped with a Ryzen 7 2700U (Raven Ridge) processor, 8 GB of memory, and a 256 GB NVMe SSD. The processor delivers excellent performance for everyday use and can even handle light gaming, though the battery life is substandard (typically about 4-6 hours) due to its relatively high idle power consumption. On the flip side, it does support USB Power Delivery via its USB-C port and having a power bank that supports USB PD lets me keep this system charged even away from a socket.
• Bifrons is an inexpensive Lenovo netbook, specifically a Lenovo Flex 4-1130. It's cheap and very limited in its capabilities, with a dual-core Atom-type Intel Celeron processor and just 2 GB of RAM, along with 64 GB of eMMC flash, but it's reasonably compact and has decent battery life. Although it's mostly fallen by the wayside, it's still occasionally used as an ultra-low-power Linux (openSUSE Leap 15.0 with KDE Plasma 5) system.
• The Dragon is my older gaming laptop, powered by an Intel Core i7 (Haswell) quad-core processor and a GeForce GTX 780M. This system has been retired in favor of Astaroth and Stolas due to a damaged CPU heat sink. The system had 24 GB of RAM, a 512 GB solid-state drive, and a 750 GB electromechanical hard drive. The drives have since been repurposed as external storage devices using enclosures and adapters.
• The Wyvern was a very old HP Pavilion dv6z-3000 laptop. It was custom-built by HP and had a quad-core AMD Phenom II processor, Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphics, 8 GB of RAM, and 640 GB of hard disk storage. This system has since been dismantled and disposed of.
• Unless otherwise specified, all content on this blog is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Feel free to redistribute my content, but please give me credit for my work. The preferred attribution is a link to the original blog post and the name Brian Wong (bwDraco). Links should be readable by search engines and should not specify "nofollow".
• For those of you who are Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange members, I can often be found in the Root Access chat room.

Once again, welcome, and I hope you enjoy reading this blog!