Building a New Desktop Computer

September 5, 2016 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Desktop tower computers have gone the way of pickup trucks. You can still see them chugging along in work environments, but you probably won’t find many in homes unless they are ancient and collecting dust. Most consumers only need a machine capable of browsing the internet, playing videos, and sending emails and those types of machines can easily be crammed into a touchscreen tablet (a convertible) or a laptop (sedan) or even a smartphone (mini smart car).

The last computer that I built was put together in 2011. I needed something cheap to do eight hours of work on a day. I believe I spent $700 on parts back then and it had served me well enough as a stop gap. Five years of constant use can be tough on a computer, just like it is on a truck. Eventually the physical hardware was just falling apart. I could have thrown parts at it, but computers age like large breed dogs.

I knew this day was coming over a year ago when my first DIY computer build was starting to give me signs of failure, so I had been setting aside money to fund a replacement.

This time around, I splurged, and spent about $1100 on parts. So what does that get you in 2016? (Yes, this should be a funny post to re-read in 5 years).

Intel Core I-7 6700 Quad Core processor @ 3.4 Ghz (4 real cores / 8 threads)
2×500 GB SSD (solid state drives)
32 GB of DDR4 RAM @ 2400 Mhz
BluRay optical drive
Motherboard
Case
550W Modular Power Supply
200 mm case fan
NH-D9L CPU heatsink
22″ Monitor

I salvaged the following parts from my first computer

NVIDIA GTX 960 SSC Graphics Card
2 Monitors
VESA 3-way Monitor Mount
2.1 Speaker Setup
Keyboard
Mouse
1 250 GB SSD
1 320 GB HD
1 500 GB HD

I trashed the old case and sold the old motherboard, CPU, RAM, and heatsink on eBay for $80.

My goal for this build was to make a compact, powerful, and quiet running system. I chose an itx motherboard and case. ITX just describes the size of the case and motherboard.

I liked working with this particular case because it was very flexible. For instance, both hard drive cages could be removed to make extra space.

The motherboard only has two RAM slots, so I won’t be able to add extra RAM later on. I feel that 32 GB or RAM should be enough to get me through the next five years.

The CPU came with a heatsink and fan (below left), but I purchased an aftermarket unit (below right) that does a better job of cooling the hottest part of the computer.

Installing the CPU into the motherboard is a simple affair. It only fits one way.

Then you lock it down with the little metal lever and spread some thermal compound on top of the CPU. The thermal compound is a heat conductive material that helps transfer the heat from the CPU to the heatsink.

Then the heatsink gets installed on top of the CPU.

The two sticks of white RAM get installed onto the motherboard next.

With the CPU, heatsink, and ram installed, it is a good time to install the motherboard in the case.

Next I installed a couple of SSDs on the case side panel. Storage options have really taken off over the past few years offering larger drives with faster speeds. The particular motherboard that I selected even has a port on the backside for a super fast blade style M2 drive.

The power supply and case fans get installed next.

Then once you connect all of the cables, the user manuals make it clear as to what goes where, you can boot the computer up for the first time.

You’ll likely see the BIOS screen.

This is the little operating system that comes with the motherboard. You can configure some of your hardware with these screens and the motherboard manual will have more information on all of the options.

Turning off the computer, I installed the 3 salvaged hard drives and the graphics card.

The BluRay drive also gets installed and then the whole thing gets closed up.

Hook up all the cables in the back and you are ready to install your favorite OS.

My new computer is about 5 times faster than the old one. I did use all 32 GB of RAM when I was working on a promotional video for one of my Apps. Adobe After Effects is a memory hog.

As a strange tangent, I did recently read about one crafty individuals experience creating a ‘new’ computer in the Cloud so he could play the latest and greatest video games without having to build a new physical computer. You can read more about his 60¢/hour Cloud gaming rig here. Forewarning, it is pretty technical jargon heavy!

An Interesting Observation from Survey Data

July 29, 2016 by Andrew Leave a Comment

This blog is about being frugal, and one of the advantages of being frugal is that you might be able to retire earlier or retire on less than the ‘norm’.

One of the internet forums that I peruse on occasion is reddit.com/r/financialindependence the community is full of individuals and couples that are looking to retire securely and possibly even decades earlier than the conventional 65-67.

This summer, there was an open survey on that forum, that asked participants a variety of questions concerning their personal finances. Just recently, the results of that survey have been posted. With over 1300 responses, there are some interesting conclusions that can be drawn, but I just want to focus on one.

Savings Rate vs Income

We all know what income is, for example if you earn $40k/yr and your spouse earns $20k/yr and you have no other sources of income then your gross income number would be 40k + 20k = $60k/yr. Savings rate, is the percentage of that gross income that is left over after all of your yearly expenses, taxes, healthcare, etc are deducted from your gross income. In the above example, if you have $10k left over at the end of the year then your savings rate would be 16.6%. As a reference, Vanguard recommends that households put away 12-15% of their gross income away for retirement each year.

The forum members on financialindependence are not representative of the general population. Most of them are SINKs or DINKs (Single Income No Kids or Double Income No Kids) living in HCOL (high cost of living) areas such as the East or West coast cities. Usually, they have very high incomes that are multiples of the median US household income, $52k/yr.

With all of that said, you would think that the higher the income became, the higher the savings rate would be. After all, if you made one million dollars a year, surely you could stash away 90% of that. Couldn’t you?

It turns out, the data says something different. While savings rate does trend upwards, it is a very, very weak pattern.

Households making $100k/yr, nearly double that of the median household income in the US, are stashing away about 50% of that (keep in mind these are for people pursuing early retirement). Now look at the households making twice that, $200k/yr. The savings rate is still around 55%, a mere 5% increase despite a 100% increase in income.

What Gives?

There could be any number of reasons.

Higher income households may have more student loan debt (doctors, lawyers, etc)
Higher income households have a higher tax burden (28%+)
Higher income households could be located in higher cost of living areas (NYC, San Francisco, D.C.)
There could be a psychological barrier (I earned it, I deserve something nice)

I am not sure what exactly is going on behind the numbers, but I find it fascinating regardless.

What About the 1 Percenters?

If you widen out the chart to include truly preposterous incomes you’ll see two things happen.

There aren’t as many data points, so it becomes harder to identify trends
The existing trend doesn’t change much

Why Should I Care?

That’s a good question, and it has a simple answer. The time until you can retire doesn’t depend at all upon your income, it depends on your savings rate. The greater percentage of your income that you can save for retirement each year, the earlier you can retire. A popular early retirement blog explains the idea. For example, saving Vanguard’s recommended 15% of income each year equates to 43 working years. Saving 50% equates to 17 working years.

The question isn’t, “how can I earn more so I can retire faster” but instead, “how can I reduce my expenses and be more frugal so I can retire sooner?”

You can see some more of the survey results represented in purdy pictures here.

Travel Tips for a Great Vacation

May 27, 2016 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Summer is here and the kiddos have had their last day of school. That means that a lot of people will be hitting the roads and airports for vacations!

Planning a vacation takes a lot of work. Planning an international vacation takes even more work. Here are some of my travel tips that I have learned from experience.

Start with an Itinerary

Whether you are planning the trip yourself or have a travel agent, you’ll reduce your stress load with a good itinerary. You can make it as detailed or vague as you like to suit your travel style. I personally like to have where we are staying the night and a handful of local attractions/activities that sound interesting. This gives us some flexibility and we don’t feel so rushed to get to the next thing.

Print off a copy of the itinerary and give each member in your party a copy so they know what is going on.

Pack Your Bags Early

Don’t wait until the last moment to pack. Set out a piece of paper and pen a week beforehand and write down packing items as you think of them. Then two days before you leave, start gathering all of those items into a pile. Try to pack your bags two days before so you aren’t rushing at the last minute. Packing early will free up the night before to relax and take care of any other last minute details.

Organize Your Wallet

The last thing that any traveller wants is to lose their wallet or worse yet, have it stolen. Save yourself some headache and strip your wallet at home. Remove any cards that you won’t be using. Trust me, your local gym membership card won’t be needed when traveling abroad.

Download Relevant Travel Apps

Before leaving home, I like to download the apps for the companies that I have reservations with. I can login at home and not have to fumble around quite so much when time is more sensitive. Most websites are mobile friendly, so you may not have to download the specific app, but some sites are almost useless on your phone. I have found that to be the case with TripAdvisor, so I went ahead and downloaded the native app. Their competitor Yelp isn’t as useful outside of the USA.

Two other apps that I like for traveling abroad are Google Maps and (Google) Translate. Both have offline modes where they will continue to work even without an internet connection, but you have to set them up beforehand when you have internet.

Backup Your Phone and Clear Off Space

Just as it would be a major inconvenience to lose your wallet on a trip, it would also be a PITA to lose your phone. Take the time before you leave to backup your phone. While you are thinking about that, it is also a good idea to clear off some hard drive space on it so you can take more photos and videos during your trip!

Tell Your Bank About Your Travel Plans

Log into your bank account and usually under Self Service or Customer Service there will be an option to tell your bank about travel plans. Do this for any debit or credit card that you are going to bring with you, otherwise it might get shut down when you need it!

Stop Mail or Arrange For a Neighbor to Take it In

Nothing screams, “I’m not home” like an overflowing mailbox. Either go to USPS.com and place a hold on your mail delivery or arrange to have a neighbor take it in. In the same line of home security, be vague about your travel plans online (yes, I do see the hypocrisy of this blog post but then again I do arrange for our house to be watched before we go anywhere).

Try to Sleep

This one is the hardest of them all. The night before your trip, try to get a good night’s sleep. If you are anything like me, that’ll be next to impossible!

What are your tips for a great vacation?

The Yearly Internet Bill Reset

May 19, 2016 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Every year our internet bill goes up when we roll off the promotional rate, so every year I call Comcast, our service provider, and find what new promo rate I can get us on. See last year’s discussion here.

This year, we rolled off the 25 Mbps for $30/mo and went up to $50/mo. I called in, and the only cheaper plan was a 3Mbps for $40. I could however triple our speed for the same price. So that’s what I did. For the next 12 months, we’ll be paying $50/mo for 75Mbps. We won’t come close to using that kind of bandwidth, but we might as well get more for the same amount of money.

Call to Comcast, 15 minutes.

Next year, things should get more interesting because we’ll be going from two choices, Comcast and Frontier, to three. Metronet, a fiber optic company, will start laying line this year. While I don’t know their prices, I do suspect that the added competition will be good for consumers.

What’s My Cluster? A Look Into PersonicX

May 15, 2016 by Andrew Leave a Comment

Have you ever wondered how advertisers such as Facebook can seemingly know so much about you? The answer boils down to 7 simple questions that can place you into one of 70 Clusters and 21 Groups in the PersonicX model developed by Acxiom. As a happy coincidence, Facebook employs this very same model.

What is PersonicX?

According to the Acxiom website, “Personicx segments U.S. households into one of 70 distinct clusters within 21 life stage groups.” The goal of categorizing individuals into different clusters and groups is to make advertising more effective. You can try out the demo on the Acxiom website (they say that the results won’t be used for anything besides the demo purposes).

Link to the Demo

I inputted our answers and got Cluster #21: Children First.

Generally, the lower the Cluster #, the more affluent the individual happens to be. Cluster #70 “Resilient Renters” describes unemployed or temporarily employed renters living in mixed housing. Cluster #1 “Summit Estates” describes the wealthiest group.

The methodology, and descriptions of all 70 Clusters is available here. Scroll about half way down to see the Clusters.

What Cluster do you belong to? Was it eerily accurate?

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