I saw this interview with Kurt Russell a long time ago and he said something about he'd just do a few pushups to buff up before his movies, until, he did a movie with Stallone.
I always think about this for some reason when it comes time to build a PC after it's been a long time. I just do enough pushups to get me through the next movie. It seemed like it took a metric f-ton of pushups to get through this movie, though.
Anyway. Things.... haven't fundamentally changed since 2009. There's a CPU plugged into a Motherboard that supports a certain type of Memory and needs a powerful enough Video Card and Power Supply to go vroom to my desire/budget. Oh, and there's storage.
It's still pretty much the same.
Except.
They moved the powersupply to the bottom of the case...
Airflow Cooling, while still far from perfect (what isn't), is obviously a more prominent feature than it's ever been, in, case design. Which, is a good thing. Now, figure out how to make my case out of ... ceramic or some other naturally cooling material instead of red glowing steel and flimsy plastic and we'll be gtg.
Hard drives aren't called hard drives anymore, many times, and I jumped right into the SSD bandwagon full feet forward with 2 gumstick drives that I already lub. No moving parts... No need for drive bays... They're heatsinked and sitting between 2 push/pull system fans. FAST... and plenty, plenty, big - especially after tossing in 2 TB of Western Dig USB 3.1 storage for 60 measly clams (It's a 2 TB PnP External!). And.. there's 64 gig more storage space on a USB 3.1 thumb/flash drive for clean boot drive images or whatever..
You do have to be aware of more Drive Interface information, today, than I can ever remember, by far. And I had an OG SCSI.. I mean.. There's a lot of options, today.. And all of them good, for someone. It's a good thing. I like storage and I like having lots of storage options.
You can do your own reading to edumicate yourself on that stuff. It's a journey. Watch some of the plentiful and good videos of people installing the newer drives if you never even saw them before (1 TB internal Gumstick drives..? wha?) and it takes a lot of the mystery out of that part of it. There's several different internal form factors, now, that are all very common and plentiful. And they all have max interface capacities of their own and there are plenty of very specific interface types.. The good news, is, if speed is important to you, but, you're not obsessed with it, everything is pretty much backwards compatible. So, as long as you get a drive with the right connector for your motherboard, the thing will work and be reasonably fast. Pretty much. And, further good news, if you *are* obsessed with speed, there *are* things to look for to get more speed without more/much more cash. Pretty much.
What is USB 3.1? USB 3.1 ('gen 1...........') is USB 3.0.
What is USB 3.0? Old packaging.
What is USB 3.1 ...... Gen 2? The new name for... USB 3.1 that was 3.1 before 3.0 became 3.1
What is USB 3.x c? C is the physical plug/connector. Specifically, the plug is... unkeyed. That is, you can't plug in your USB connector upside down because there is no upside down anymore. There's still a sideways! But.. umm,, yeah... The C connector should have most of us covered, even me, when it comes to plugging in a USB cable or device.
The bottom line on USB, is, USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the fastest. USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type C, just means, you have the thing in the previous sentence, with, a connector that can't be plugged into upside down, due to it's keyless. Except for that you can.... still plug it in sideways by accident if you really try. But it's kinda flat, and, err.. umm. anyway : ) It's VIRTUALLY keyless!
HDMI changed.. We have a 2.0, now.. I'm playing @1080p. This is for the ppl with the $500+++ video cards running hi-res monitors/tvs. So, yeah, I didn't have to mess with learning anything about it, beyond.... it's *backwards compatible*.
Video...? Umm. Video was pretty much the only thing that felt like it didn't change at all. Except the model numbers. Then again, my video isn't *that* old. Everything else is. I'm glad I squeaked in after the GTX 16xx series hit the market. Looking forward to playing with that. I had a horror moment the night my stuff had already shipped that I accidentally ordered a 10xx series due to my original order went out of stock and I had to re-order, and, the model numbers are new to me - I just had the 60 part in my head.. but, after leaping out of bed in a panic, and checking my order, I saw that all was well. (lol).
It seems like a fun time to build, actually. Lots of options. RGB has to be one of the most useless things I've ever seen. I mean, if you are a master builder or showing off a master build (1 PC out of 100), or, you're a .... DJ or something.. Something unusual.. Then.. *maybe*. And that's a big maybe. But to see it so mainstream. *boggle*