What made you decide to build a new computer?
As great as my MSI GP62M 7RDX LEOPARD Laptop was, I only needed that thing to get by with my art school assignments and good thing too since I bought that at the height at the COVID-19 Pandemic so it helped me l for what I need for Photoshop, Autodesk Maya, and Toon Boom Harmony.

However, as apps get updated every so often which, increases the minimum system requirements,
I found both the 2.8GHZ Kaby Lake Intel i7 7700HQ CPU and the onboard
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 GPU a little inadequate for my line of work.
It's serviceable for a laptop but I demand a little more than what the CPU and GPU can handle.
And some 3D Games can make my machine run really hot even when the fans are running at full speed.

Plus, the 128 GB SSD used as my boot drive wasn't as efficient for my line of work. The 1TB Hard Disk included was serviceable as the Data Drive but for the boot drive, I need more than 128 GB.
Plus, I can't install Windows 11 in it due to i7 processor being unsupported.
 
For several months, I was debating whether to buy a pre-build or building my machine.
Most of my instructors at Lasalle College such as my final capstone instructor encouraged me to buy a
pre-build. My mother also shared that same sentiment as well.

I was thinking of getting either an Asus ROG STRIX or an Alienware Aurora series as my ideal machines but I stopped and thought very thoroughly because I read that many gamers and enthusiasts have a vehement disdain over prebuilds since they think that pre-builds are overpriced garbage that
cherry-pick garbage components.
(For example: I saw an HP Omen with a non-modular power supply.)
Another reason for this anti-prebuilt sentiment is the amount of software bloat that prebuild vendors shove down our throat.... I mean, SSDs.
These anti-prebuilt sentiments are reflected by Linus Tech Tips, Jayztwocents, Gamers Nexus, etc.

After thinking it over for roughly 9 months as well as encouragement from my friends, I finally decided that Pre-builds are out of the question and building my PC was the only way to go. 

Another reason for preferring to build my machine is cost.
Like I said, pre-builds are often overpriced and can run at least over $1800 for a mid-range build to nearly $4000 for a high end setup and lets not forget the added tax included.
I simply don't have the money for those machines so building your own machine will save a lot of money, plus you have total control of your components.

As proof of evidence evidence, I balanced out my budget and I found that compared to paying for an $1829.99 ASUS ROG STRIX G10 series, my homebuilt Ryzen 9 5900x system net me at $1808.29.
Yikes but If I had similar specs to the ROG STRIX G10, I pay way less but at the current rate with an AMD Ryzen 9 5900x, my machine is still $20 less than the ROG STRIX G10 with 16GB DDR4 Ram.
My machine has 32GB 3600mhz DDR4 Ram.

The above info is now outdated as this was reflective of my previous build which was the Maverick Warhawk RTX 5900X. I've since swapped out the motherboard in my system. I now have a new Machine called 
MAVERICK FALCON 7900RT.



What will happen to your MSI Laptop?
Oh Nothing. I will still keep it for portable usage such as documents and some games. 
Most of my games are from 1982 to 2019..... well most of them.
My games can range from Jazz Jackrabbit, to Unreal Tournament, to Grand theft Auto, etc.
It can run Crysis and GTA V but don't expect me to play Cyberpunk 2077 or Hogwarts Legacy on a laptop with a 2.8GHZ Intel i7 7700HQ CPU, a 4GB NVIDIA GTX 1050 GPU, and 16GB of DDR4 Ram.



What are you going to do with this computer?
Half is for gaming, while the other half is for my animation work.
That's what I have both my AMD Ryzen 9 7900x3d and Nvidia RTX 4080 for.
And yes, It has Three SSDs. I was thinking about making the D Drive a magnetic hard disk but then I realized I don't need an internal magnetic drive for Long-Term Storage as I have my two external drives for that.



What are your Current specs for this PC?
I have a GIGABYTE B560 AORUS ELITE AX V2 Motherboard.

It's a SOCKET AM5 board so I can only use AMD processors.

I have an AMD Ryzen 9 7900x3D CPU in my system.
You might ask why i didn't go for a Ryzen 7 7800x3D instead.
I'm a content creator so 12 or 16 cores are required for my line of work than what an 8 Core can do.

To cool down my Ryzen 9 CPU, I use a DeepCool AK620 Tower Air Cooler.

I use Corsair Vengeance 32GB 6000mhz of DDR5 Dual Channel U-DIMM Ram.
They consist of two 16GB sticks that make up 32GB of RAM for faster channel performance.

My GPU is a GIGABYTE EAGLE RTX 4080.

My SSD is a SILICON POWER 512 GB M.2 NVME.
That has my Windows 11 Pro installation as well as my drivers and a few apps.
(The SSD was originally meant for my MSI laptop but issues with the screw being tight and stripping the bolt effed up those plans.)

My case is a Fractal Design Pop Air Mid-Tower ATX Case.
A made the switch from earlier Bitfenix Nova Mesh SE TG Mid-Tower ATX case. due to my being dissatisfied with it's short length and lack of a drive bay. The switch to the Fractal Pop Air case really did help, plus I bought an LG Blu-Ray drive.
Did I say ATX earlier? Oh yes I did but a Micro ATX motherboard can still fit in there.
(A Full ATX case is preferable for M-ATX Mobos to allow for better airflow.)

I originally had a Thermaltake Smart 700-Watt Non-Modular PSU but it proved to be a nuisance with it's permanently attached cables so I exchanged it for a much better PSU from Corsair. 
It's a Corsair RM850x 850-Watt Fully Modular PSU .

For the Falcon 7900RT, I now use a Seasonic Focus GX-1000 1000 Watt Power Supply due to different hardware as well as some future upgrade plans in the AM5 Platform.

And I've got a Samsung 980 1TB NVME SSD for data drive purposes.
This includes games, Apps, etc.

For games, I have a 2TB Lexar NM710 M.2 SSD.

Long-term storage will be handled by my two USB magnetic hard disks.

I've also cannibalized my 750GB Hard Drive from an old 2014 HP Pavilion Laptop of mine.
The laptop's long gone but I figured I may as well use it until I get a SATA SSD. 



What about your peripherals ?
I used to have an MSI G2712 165HZ Gaming Monitor as my main display but it's now busted due to bad capacitors and the Vancouver Cold Snap of January 2024 so I'm stuck with my ACER Nitro QG241Y Monitor.
It's not big and certainly not high-refresh enough for my tastes but I've had that thing for nearly 3 years and it still works.
As of February 9 2024, I've bought an ASUS TUF VG27AQ 1440p monitor to replace my MSI monitor.
 
I've got my Wacom One Creative display as my graphics tablet for art and animation.
It also doubles as my secondary display which is useful for things such as Adobe Premiere Pro.


I've got a Razer Blackwidow V3 Tenkeyless Mechanical Keyboard.
My current Keyboard uses Razer Yellow Switches which are the equivalent to Cherry MX Speed Silvers.
It replaced the Green Switch Keyboard I was using previously.

I had a wireless mouse from Logitech but recently it's left micro-switch is going bad so I replaced it with a
Razer DeathAdder Elite mouse that I bought secondhand from my local Value Village.
(I still have the Logitech Mouse, just not using it at the moment.)

My speakers used to be this pill shaped Bluetooth/FM Radio stereo speaker from (E)scape but I've since switched to a Logitech Z313 Speaker/Subwoofer set. I'm still using my PC's integrated Realtek audio chip until I get a SoundBlaster PCI-E X1 soundcard. I may need to keep the (E)scape speakers for my future sound card.

When I had the Acer Monitor, it only supported HDMI and VGA but My RTX 3060 GPU has only one HDMI port and
three DisplayPort's so I bought an adapter to convert one of the DisplayPort signals to HDMI
and that will make my Acer Monitor happy....
I could use the one HDMI port on my GPU for my monitor but that lone HDMI port is for my Wacom Tablet.
I ran into a snafu with the adapter. Turns out the DisplayPort-To-HDMI adapter doesn't support the 75hz refresh rate my
Acer Monitor uses so my Wacom Tablet used that adapter while my Acer Monitor is using my RTX 3060's lone HDMI port.

I've since switch to the ASUS TUF VG27AQ monitor due to not only having DisplayPort but also A 144hz refresh.
I did bring back the good-old Acer Monitor back from retirement so I can have a third monitor to use for my line of work.


What are you going to name this computer?
For now, I've settled on Maverick Falcon 7900RT
Because of my BitFenix case's bird badge, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, and the fact that it uses an RTX GPU.
Despite switching to Fractal Pop Air, the name remains the same.
Since upgrading to a GIGABYTE EAGLE RTX 4080, the bird theme for the name is more fitting.



What operating system are you going with?
Windows 11 Pro.
For many years, I was always stuck with the Home Editions of Windows so choosing professional editions of my OS would be change of pace. There's not much of a difference aside from some features not available to home edition users such as remote desktop and an increased ammount of security
 but I just feel like bragging about it.

Since this is a custom built PC, This was a fresh install.
Don't worry, I've got all the drivers I need for my Motherboard, GPU, Monitor, Wacom tablet, etc.



Why not go for AMD Radeon or Intel Arc for Graphics?
While there are some gamers who prefer AMD Radeon RX GPUs for their graphics as
well as their general affordability when compared to Nvidia's offering, 
I've heard stories that some Radeon GPUs screw up with certain older games' API.
(Incoming from 1998 is an example, especially with the dgVoodoo software.)
Though that may be some false info I looked into.
I'll have to look a little more further into this when I build a Radeon based PC for a friend of mine.

As for Intel Arc, I'm a bit cautious of that due to issues with compatibility with older software.
(Especially those that use DirectX 9)
Besides, I bought my RTX 4080 so that's all I need.

Even if I want AMD Radeon Graphics, most of it would be integrated with the CPU... or as they call it APU but so far, I just want to use my Nvidia GPU since it has PCI-E 4.0.

Another reason for sticking with Nvidia cards is because of content creation. A lot of content creation tools prioritize
Nvidia chipsets in GPUS for things that aren't possible on Radeon or Arc.
Radeon cards still can do the same stuff Nvidia cards are capable of and I can see the potential since Radeon is still used for content creation on MAC but I'm going to stick with the RTX cards for my line of work.


Are you going to have RGB lights?
To quote Clint Basinger from LGR:
"I swear half the builds I see online these days are lit up like the Vegas Strip on acid! I don't get it!"

Also, my previous VOBIS HIGHSCREEN & MDG HORIZON 2400 desktop computers never had any
RGB lights to begin with.

However, I did concede to RGB fans due to the need for better airflow in my PC.
My 4080 GPU does have RGB to begin with but that's powered by the PCI-E X16 bus, not the ARGB headers.
The other part that's RGB is my GPU Holder.

After some time, I finally bought the ARGB Fans for my PC.... from THERMALTAKE of all companies.
I will have to say, THERMALTAKE's ARGB Fans are better than their power supplies in my experience that's for sure.



How are you with storage?
I've got three M.2 SSDs and an internal hard disk for storage.
The first is a Silicon Power 512GB SSD which houses my operating system, drivers and some apps such as MSI center, Wacom Center, SteelSeries GG, Razer Synapse, etc.

The second is a Samsung 980 1TB SSD which will be formatted as my D Drive. That will house a majority of my apps such as Autodesk Maya, Toon Boom Harmony, Steam, etc. 

The Third is a Lexar LM710 2TB SSD.
This will also house my games such as GTA V, Unreal Tournament, The Wolf Among Us, etc.

As for the hard disk, It's an old 750GB Western Digital drive I pulled out of an old HP Pavilion Laptop from 2014. The laptop is long gone but some files are still in there so I may as well wipe the whole thing clean and start fresh. That will house my Adobe app Proxies as well as Media Cache files so they don't bloat my SSDs beyond imagination.

My long-term storage will not be stored in any of those drives due to limited read/write cycles on SSDs as well as the HP pavilion WD hard drive being nearly 10 years old.
So for long-term storage, I've got my two USB External Hard Disks for that.
One is a Western Digital My Passport and the other which is my main one is a Seagate OneTouch.
Both External hard drives are 1TB each.

Why isn't your PC water-cooled like everyone else?
I don't believe in water cooling for PCs. 
I don't get why when I see people building their own PCs, they always go for an AIO water cooler. I get it's very simple to install than with a water reservoir and they want to overclock they're CPUs but I heard most AIO motors crap out at times, plus the leakage concerns. That's why I always go for air coolers.

The particular air cooler I use in my Maverick PC build is a Deepcool AK620 tower cooler
(Where the Fans are pointed sideways towards the rear fan, and the heat is dissipated via heat pipes.)


Why didn't you name your PC after MISO?
Really? Would I name my PC after my cat? I don't think so. 



Why do you have a Blu-Ray Drive installed in your Machine?
Today's computers, whether they be prebuilt, custom built, small form factor, or laptops generally don't have disk drives anymore. Nowadays, most people who build PCs care mostly about appearances such as those gawdy RGB Fans
(Though in reality, a lot of builders care about having the most amount of framerates imaginable)

There are a few enthusiasts like me and LGR(Clint Basinger) that still cares about disc drives so we're willing to pay more for any disk drive you can mount in a case that has a one or two 5.25" drive bays.

For me, I just want to play my movies or tv shows on DVD or Blu-Ray on my pc but also listen to music and play a few compatible pc games that use the CD or DVD format.
(The PC games would only work on 64--Bit Windows if they are 32-Bit or 64-Bit executable code and don't have 16-bit installers.)



Are the list of Computers in your PC home page all you had?
Oh my no. Those weren't the only machines that I had.
I did have an HP Vectra running Windows 2000 in 2nd Grade and an Indigo Apple iMac G3 in Third Grade.
The reason I didn't list those computers in my list is because I didn't have those machines for very long.
Only machines I owned for 2 years or more will get the PC Page recognition and so far, the HP Vectra and iMac g3 had very short times being in my possession. 

What happened to those particular machines you ask?

The HP Vectra, I don't know but my guess is we got rid of it around late 2006 or so. 

As for the iMac G3, I ran into some issues with that machine and before I knew it, it crapped out on me.

Why Did I change cases from BitFenix to Fractal Design?
I was in a budget. I needed a case and this was my choice. 
As much as I want to indulge in memories of that thing, later on, with all the upgrades I've been making on my PC, it was clear my Nova Mesh SE TG was becoming somewhat of a bottleneck.

For one, It's short on the horizontal side of things. As such, If I want to upgrade my GPU
(which I did in November 2023),
My Nova Mesh can't take it due to it's 315mm length restriction.

Second was the build quality. It's solidly built but I want something a little better. 

Third, The mesh made things quite dirty and sometimes made my PC smell. The smell was only minor but my guess was the quality of the metal frames used for the case and it only exacerbated due to the heat build-up from my CPU and GPU.

And last but not least was the lack of a 5.25" optical drive bay. Granted, not many cases are sold with an optical drive bay, but I want a drive bay to mount a disc drive.

So on September 2023, I went to my local CANADA COMPUTERS in Broadway Street, Vancouver
And I went and bought my Fractal Design Pop Air case. 

I originally was going to buy Fractal's Focus G case but I didn't like the lower-end build quality of the Focus G so Pop Air worked out fine by me. The best part was my double-whammy purchase of an LG Blu-Ray Drive.

I really love my Fractal Pop Air case. It has two 5.25" drive bays to mount a Blu-Ray Drive, it has two front fans which is an upgrade from the single fan of my Bitfenix, better build quality, and it's long enough to support the longest RTX 4090 in existence (Currently the Zotac RTX 4090 PGF... which is currently 380mm in length).

If I do plan a second build, you'll bet I am going to reuse my Fractal Pop for future builds as well as my RTX 4080 GPU.
I eventually swapped out the MSI AM4 Motherboard from my Case and put in a GIGABYTE AORUS AM5 motherboard.
Case is still the same: FRACTAL POP AIR.