Re: Building a desktop PC
OK, power consumption. There is an easy way to approach this, and a more complicated one. complicated first: check out all the components and make sure to decide upon wether you want external graphics or not, because that will drastically raise your power consumption if you decide to get an external graphics card, means non-CPU-integrated. Then, after you've decided, go check out the power consumption of those devices, sum it up, add a bit of safety on top and get a power supply that is a bit above that value. Or, easy way, get a power supply that is not tooooo fat, but still not on the lower end. E.g. taking a 300W power supply for your machine won't be enough, and 500W might be fine with no external graphics card, but as soon as a powerhouse graphics card with 2 power connectors comes into play, 500W might already be not enough. I decided to go with a 750W power supply those days, and it runs and runs and runs, even with powerful graphics and vverclocked CPU/RAM. On the other hand, more powerful power supplies will usually drain a bit more power on standby / low operation level, this then again means a kinda higher bill at the end of the year, but we're talking about a few small bucks here, not quite alot.
Now the Intel/AMD debate. AMD seem to have more cores nowadays, while Intel CPUs seem to still have the better single core performance. Most games require single-core performance though, since they in most cases aren't multithreaded. More complex algorithms, video/audio editing on the other hand profit from more cores, which makes AMD the more prominent choice here. You'll have to settle for one direction though, or pick a solution right in the middle, which will probably be one of the more expensive Intel ones, since they have quite an amount of cores and speed. At least thats my take on it. Everyone thinks different about that topic though, so feel free to settle for your own oppinion.
The Be Quiet Pure Wings 2 are running in my system at the moment too, and they are just fine, really, really quiet. My case is from be quiet as well and a bit outdated already I guess, but it has like 6 coolers running, not counting the CPU cooler which you should probably get a dedicated one, since the boxed ones which sometimes come with the CPU are usually garbage. That was my approach on saving because I didn't want to build a water-cooling system for that PC yet, first because I think it isn't needed, because I will never need the power that would justify a water-cooled system, and second because its a lot more expensive and risky (one single leak and you can throw your hardware away if it ends up badly).
Honestly, I don't think that any blind person would actually need (not want, thats a different story) a water-cooled system. A rule of thumb I learned is that you don't want to invest into a water-cooled system unless you're using 2 or more full-blown graphics cards, like a 3070 upward. Air-cooled systems will easily be able to handle the heat below those specs. Watching my temperatures, even with overclocked CPU and RAM and a 2080 ti running at benchmarks, my temperature levels stay in a green, sometimes yellow range. And since blind people don't play Cyberpunk 2077 at ultra specs, you seriously simply don't need to throw the money out of the window, if you seriously want to, i'm here and will gladly take it.
Its just the car question. You could buy a car that can go up to a several amount of speed, but you're living in a country where you are allowed to speed up to half the speed that your car can go at most of the time, so why bother paying for things you won't ever use in the first place? Plus, the engines in that car will probably drain mor gas by default, which will end up being expensive for no reason in the long run.
TLDR: sure its great to have a powerhouse of a machine sitting in your corner, you know, you can tell your friends "oh my machine is beating yours to a crisp" or "oh, your game is lacking? well, my PC doesn't even break a sweat". But thats probably all the fun you can get out of paying a thousand or more bucks than actually needed, and that most of the time feels like a pretty painful investment for just a bit of fun.
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