Overview / Usage

The primary goal of this project was to create a setup that required the least amount of transition between my laptop and PC. As a student, I am constantly leaving and returning to my room and, thus, my main PC. If it took me 5 minutes to copy files I was working on from my laptop to my PC every time, I would rarely utilize the main PC for work. This is a pain point many of my friends have experienced. I also wanted access to the main PC remotely as my laptop is not nearly as powerful as the i9-12900K and RTX 3070. This would allow me to increase productivity (especially for my Machine Learning projects) and play games anywhere on campus. A couple of other goals I had were to create a dual monitor setup and do it all as cheaply as possible. Gaming wise I want to get back into AAA titles, experience ray tracing technology, and I want to play VR games via the Oculus Link as well as get into VR development.

Methodology / Approach

In order to decrease the amount of time to transition between my laptop and main PC, I plan on utilizing Syncthing for continuous file synchronization. I plan on utilizing NoMachine for general access to my main PC remotely, X11 for VNC on specific apps (i.e. VS code), SSH for remote shell access, and Steam Link to play games remotely. All these technologies, except for Steam Link, have large open source communities to help with my custom integrations. To very cheaply have a dual monitor setup I plan on purchasing a portable monitor and laptop stand. The portable monitor would rest on top of the keyboard of my laptop and I would utilize my laptop screen as a monitor through an ethernet connection creating my own LAN.

Technologies Used

For the build itself I would utilize:

• Seasonic FOCUS PX-850 Power Supply since it has a higher efficiency rating
• WD_BLACK SN850 SSD since it has higher user benchmarks
• ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 Video Card since it has a higher clock speed
• Silent Base 802 White Case
• CORSAIR K63 Gaming Keyboard as I prefer a compact keyboard
• Logitech G305 Gaming Mouse as I prefer a wireless mouse
• MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360
• MPG Z690 Carbon WIFI
• 2 x 16 GB RAM
• Intel Core i9-12900K CPU