Two PCs (or more!!)

Gaming PC at TV/sofa, also doubles for any download management and occasional family video calls/online parties etc

Work laptop at desk - work and most daily PC tasks as I try not to turn my own machines on outside work hours. Get enough PC time as it is.

USFF work PC 1 - headless, SSH in for transcoding videos, creating TV test signals, similar tasks

USFF work PC 2 - will slowly become my development PC and I'll remote into that, absorbing PC 1's tasks

Oh yes, USFF PC 3 - host for Home Assistant and other virtual machines, will eventually run all my automation, network, probably manage my home media etc

Personal laptop - hardly turn it on unless I'm travelling.
 
What’s your main pc and backup pc specs? How did you use your backup? I am thinking to get a backup (I happen to have most of the components) so that I can tinker more with the main watercooled pc and not have down time. But then I’m thinking I should setup a mini server for them to share.
 
Main rig (3900x & gtx1080) for gaming or whatever else at a desk.

ITX pc (3600 & 1660 super) for TV gaming.

Dell 5070 SFF (i7 9700, 32gb ram) Unraid server.

Dell 5050 SFF (i5 7500, 16gb ram) ESXI with pfsense and home assistant vm's.
 
For work and gaming I have separate PCs, one reason is for avoiding the wear and tear of gaming (when I need reliability on a work pc) and another is that I can spec a different PC and prioritise different things.

Backups: I use an external HDD and put important stuff on a usb drive and my google drive.
 
Erm…

1 for WFH and gaming
1 for backup use
1 on a 65” TV for driving sims (wheel and all)
1 NUC running VMs (e.g. Home Assistant)
1 NUC on the kitchen TV but it never gets used
1 Asus gaming laptop (1070 IIRC)
1 Samsung Galaxy book because it’s tiny and light

Don’t get me started on the tablets…

1 I recently donated to a good cause (7700k and 2070)
Many more I have donated!
 
What got you curious that has sparked my curiosity...
Well, mostly to assuage my feeling of guilt for wanting to build another system having just built a shiny new system, and potentially wanting to set up a server, so it struck me why not pose the same question to the finest collection of pc enthusiasts on the internet - whom I suspected would have a rich tapestry of interesting and different setups, use cases and thinly veiled excuses for technological indulgences!

My new setup is a 12900k w/c used for work and gaming. My old setup is a 4790k w/c, also was used for work and gaming. But I also have most of the bits for an 11900k system also which I want to set up as a backup pc, or possibly a work pc, to allow some tinkering on the main pc, or use as a second system in the house. And also an thinking about setting up a server of similar.

But, genuinely interested in how people set up their pc systems, and why having more than just a single desktop/laptop.
 
I run 2 x good, modern PC's of my own (I also have a work laptop but that's issued by my company so I wouldn't count that) plus a few old ones knocking around and a Steam Deck which is a handheld PC of course.

I also have 2 x desks in my office, one has my main desktop listed below on and the other is for my work laptop and that's connected to monitors and peripherals I own (I do not own the work laptop, my employer does)

My main desktop and primary gaming and general use system in my office on my desk is;
Ryzen 9 5900X with an RTX 3070

My secondary PC in the living room connected to my 4K OLED TV which I use mostly for living room gaming but I do also use it for Youtube, Plex and some other media consumption stuff;
Ryzen 7 5800X and an RX 6700XT (this is also SFF, so it's mini ITX in an NR200)

The reason my secondary PC is as new and pretty much as good as my main one is two fold, I love playing games on the OLED so I wanted to be able to take proper advantage of that without buying one to put on my desk aswell and secondly the last couple of years with the various issues we have seen with supply chains and what not made me realise just how important it is to me to always have a 'good' system to use should I suffer a failure and I may not be able to replace a part within 24 hours so easily as we have taken for granted the last 15 years or so, hence I have a really good second system aswell so aslong as I have electricity (perhaps also not to be taken for granted anymore :( ) I wont be prevented from gaming or whatever I want to do with a PC.

I also have an old I5 2400 Sandy Bridge system which 'mostly' does nothing but I do use it as my CD ripping station from time to time, as being a bit of an audiophile I've never stopped buying CD's, that's how the majority of my music is held and I rip those to FLAC and MP3 myself for use in the car and such and quite often I do actually just run a FLAC feed from the living PC into a DAC which is part of my hifi to listen rather than actually spinning the disks so much anymore, but I do like to have them none the less.

I also have Steam Deck now ....not really sure what for yet, it's a nice piece of kit though :p

I do have enough parts to throw together some other old junkers should I wish to, got a Raspberry Pi I used to use for Pi Hole too but I eventually stopped doing that as it proved slower than just using public DNS in the end.

I've been in the hobby and collecting parts since the late '90s so while in more recent years I have made an effort to sell on stuff while it's still worth something once I have upgraded or switched something out I have none the less still amassed quite a collection of stuff over the years.
 
In my office :

Meshify S2, Seasonic 1000W Gold, 12600k, Tomahawk DDR4, 32GB 3600, Palit 3080ti

Meshify 2 Compact, fractal 850w gold, 4790k, Asus z97 maximus hero, 32GB DDR3 1866, 980Ti SLI (kind of like my ‘modern retro’ backup machine, and just looks awesome so I like staring at it as a desk ornament haha).

And then I’ve got a Coolermaster ATC-S 201 with a Athlon 64 x2 6400+, 4GB, SLI GTX 8800 running on the very first Crosshair motherboard.

And a test bench system with a 1650v2, 16gb ddr3 2400, which I use for testing and playing with loads of old GPU’s (mainly been collecting Radeon HD era stuff recently)

In my bedroom:

Meshify 2 Compact, EVGA G6 1000w Gold, 5700x, Tomahawk b550, 32GB 3600, 6950XT MBA
 
Hmmmm…

Main desktop:
12900ks, 32gb, 3090ti (custom loop)

PCs for AI/Algo backtesting (mostly in basement):
12900k, 16gb, 3090ti (custom loop)
12900k, 16gb, 3080ti
12900k, 16gb, 3070
5950x, 64gb, 3090 (custom loop)
5950x, 128gb, a6000

Home servers:
7313p, ~400gb, 4x a5000
7713p, 1tb, onboard
2x dual Xeon, 64gb, 48x18tb
 
Too many:
Office PC1. Ryzen 5900x 32gb RTX3090. Main gaming PC
Office PC2. Dual Xeon 2683v3, 64gb. Main work PC usefull for lots of VMs etc
Bedroom PC. 5600G, 16gb 3060
Livinng room PC. 3600, 16gb 3050.
Gym PC. 6850k, 32ggb gtx1080.
pfsense. I3 6100, 4gb.

A few spare Xeon E5-2690 PC's used to use when testing various things; probably should give away but always find it a nightmare and too good to bin. Used to use naff PC's / steam link and steam streaming in bedroom / living / gym but just sort of ending up getting the others when bored off facebook marketplace (all 3 cost far less than thr 3090)
 
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