As I should have mentioned in the post (and now have thrown in another reply), I mainly want to use the rig for audio recording, video editing, and gaming. Basically an all-rounder, but I don't need a god-tier machine. It'd be nice to run everything in 4K but I super do not need it. I appreciate the recommendation of taking a pre-built and going from there, since I thought PC builders hated pre-builts. It's a good idea and what I might go with at first. Would you happen to know any places I can get a unit other then Ebay or Amazon, though? I'll check locally myself but as for online stores I try my best to avoid them.

Okay, thank you for the explanations and reassurance! I can tell you what I have rn is a Dell XPS 15 if I have the number right. I use it for gaming (mostly retro but plenty newER games as well) and most importantly audio recording and production. It's pretty good with that stuff, running three monitors including it's built in one, a giant audio interface as well as a handful of SSDs. It all works with few issues, but God does it feel like I'm stretching this poor laptop thin!

I should have mentioned what I actually use my computer for in the post, but I didn't expect advice like this, only places to buy old parts, so thank you for your help! Would you be able to place the XPS 15 somewhere in the timeline of these generations of hardware? It was released around 2018 but laptops are always behind, so I'm not sure what era of computer it realistically IS, if that makes any sense. I know for a fact it could perform much better then it does, but the cramped nature of it's design kneecaps it hard. I have it elevated for better airflow and I may need to clean the fans out, since it has been a while.

EDIT: I'm mostly into platformers and the like, so running new games would be great, but I hardly play any hyper-realistic games. To use two Fallout games as examples: I've run New Vegas smoothly for hours and hours, but 4 hardly works at all. Not that I have much interest in the latter so I only ran it for a few minutes, but even those few minutes proved it was far too slow to play at all. I fully believe this is due to the horrible cooling system and not the CPU itself being that bad.

This art style gives me life~

I'll have a look into this, thank you!

It's simply that I've never taken one apart or put one together before. I've heard the stories of people frying things, fucking up the CPU while trying to install it, and just general small mistakes leading to big costs. It all makes me feel I need to do a test run before tackling whatever my final rig ends up being. I need it to last a long time, so that means it'll be costly, and I don't think top-tier parts are fit for my untrained hands lol

Thanks, Imma quote this when some dumbass shrugs at me and says we're all fucked and there's no hope left. Like, I get feeling depressed about the state of things but it's such an obvious cop out that it makes me livid whenever I hear it.

I can't tell, are you actually opposed to windmills? Aren't they a good source of clean energy we should be moving towards?

Gotcha, I think that makes sense. I don't know much about Piefed, but hey, if it works it works. I prefer Lemmy anyway because it is integrated like that.

Sorry I'm only getting back to this now, but thank you! I do understand instances and whatnot, but I guess my question boils down to this: if the whole of Lemmy somehow gets influenced by the shitty views of some or all of the devs (I'm not sure how many there are), and a fork is needed, does that bring down all of the instances and existing infrastructure of Lemmy with it? Like, the existing instances won't be able to upgrade to the latest version, and then if they use the fork instead, will that screw with other things? I guess this is a question for a programmer, but it's on my mind lol

I hardly like cheese AND I'm asexual so this question hardly applies to me lol

And resorting to The Mona Lisa just because it's widely considered a masterpiece by everyone else shows how little they think about art and consider it themselves. If that's your first and especially only example, you've already failed the test lol

Are you fucking kidding me? A school supporting AI, it's worst enemy? Genuinely disgusting.