Tomcat This is, if not the most damaging advice, then certainly one of the most damaging. Here's the reason.

The QVL-list is created when the board is released and is never updated again. If a company releases a new module that is fully compatible and has better features, it will not be included in this list.
It is hilarious to see memory from companies from “Uncle Liao's basement”, while serious companies are often poorly represented in such lists. That is, chips from Hynix and Samsung, but modules directly from them are not in the list! Really?

this is not true.
this year i went and bought some ram, DDR was on point, manufacker was too, and yet the system didnt boot.
Go on and went to see the list of supported, dug out the ram serial number and low and behold it wasnt supported. wasted my life few more weeks on shipping.

Tomcat apparently you haven't dealt with top-of-the-line CRTs.

yes i have not, no room, no money.

        kuligs2 this is not true.

        What's "not true"? Is the QVL-list updated? Can you give me an example? It should be updated, but I haven't seen an actual implementation of it yet.

        I'm curious, what was the motherboard and memory model?

            Jdellis6656 What should I prioritize most?

            Buying a computer… especially for work… well, it's a more philosophical and existential question…

            I have Intel and NVidia, as you can see.

            In general, yeah, it's better to do it and see what happens.

            Everyone has his own experience. Here's an example. I had a situation similar to that of @kuligs2. I bought and assembled a computer and it wouldn't start. Then I went to the store where I bought the motherboard. I was shown there that it works with other memory. But Asus and GeIL cannot be incompatible! (At that time for sure, but how it is now — I don't know.) On the way back I went to the store where I took the memory and said that it didn't work. They looked at me with great surprise and without saying a word immediately changed the set. This memory worked for several years until it was replaced with a larger capacity. So, even the most reliable manufacturer can be defective. It's something to keep in mind. So, from a similar situation we found different ways out and made different conclusions.

            Right now, you're taking a computer for studying. When you start working, it will most likely be very outdated.

            Keep this in mind. I guess even @kuligs2 won't argue with this. The upgrade capabilities are severely limited by the motherboard.

            Here is an example of an open 3D world in Godot. Compiled version for Windows.

            You can look at this thread Godot 4 Demo Scenes.

            But remember that the most tricked out comp will not make the game for you.

            How are you with programming and, most importantly, with math?

                I'm a complete beginner to programing. I've only followed along with a YouTube tutorial so far to start learning the basics.
                math doesn't seem to be an issue.

                kuligs2 That's been my mindset as well. I've only played around with some 2D so far, but I've had a blast!

                  Tomcat Id love to have a workstation like yours, but I don't think I should worry about that until I know what I'm doing more.

                    ard-Combo/dp/B0D2JBKR3P/ref=sr_1_21?crid=2NR5LZQN2UT4M&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.sV21fJ-JBNI5r-uPfjofFURlizzV4MbFwiavYw889jiOGo5MlfIWKMJK5hKguV4n6CXS6wFAncuLftzwZz_luhde3lT_Qtdvk91lroqbs36tMhoyz6DMdQdTECzKQrhWY3HSHLnkxqlJ82oTFQ5ofm5SG0aC9NIhGQHaCp_bs3M-rtUV8F_4gKi4QKVamhYmgl3EDKbfR3CtGzljrzEp5J9jsUnBUC4SbJpKohn6NUdobmEgbP0WJbR6NCzFCmvJmcO9vKnR9_h2_p2bkK9CjwayfR8sRd8Pc6JcB38VlCQ.N8cJ_WVnvouLAl3zCiBzUo7294uu8cXK_g0kW_PUJfM&dib_tag=se&keywords=inland%2Bmicro%2Bcenter&qid=1727498597&s=electronics&sprefix=inland%2Bmicro%2Bcenter%2B%2Celectronics%2C155&sr=1-21&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.2b70bf2b-6730-4ccf-ab97-eb60747b8daf&th=1

                    Are these inland by microcenter bundles on amazon decent deals? I'm hoping to get settled on a build in time for the holiday deals. first one i was thinking of checking out was the prime day deals.

                    Tomcat I'm curious, what was the motherboard and memory model?

                    its a protectli device, i guess custom motherboard.. vp4650. They sell it with ram and without ram, i looked up the "manufacturer" by word, so they sold some with kingston so i bougt kingston, but the one i bought (talking about ram) did not boot. compared the ram serial numbers with the list they had tucked deep in their website and yeah, it was not on the list.. bought other ram from the list and it worked.

                    Its not often but sometimes it happens. Better be safe and get the ones that are certified to work with your motherboard and save few weeks on shipping and a headache later.

                    Also, my latest pc build came in few days ago, booted it dry no OS, plugged in the USB flash with some linux on it, and BAM... it wont boot from it.. Secure boot is enabled, and grayed out in the BIOS. Cant disable..

                    Reformated with different distro, and different methods and it booted.. installed OS, and now i can turn the secure boot off in the bios..

                    the motherboard was MSI.

                    For the OP, if youre a noob, and have money just get pre built comp, if it dont work you can return it and tell them to make it work.

                    If youre smart then build it yourself.
                    Or if you already have pc, 2060 isnt that bad. i forgot what cpu u had. Either way you could build a pc from used parts. Just dont buy used hard drives, you might get swatted by fbi.

                        kuligs2 I'm confident I can build one. I also have friends I can get to supervise me so I don't screw it up. My current comp has a 10th gen i5 i believe. i really like this set up, ive just heard that intel is having issues with the newer 13th and 14th gen cpus? could i find a decent 12th gen that would be a good starting point?

                            I didn't read the entire thread, but noticed some posts about compatibility. One option is to look at prebuild computers from a dealer that knows his job and then buy those parts and build it yourself for less money. My last pc would have been 10% cheaper, but I was too lazy.

                              Jdellis6656 why not go AMD? 😃

                              My main pc runs 5900x, and its not bottle necking my 3090 gpu.
                              Everything runs smoothly.
                              Modern CPus are good enough to run your average game. Well if you need to run some othr software that does lots of calculations, for instance one might look at photogrametry using meshroom, this uses lots of CPU power, so faster CPU calculations here is needed to reduce render times...

                                  kuligs2 I'm not opposed to amd at all. I've been thinking of going that route because it seems more budget friendly. What cpu would you recommend?

                                      Jdellis6656 I have a better question, should I go with am4 socket? Or try to get into something with am5 so I have future upgrade paths?

                                        kuligs2 i guess custom motherboard.. vp4650.

                                        Ah, so it's a custom motherboard — there could (should) be problems with it. But I have a feeling that if you had gotten a Crucial, you might have avoided problems.

                                        kuligs2 If youre smart then build it yourself.

                                        Jdellis6656 I also have friends I can get to supervise me so I don't screw it up.

                                        It doesn't depend much on smarts — luck is more important. Faults happen with all manufacturers and there is a non-zero probability of stumbling upon them.

                                        trizZzle One option is to look at prebuild computers from a dealer

                                        Our dealers cram the cheapest components into such assemblies.

                                        Jdellis6656 What cpu would you recommend?

                                        I have never taken AMD and don't plan to in the foreseeable future.

                                                    Tomcat I have never taken AMD and don't plan to in the foreseeable future.

                                                    I have never had an intel and don't plan on the foreseeable future

                                                    every time I had to open an intel machine I remember having a bad experience removing the cooler. intel also has a reputation for overheating, being not as performant for a higher price, bad drivers, vulnerabilities and making bad GPUs. I don't know about today, but they have a bad history.

                                                        Jesusemora every time I had to open an intel machine I remember having a bad experience removing the cooler.

                                                        What could it possibly be? I quickly switched to custom coolers and had no problems.

                                                        intel also has a reputation for overheating, being not as performant for a higher price, bad drivers, vulnerabilities <…>. I don't know about today, but they have a bad history.

                                                        The same can be said for AMD 😹

                                                        making bad GPUs

                                                        Intel's GPU is a misunderstanding, yeah. But they are not designed for serious work. I use NVidia.

                                                          Jdellis6656 Even with the 13th and 14th gen issues?

                                                          And I've already moved to Xeon. Besides, they are cooler (in terms of temperature).
                                                          I have a hard time with this language sometimes.

                                                          It's a situation that needs to be studied. It seems that only the topmost processors in the line have problems, though.

                                                          just the highest i9-series chips

                                                          and it seems that the necessary changes have been released and the problem is apparently already solved. But I think it's better to wait a bit and new processors will be released.
                                                          Intel Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake CPUs are unaffected by crashing issues

                                                          Intel will announce Lunar Lake in September, while we still don't have an official date for Arrow Lake. However, rumors point to October 17.

                                                          By the way, it's much better from an upgrade point of view.