Great question! (Trying to sound like an AI client.)

I also use my server to stream music from Tidal. Connection: PC -> USB soundcard^[1] -> five meter cable^[2] -> mixer^[3] -> speakers^[4].

PC area:

Media consumption area:

Yesterday, I tried to cut out the soundcard by connecting the RCA cable to the rear audio port of the motherboard, but alas, I had accidentally bought an unbalanced RCA to 3.5mm converter, which introduced a lot of noise.

The reason I want my server rig to be my music player is power efficiency. It idles at around 58 watts and streams music at around 70 watts. My freakin’ gaming rig idles at around 100 watts, probably because of the 3080…

With all that said, I’m still considering just stopping listening to music with my server. After all, it’s only a few bucks difference.

That’s a great (and obvious) idea! Don’t know why I didn’t think of that… Thanks! :)

I have only ever used midrange B550 AMD chipsets, so I don’t know what that looks like. But I do wish to someday have one of the X-something AMD boards :D still AM4, mind you.

I agree with all the other commenters.

On a personal take, I have two notes.

1. it’s an ideological stance and part of my consumer activism. With older tech, I mostly know what the hardware does, what the software does and I can expect nothing more or less than advertised. With today’s technology, the Terms of Service are often written in a way that is hard for the end user to understand. Since the end user simply wishes to use their^[1] technology, a lot of people simply accept the terms without having understood them, which in turn forces them and their data to become the product they never agreed to become. A subscription to Netflix forces me to hand over some undefined information and I cannot rely on consistency in image quality. Setting up my own media player “forces” me to understand fully what it does, how it does it and I can expect consistency in regards to image quality.

2. older tech allows me to do one thing, and I feel like it has freed me of the dopamine addiction enducing toxic doomscrolling and consumerism that comes with multi purpose technologies.

I agree! In addition to hard drives I’d also rather buy motherboards new, since a lot of electronics are directly exposed, and I trust only me and myself in adequate handling of such delicate stuff. XD

Thanks for the detailed reply! :D

You also made me realize that the matter isn’t as black and white as I thought. It depends of course on what you use the hardware for, if you are doing anything mission critical where data redundancy and integrity is important, and lots of other factors.

An idiot once argued that I support totalitarianism because my parents’ country was once occupied by the Soviet Union. I will not say what I wish on this person. It’s like saying that I support violence because I was punched in the face…

The secondary hole is supposed to be smaller and only to be used in emergencies or during maintenance of the primary valve.

I did the same thing last year, only to break apart the server-gaming rig into two separate machines again last week. The reason being, my server needs to be on all the time, it serving some stuff and seeding Linux ISOs and whatnot. At the same time, my GPU - the mighty 3080 - was idling at around 30 watts and my CPU - my precious 5800X3D - was power hungry too. Obviously that’s just a few bucks a month, but it adds up when it’s constantly running. Swapping the GPU and CPU out for a Ryzen APU (5700G) saved me 30 watts + whatever my 5800X3D was idling at.

Just take it.

Whoopsie doodle.

Is there a vote system? I’d like to vote on the next target. Looking at you, Big Tech^[1]. 👀