how is it now

hey just say your videos on the  serval 76 you got and I am thinking of getting one. I wanted to ask you what you thought of the build quality and if you regret getting and going with another company now that you have been using it for a while or if you plan on going back to system 76 when its time to get your next pc.

thanks for the videos. 

Hello there,

I use my Serval on a daily basis, and I can say without question that it's the best computer I've ever had. The only upgrade I've performed since my review is adding an additional 32GB of RAM for a total of 48GB. It's been able to handle every task I've thrown at it, and since the RAM upgrade, I can multitask a huge amount with it as well.

The biggest issue I've had with it is an overheating problem. To be clear, this does not happen under normal usage– it's perfectly stable when I'm CPU rendering a video or GPU rendering an animation. However, if I try to GPU render an animation in Blender and CPU render a video in Kdenlive at the same time, the CPU temperature will often break 100 degrees Celsius, which causes the computer to immediately shut down. This is a little disappointing, as I specifically asked about thermals before I bought the machine and System76 assured me that they performed "extensive testing." That said, it hasn't been a problem since I now know not to render on both chips at the same time.

As far as build quality goes, I would have preferred it be made of metal, as the little ding in the plastic that I pointed out in my review does make the whole thing look a little cheaper than it really should. However, I don't actually touch the laptop all that often, as I'm most often using it with an external keyboard/mouse/display, so the materials don't really bother me. I do transport it every now and then for events, and it feels solid when closed. The display hinges are still very tight (in a good way), for what it's worth. The biggest con in terms of build quality is the screen's backlight bleed, which I showed in my review.

If I was going to get another laptop, I would absolutely go with System76 again. You just can't beat them in terms of performance. If I was going to get a desktop, however, I would build my own rather than purchasing one from System76 at this time. I'm very concerned with the direction that NVIDIA's Linux support is going, and unless their open-source driver situation changes, I wouldn't buy a desktop from System76 until they offer an AMD graphics option. For a laptop, though, AMD isn't an option for performance, so again, I'd totally go System76, especially because they also have desktop CPUs in their higher-end models.

Let me know if you have any further questions!

very cool. I ordered it. You are right, there are not enough decent reviews on YouTube for system 76 and that scared me a little. Thank you for the review it really helped.

In one of your videos you mentioned you used a Korean screen.  I also got a good deal on Korean screens 2x1440 and don't mind getting a 4k Korean if available. Is the 4k you use korean or what kind is it? Is it worth going with a 4k screen? is it hard to use? Here is my setup. I hope to duplicate it with my serval

spartan7 said

Is the 4k you use korean or what kind is it? Is it worth going with a 4k screen? is it hard to use?

From “Post #244”, March 2nd 2018, 12:14 PM

To answer the first part, no, my 2k screen was a Korean model (QNIX), but my 4k screen is a BenQ model, which I consider name-brand.

For me, it was absolutely worth going for a 4k screen, because I always have a ton of stuff open and I can really use the real estate. Looking at your setup, I'd imagine you're the same way. It's not any harder to use than any other monitor because I got a 32-inch model, which means I don't have to do any DPI scaling. I wouldn't get a 27-inch 4k screen, 2k seems like the optimal resolution for that size.

You can check out my unboxing of the screen here if you want to see it. By the way, cool setup!

That is funny so is mine. The one on the right is a QNIX I got from a seller on ebay. Have not had any issues with it up to now. I had another question. Are you still using the 4k screen with no scailing? Is 32' the size to get to not scale? I am thinking of getting the one you got. Do you have an amazon affiliate link or something like that?

*Also do you have a video showing your setup on your laptop like KDE settings, home servers and home network stuff? I would love to know what software you are using.

For video editing have you tried lightworks?
https://www.lwks.com/

spartan7 said

Are you still using the 4k screen with no scailing? Is 32' the size to get to not scale?

From “Post #246”, March 5th 2018, 10:53 AM

Yes, I'm still using the 4k screen with no scaling, and 32" is absolutely the size to get so you don't have to scale.

spartan7 said

Do you have an amazon affiliate link or something like that?

From “Post #246”, March 5th 2018, 10:53 AM

Nah, the last time viewers asked me to make an Amazon Associates account, Amazon closed it a few months later due to not enough sales. I'm not about to start pushing products on people, so I'm not planning on using that kind of system right now.

spartan7 said

*Also do you have a video showing your setup on your laptop like KDE settings, home servers and home network stuff? I would love to know what software you are using.

From “Post #246”, March 5th 2018, 10:53 AM

I don't have one comprehensive video for all of that, although I've made a couple of videos about my KDE setup before (see here and here). I used to have some home servers, but I'm not in charge of the network at my current residence, so all of my servers are running on Linode and DigitalOcean right now.

spartan7 said

For video editing have you tried lightworks?

From “Post #246”, March 5th 2018, 10:53 AM

Yes, several times, and I absolutely hated it. It's slow, it's got an archaic UI, it can't handle most common media formats and thus requires inefficient transcoding. Those are the "benefits" you get for using proprietary software. I'll stick to Kdenlive, thank you very much!

First time I am visiting your site. Really structured and useful information. And everything is clear, thanks. I looked through some posts and must say, they are very interesting.

Yeah I just joined too. I stumbled upon your Cisco switches review because I'm learning how to boot into IOS. Then I watched your Arch tutorial(a mountain I've been trying to climb for weeks) and had a desktop up in a couple of hours.

I'm turning 31 and in the process of career changing from a plumbing trade to networking. I even put myself back in school. I hope I'm not doing this too late in life. Already feeling some imposter syndrome symptoms. Hoping I can shake those off quickly.

I'm very grateful that I found your channel. It's already helped me out tremendously!  

Welcome to the site! I'm working on a new video to get back into things after my break to finish graduate school last year.

For anyone else who wants to say hello, feel free to make a new forum topic instead of adding to this one! We're sending poor spartan7 emails every time someone replies to his topic, lol.