Cue the protracted discussion on the merits of adding heat sinks and replacing thermal paste. 
???
Yes, I had to tweak my motherboard settings to actually run my new RAM at its rated speed. This was nonsensical to me, but it is what it is.
Yup. The only case where RAM power consumption actually matters is in a system that enters a state of deep sleep such as a phone or tablet and spends a majority of its time in that state. Even then, for anything that has a cellular radio it’s negligible.
I think I am going to order the Captiva, even though it isn’t perfect. Hopefully it can be upgraded to 64 GB if it’s necessary. I think I am too impatient for a self built PC. Plus, self built is definitely more expensive. I think I can live with that compromise.
If I decide today until 4 pm, I can have it by Friday.
I need a keyboard for it and a mouse. Probably also a USB bluetooth module for my Wacom tablet. And of course a webcam and a headset. I think I have some old USB blutooth module but I don’t know where it is. And I also have very old but nice Philips loudspeakers, if they are still functional.
I have a bluetooth keyboard, I used it with my tablet but it is not good, I see the characters approximately 1 second after I have typed them. And it won’t be possible to start the computer with it because it has no bluetooth.
Well, the first point counts ;-). And that is the one the matters here most I guess.
Expensive?
Well it depends on the features you want. Here would be a similar configuration, but with much more future options and on board USB-C connector and so on.
https://geizhals.at/?cat=WL-1447426
If I excluded assemble costs, the windows license was the difference in price in the past. Maybe that changed, I don’t know.
Than you need to open the case by yourself anyway and sell or throw away the old RAM sticks.
Currently, prices for good GPUs are way too high and if one can postpone the investment in a GPU it will result in much more savings than self- vs. prebuilds.
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So, I think so far I am happy with the Captiva. Everything, or almost everything works. Dual booting is set up and works nicely.
The only issue is darktable (3.4) on Windows: it’s slow as hell. I ran darktable-cltest.exe. It says that opencl is functional, however, when I turn on denoise, the preview is as slow as my laptop, if not even slower. Maybe I should create an own thread for that. On Linux, darktable is as fast as I expected.
Well, what is also worth to mention: a little disappointing is the fact that this computer has exactly one monitor port. But that’s not a surprise. I expected that or at least something similar because I knew that the CPU does not come with an iGPU. So obviously, there is another HDMI port and a DVI port, but probably they are not functional. There was a sticker next to the HDMI port that belongs to the Nvidia card and “attach your monitor here” was written on it.
Every component that is not absolutely necessary was left out on this machine - there is no wifi either.
I did not work on a desktop I think in almost 20 years. But I think it’s really nice. It’s great to look straight ahead at this wonderful screen (with the laptop I had to look to the side). External keyboard feels nice, too. But I think I bought a crappy wireless mouse. Although, I got used to the touchpad. I only had to move my hand a little from the keyboard to reach it.
Btw, this machine is super silent, too. I also tested the performance with the RT nightly build from gaaned and the performance is optimal. I noticed that the spot removal tool is included in this build, so looks like it was merged.
Well, I am still suffering a bit of screen tearing under Debian with LXDE. I think that would go away if I used a different desktop environment such as KDE.
So, I guess I can continue to work.
Anyway, thanks to all of you for your advice!!
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Really?! I wouldn’t think video cards with only one output are still produced… Just to make sure, where are those HDMI and DVI ports located? On the motherboard (vertical section on the backside of your pc), or on the video card itself (horizontal sections)?
Have you installed the Nvidia proprietary drivers? If not, that might help with screen tearing, especially if you enable full compositioning pipeline
NVIDIA X Server Settings, navigate to X Server Display Configuration → select display in layout → Advanced → check the Force Composition Pipeline box
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thanks, that was it!
yes, that is the case. I will post a photo of the back side of the computer eventually but at the moment it’s a bit difficult to exchange files between the computer and my cameraphone. Although I could log in to pixls.us directly from my phone.
There is a dvi and an hdmi on the motherboard but they are probably not functional. And there is only one hdmi on the Nvidia card.
Should have 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x DisplayPort 1.4a - remove the plastic caps?
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aaah you are right!!!
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Would love to see what your new computer (or desk) looks like. (Hope it isn’t glowing neon. 
)
not very tidy
yesterday I bought a usb bluetoth adpter because I didn’t find the old one. Well, in case you did not notice: my new compter does not have wifi or bluetooth that’s why it was more difficult to share files between devices.
Now I need to go hand in my Covid test (the blue box under the screen).
New computer and no connectivity at all? (How about Ethernet?) I would connect via USB cable. Bluetooth works too but we never got along. 
Naturally wired networking is functional. I do use bluetooth, and I also have a Wacom tablet that has bluetooth. Well and I don’t really have a home network set up. Maybe I should have a look at that.
I don’t like wires so I try to avoid usb cables. I mean I am too lazy to connect via usb cable.
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Nice new computer! I recently bought a USB Bluetooth adaptor for my current system. It was a TPLink UB400. Zero issues, just plug and play 
Certainly easier to transfer files to and from phone using bluetooth, rather than usb or KDEConnect.
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Found out that this only applies to mobile chipsets with integrated graphics. Probably negligible these days in newer systems with ample RAM.
My AMD system (3900X) doesn’t use much RAM, even on an absolute scale. About 280 MB after bootup (in the system console), and about 360 MB with the window manager and some terminal emulators running.
Then, Firefox pushes it to 2 GB and more. 