Tag Archives: hardware

Best Computer for Claude Code in 2026

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Originally published February 6, 2026. Updated April 14, 2026. TL;DR: If you are looking for the best computer for Claude Code in 2026, my short answer is the MacBook Air M5 (currently $150 off on Amazon). Most people do not need a monster workstation. The AI heavy lifting runs in the cloud. Your machine handles file I/O, builds, test suites, and your dev environment. Cheapest Mac that works: the $599 MacBook Neo. Windows: a ThinkPad with 32GB of RAM. Desktop

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RTX 5080 vs. RTX 3090: Is It Time to Upgrade in 2026?

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Is the Upgrade Actually Worth It? The internet loves a clean upgrade narrative: Old card bad, new card good, spend money. But the reality of the NVIDIA RTX 5080 era is messier and more interesting. If you are currently rocking an RTX 3090, you’re still packing serious heat. That card remains a 24GB monster. The big question: Is the 5080 a meaningful leap forward, or just high-end hardware FOMO? Let’s break down the data. Raw Gaming Performance: Faster, but is

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Intel Core i7 8550U vs the AMD Ryzen 7 5800U

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Recently I was comparing my trusting Samsung Note 9 laptop to a new inexpensive mini PC (Ace Magician Dual LAN Mini Desktop PC). Surprisingly, the Intel Core i7 8550U in the Note 9 actually held up pretty well vs the the newer AMD Ryzen 7 5800U: Based on these differences, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800U seems to be a superior CPU in terms of performance, efficiency and features, while the Intel Core i7 8550U may have some advantages in terms

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Hardware toolkit for reparing laptops, phones, computers

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If you work on computers a lot then you know how important it can be to have the right tool for the job. 🙂 Thankfully, most computer upgrade tasks are handled with fairly common tools, but if you happen to have a particularly difficult upgrade/repair task ahead of you it might be worth checking out a comprehensive toolkit such as this one: I have the utmost respect for iFixit as they do a phenomenal job of teardowns and takeaparts. However,

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Learning about Bitcoin mining

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You’ve probably read some sensational news stories about Bitcoin mining, I know I have . 🙂 However, I had lunch with a buddy last month in Tulsa and it really altered my view on Bitcoin mining. I already had an abstract idea about random people out there using CPU/GPU computing power to generate blocks to continue the growth of Bitcoins, what I didn’t realize was that my buddy knew a guy that was sinking big bucks into a personal Bitcoin

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Building a RAID 5 array on a Thecus N4100 Pro

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How long does it take to build a RAID5 array on a Thecus N4100Pro NAS using four 1TB drives? About 10 hours and 30 minutes. This was with (4) Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB hard drives, 32 MB Cache, 7200 RPM SATA II (WD1001FALS). I am a big fan of Thecus products! They have been very reliable for me and my family :-). Top Search Terms:thecus n4100pro raid 5 build time (4)thecus n4100pro raid (3)thecus n4100 (3)thecus raid build

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