Hardware / Recommended

Recommended Miscellaneous Computer Components

Updated: June 2020

PSU (Power Supply Unit)

There are many good power supply units available; we are unable to list them all. Unfortunately, good power supplies have some non-negligible cost, in other words, good power supplies are usually not cheap.

There are also many more bad than good PSUs on the market, and we are also unable to list all the bad ones.

Here is a short list of recommendations. "Pure Power" PSUs from "Be quiet!" are probably the cheapest good quality units on the market. Seasonic "Core" series is the next cheapest one.

Seasonic - Focus Gold, Focus PX/GX/GM, Focus SGX, Prime TX/PX/GX, Core GX/GM/GC
Be Quiet - Pure Power, SFX Power (for SFX only), Power Zone, Straight Power, Dark Power

Monitor

two or three monitors with an IPS panel and at least 1:1000 contrast are recommended
most VA (PVA, SVA, MVA) panels are slightly inferior, but still acceptable
at least 20 inch diagonal size
sRGB color space is sufficient
matte screen coating (instead of glossy) is recommended
VESA mounting with VESA stand is highly recommended

Keyboard

full 104 key keyboard is recommended
numpadless keyboards are acceptable
flat keys are not recommended
shallow keys are not recommended
contoured keyboard is recommended
split keyboard may provide benefits
both "mechanical" (more correctly: spring tensioned) and rubber dome keyboards are acceptable
PBT plastic keys are usually the best, followed by POM plastic. ABS plastic keys are usually the worst.