HobbyEngineered | Systems, Builds, and Practical Engineering

Hardware & Gear

The Best PC Build for Running Local LLMs (That Also Games)

April 9, 2026

Running local LLMs comes down to one number: VRAM. This guide covers three desktop build tiers, real model requirements, and honest laptop caveats for anyone who wants to run Ollama without giving up gaming performance.

Hardware & Gear

Best Budget Mechanical Keyboards for Gamers (Under $100, No Compromises on Feel)

March 31, 2026

Budget mechanical keyboards have closed the gap on premium boards faster than most people realize. This guide covers the best picks under $100 for gaming with honest notes on where each one cuts corners.

Collecting & Builds

Gaming PC vs Prebuilt: What Nobody Tells You Before You Buy

March 27, 2026

Custom builds get romanticized, prebuilts get dismissed, and most of the debate skips the part where your use case and budget should be making the decision for you.

1 DLSS on GTX 1660: Stop Chasing Numbers and Play Your Games 2 Learning Hex Editing Through Reverse Engineering Games 3 My Multi-Platform Gaming Setup: Stop Asking What’s “Best” 4 From CRT to 240Hz OLED: What Monitor Tech Actually Fixed (And What It’s Still Selling) 5 Why Sleeping Dogs Still Stands the Test of Time 6 The Best PC Build for Running Local LLMs (That Also Games) 7 I Skipped Three GPU Generations. Here’s What I Learned. 8 Why the Original X-COM Still Has the Better Setting 9 How to Keep Mechanical Keyboards Running for Years (And Why That Actually Matters) 10 Fragmentation Is Not a Flaw, It’s How Systems Stay Alive 11 Conquest of Camelot: The RPG I Never Finished, and Why That’s the Point 12 Zero-Waste Urban Farming: I Grew Pechay, Bell Peppers, and Siling Labuyo on My Balcony — Here’s Exactly How 13 Why I Don’t Game on My ROG Phone 7 Ultimate (Even Though It’s Built for It) 14 You Don’t Need Better Fans, You Need Better Airflow 15 Palladium Baggy Hi Sole Separation: What Actually Happens and Whether the Boot Is Still Worth Repairing 16 Building a Dune Collection: Why I Hunted Down All Six Books 17 The Alchemy of Coffee: Why the French Press Still Wins 18 I Keep Coming Back to Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and I’m Not Sure I’ll Ever Stop 19 Why Power Supplies Decide Whether an Upgrade Is Smart or Stupid 20 Go Bags as a Hobby: Why I Build Multiple Bags for Different Scenarios 21 I’ve Been Wearing the Same Pair of Palladium Boots Since the 2000s and They’re Still My Daily Driver 22 The First RPG I Ever Played Was Star Wars, and We Were All Dead by Round Three 23 Know Enough About Multimeters to Be Dangerous 24 Mang Tomas: The MacGyver of Foods 25 Building Tabletop RPG Environments With What You Already Have 26 Best Budget Mechanical Keyboards for Gamers (Under $100, No Compromises on Feel) 27 What a Paratrooper Taught Me About Drinking the Right Thing for the Right Situation 28 LEGO Technic Stuck With Me for 30 Years and I Finally Know Why 29 Gaming PC vs Prebuilt: What Nobody Tells You Before You Buy

Gaming, hardware, and hobby systems built for real use. No hype. No trends. Systems that last. From vintage DOS-era PCs to modern gaming rigs, tabletop campaigns to figure collecting.