My Puget Altus Setup Journey
Alright, so I finally got my hands on this Puget Altus machine. The box showed up, pretty big thing, heavy too. Felt solid just getting it out. Took a bit of effort, not gonna lie, just to heave it onto the desk. Looks pretty clean, though. Not too flashy, which I kinda like. Just a straightforward case, plenty of vents.
First thing was plugging everything in. You know, the usual monitor cables, keyboard, mouse, network cable. Nothing tricky there. Double-checked the power connection, made sure it was seated right. Then, the moment of truth, hit the power button.
It booted up pretty quick. Quieter than I expected on first start, which was a nice surprise. Went straight into the initial Windows setup. Name the PC, connect to Wi-Fi (though I used the cable), set up my account. All the standard stuff. Didn’t take too long, maybe 15 minutes clicking through everything.
Getting My Tools Onboard
Once Windows was ready, the real work started: installing all my software. This is always a bit of a chore, right?
- First up, the big stuff – my main work applications. Downloaded the installers, ran them one by one.
- Installation speed was decent. Definitely faster than my old setup.
- Then drivers. Checked the graphics card driver, updated that just to be safe. Puget usually has things pretty up-to-date, but I like to check.
- Copied over some essential files and project data from my backup drive. That took a while, but the system handled the transfer without slowing down much on other tasks.
Putting It Through Its Paces
With everything installed, it was time to see what this Altus could actually do. Opened up one of my larger projects. Wow. Okay, yeah, this is different. Things loaded up way faster. Scrubbing through timelines felt smooth, no stuttering like I used to get.
Ran a couple of test renders. Big difference there. What used to take maybe an hour was done significantly quicker. The fans did spin up during the heavy load, you could hear them, but it wasn’t like a jet engine or anything annoying. Just a steady hum, doing its job.
Tried some multitasking too. Had my main application running, a browser with a ton of tabs open, file transfers going in the background. It didn’t flinch. Everything stayed responsive. That’s really what I needed – something that wouldn’t bog down when I’m juggling different tasks.
Only minor hiccup was one specific plugin acting weird initially. Had to reinstall just that one piece, then it worked fine. Probably just a glitch during the initial bulk install.
So yeah, been using it for a bit now. It’s just… reliable. It handles everything I throw at it without complaining. Makes the day-to-day work less frustrating when you’re not waiting for the machine to catch up. Definitely feels like a proper workstation built for getting stuff done.
