Hey everyone! How’s it going? Got a couple of questions for you all but we’ll start this off simple.
So! I’m in the market for a whole new system (wife said she would never use the computer… Well look at her now lol. Time to build my own… Again) but this time there will be absolutely no Microsoft anywhere close to this thing unless its a VM. It’s time to switch over to Linux.
I’ve only ever dabbled in trying to get ubuntu to install on my laptop to no avail as it just has a multitude of problems from a loose battery connection on the board to drives capping out and so on. So I know next to nothing about Linux besides some research. I’m wondering from a purely technical perspective, which platform behaves better with Linux for gaming? Intel and nvidia or an AMD setup?
The computer will be used primarily for gaming on an ultra wide 1440p monitor with light to medium use in blender, simplify 3d and cura for 3d printing as a hobby of mine and some mild overclocking on water.
I’m well aware of the troubles I am going to face with this build but I would like some suggestions on which boards and CPU’s I should be looking at to make things a bit easier or at least just run smoother.
Currently waiting for the next gen intel to be released so the 8700k comes down in price a bit as I’m thinking of doing another 8700k 1080TI build. Also is there anything you think I should be made aware of or just think is some helpful advice for me?
Thank you for making it through this long post. I’m looking forward to exploring Linux and expanding my knowledge of computers. I hope I can do that here.
If you have the money for a 1080ti it’s nvidia all the way. As to intel vs AMD. Well I am bias to AMD because of the linux GPU driver support. The 8700K is the best gaming CPU and your paying a premium for that as well.
I dont see anything wrong with 8700K and 1080ti. It’s the gaming combo that is proven.
How ever my linux gaming is only AMD 1700 and RX480. CPU’s (AMD or Intel) just work but someone with nvidia drivers on a 1080ti should let you know how the latest drivers are working.
Well thank you for your input. Ultimately it’s probably going to come down to who has better driver support at the end of the month but it is good to know that AMD GPU support generally has been better than nvidia in the past.
If you’re gaming on 1440p UW there’s really no added value for gaming to having a 8700k, because the frame rates that a 2600x or 2700x can produce will more than suffice. Prices for the Intel parts aren’t likely to come down (soon), either.
It’s more the recent commitment thats been ongoing for maybe 2 years. That AMD will make open source drivers. They have been very active and seem committed.
To put it in perspective before the RX 480 I had a Nvidia GTX670. And back then games only supported Nvidia. So when I got the AMD GPU I got screwed on a few games that no longer worked.
Again times are a changin. Steam Play is making my windows steam games work on linux. Still totally early days.
I just dont know how nvidia is now. To recommend a 1080ti. It’s a great card.
Allow me to share my experiences as someone who has a 10 series and a rx 5 series card.
First the tldr: if you want the best performance and are okay with proprietary drivers, go Nvidia. If you want better open source performance, go AMD.
Both manufacturers have some quirks, such as amd not liking display port kvms and not playing well with some specific components, or the infamous Nvidia black screen that so often plagues the debian (and derivatives) world, but frankly, it’s really down to your use case.
Your use case to me screams Nvidia. If you can afford another 1080 ti, go for it. The support for it on fedora is nearly seamless. Add the 3rd party repo, install the packages, and forget you did anything.
You can of course also match an intel cpu with an AMD gpu,
that totally doesnt matter.
As for gaming i agree with @Marten that intel cpu’s are still the better performers,
atleast as far as the mainstream cpu’s like the 8700K is concerned.
As for gpu’s a GTX1080Ti is also a good choice, but the Nvidia drivers could be a bit fidlly with Linux.
But i believe that their proprietary drivers are starting to get there.
But of course you could also go with an AMD gpu instead in this case,
If you are looking for better support on the open source drivers.
One of the reasons i would vote for a 8700K or maybe one of the new upcomming 9th gen intel cpu’s,
is because they have an igpu, which could be really handy wenn using vm’s with passtrough the dedicated gpu,
you could use the igpu for the linux video server.
That should theoreticlly make things allot easier.
Another question I have to ask is: Do you want the best value and are okay to not have cutting edge performance or do you want the best performance and spend more money?
Regarding the CPU: If you are okay to take a few percent of a hit in games with very high frame rates go with Ryzen. For your real world experience there is essentially no difference. Also, with the supply shortage on the Intel side their processors are even a bit more expensive than usual. But there is nothing wrong with the 8700k if you can get a good price.
Regarding GPU: Blender now works quite well with openCL if you want to do GPU rendering, so both AMD and Nvidea are ok. It really depends on how much performance you want and what the prices are where you are. From a driver standpoint, essentially what @Marten and @FaunCB said. (Personally I had more problems with Nvidea in the past year, but my usecases are a bit strange ) Cut that last bit, it is not really relevant for your usecase.
Edit: Looking around the internet quite a few people say prices for the 1080Ti have come down. If that’s the case where you are, go for it. I am not that lucky
See, the thing about AMDs great support for Linux is that even that isn’t enough. For some reason, they can’t match performance for native titles to windows. They’re about 70% there, but it’s just disappointing that even native Linux titles are held back by insufficient drivers.
The proprietary Nvidia drivers provide near parity in terms of performance to Windows, so if OP is looking for a Linux box that has lots of performance to game and do 3d modeling, nvidia is the way to go. Frankly, I’d rather buy AMD because I disagree with some Nvidia practices, but until AMD competes in price and performance, They’re going to see nothing from me. That’s why I didn’t buy vega. I probably won’t buy Polaris 30 either.
I more or less gauge gaming performance off the CPU. I play a lot of emulators as well as source based titles. I can play a lot of high end titles just fine on my old shit systems paired with a 580, so the way I see it is theres a massive boost from E5462’s (my current machine has 2, and it can still play DiRT Rally on high) to one 2600X and a 570 or 580 paired with that.
But really, anything works. It honestly doesn’t take that much to get an OK games machine going. The problem you run into is outside of games nowadays. New games just aren’t a good benchmark anymore.
Well, based on the hardware that OP mentioned, “ok” wsn’t his idea.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that we have to consider what’s best for OP, and frankly, I gave a scenario where either one could be better, it just depends on what’s important to OP.
That’s what I get for starting to post on a thread while fucked up.
Thanks for bringing us back on track.
So, as far as a recommendation goes:
Both the 8700k and 2700x are great CPUs and work great in Linux. It really comes down to which is more important. Do you want raw CPU render performance, or do you want FPS. Frankly, I’d lean towards Intel because renders are a sort of set it up and go get dinner sort of thing, so if you’re not on a time crunch, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a 15% increase in render time.
if you play in 720p, sure. When playing 1440p UW, rather less/meaningfully so. (And I would point out that anything over 90fps or so is meaningless unless you play competitively, leaving aside that most people don’t even have monitor with >100hz refresh rates.)
) Cut that last bit, it is not really relevant for your usecase.
