On reflection going the Ryzen 7 3800X for the extra two cores seems an excellent idea so I have done so and with the AMD Reset bug team Red is out and I am swapping over to a GTX 1660 Ti. Given the limitations of what resolutions I want to run that should suit me quite well and have a bit of headroom if I can do a set of screen upgrades in a year or two.
Since dropping team red I will be fine with either a Debian based distro or perhaps Fedora 32/33. I am distro hopping the laptop this week to Fedora 32 to run that on hardware for a bit to see how I enjoy the look and feel of it since in all honestly I don’t think I have touched a Fedora system since version 10ish or so.
At any rate I think I will skip any of the rolling release stuff since my main machine needs to be kept as stable as it goes. I can tolerate a rolling distro on the laptop since that really doesn’t matter too much but that main machine needs dependability.
Thanks for the CPU suggestion I really didn’t have that too much on my radar. Both you and TheCakeIsNaOH have given me plenty to think on and I do appreciate it.
The parts juggling reminds me of the old days when Linux HW detection really stunk in the 1.4ish Kernal days and spending time on BBS’s making sure the parts I was ordering would actually boot.
Thankfully I am fairly sure this bit of patience is going to pay off in the long run.
Well from my understanding for a bang for the buck perspective I go for either a 1660 Super, 1660 TI or a 2060 Super more or less. My target for the card is sub $400. My preferences are biased a bit towards MSI and eVGA branded cards as I have had generally good service out of them over the years but I m open to most mainstream offerings.
For picking a model, you might look at which if any have a virtuallink USB C port, because it is passed through to the VM with the other card devices. I am not sure if it is available on midrange cards.
Also, as you are buying parts, there are two things that I would reccomend if you do not already have them.
The first is a second keyboard/mouse combo. This is for setup and troubleshooting, as it is sometimes much nicer to be able to pass through one keyboard/mouse completely and leave the other for the host during setup. So it does not have to be nice, and can be cheap. You can get a new combo for maybe $15 USD, or maybe you could fine something even cheaper used, say at a secondhand store or craigslist.
The other thing I would suggest is a EDID emulator, otherwise known as a dummy plug. It does not really matter if it is HDMI or Displayport. This is for looking glass, and so you do not have to have the passed through video card plugged into a monitor.
I checked Newegg and only found 2 cards with it and they started in the $800 range so no USB C Virtuallink ports for me.
Hmmm Good call as I don’t think I still own an EDID if I ever did. I think I had a couple of HDMI ones years ago but they are lost to a very old office I no longer am around. Just to comfirm something my setup plan in my head is to have the two video cards in the new box (A) GTX 1660 Super and (B) GTX 750 Ti. Physically my main and two secondary screens are going to connect to card (A) and (B) will use an EDID. My idea setup will transfer over my main screen, keyboard and mouse to the Guest OS and the Host will drop to using Card (B) and a secondary keyboard and mouse as needed.
I tend to buy mine 2 to 4 at a time since they break at the most annoying times. I admit my current KB is the last of it’s current batch so I will find another set I will be comfortable with given what I truly want in a KB doesn’t exist.
While the reset bug is a thing, a 5700 XT should be rock solid under Linux/Host, and that GTX 750 Ti would still work pretty well if you want to play around with Looking Glass for games - if you decide to commit you can always invest in a bigger card later. You could also consider an RX 580 which is pretty good value and handles 1080@60Hz at High, or even better.
Also something to consider would be the Ryzen 4600G (or whatever is revealed with the rest of the Ryzen lineup in a few months), which is a 6c12t CPU plus an APU. This would be perfect for host. Then you could do a 3060 as a decent guest GPU - which is pretty much where the 5700 XT is.
As for B550 IOMMU groups, you will be very limited with it. B550 still could work, it depends on what you want to do with it. X570 is the better chipset if you want to be sure though.
And finally, regarding distro I would be rocking either Manjaro or plain old Ubuntu LTS. It depends on how much you care about access to newer packages and software; Manjaro is better for newer packages, while Ubuntu LTS is better for stability and support. Pick your poison.
Well the trouble is right now the folks over in /r/VFIO which had a list dividing the team red cards into the two types of reset bugs seem to have withdrawn their list of them entirely for the moment and since price/performance on the RX 5700 XT really isn’t that different from a GTX 1660/Super/Ti. At this point as much as part of me really dislikes NVidia for how they handle their linux drivers. For now they really do just work.
I double a 3060 is anywhere in my near future since I really doubt I will go over $400 for a video card anytime soon for just 1080p Stuff though this whole hardware rabbit hole has gotten me has been looking at the Monoprice monitors that appeal to my frugal nature but given this is upgrade season I may retire my 42" tv on the main screen at least to a reasonable 32/27" IPS Panel.
I am going to spend some time on metal (my el cheapo salvage laptop) with the current Fedora and see how I like the current version. I’ve run Manjaro before and while there is nothing wrong with it, especially when you add in the AUR. However the frequent short term “breakage” can be somewhat frustrating for me. I am reserving judgement at the moment.
I will say though it seems that a lot of the VFIO passthrough isn’t going to really happen for now since the AGEAS bug in UEFI kills all VT in linux right now with anything Ryzen. I am too bloody cheap to go Threadripper so I may check some Intel build sets but that will cut down on just how much of a machine I can build right ow. That whole AGEAS thing has been an active bug for over a year and still seems unfixed so I may end up just resorting to running what I want natively in Linux or using that combo of Proton/DXVK/etc.
I am probably about two weeks out from pulling the trigger and spending some money so I will keep an eye out for other options and I will say this has been a fascinating dive down the rabbit hole.
At the moment, that is what I do. Rocking a 3400G, was thinking “I’ll get a graphics card for passthrough later, right now I need the money elsewhere” and bought bare-bones on Black Friday.
I haven’t felt the need to upgrade to a better GPU or CPU yet, but the system is only 8 months old at the moment. I will most probably opt to go with the 4700G whenever it is released.
You will be having trouble with Multiplayer (E-sports especially) on anything that isn’t native due to Anti Cheat software, for me though MP isn’t that tempting anymore. If I play I play with friends in a co-op game, don’t want to deal with the toxic 14-year old 1337 crowd that likes to roflstomp n00bs like me at every opportunity. I’ll stick to couch coop like Overcooked, seems like a better use of my time.
Right now the next game on my list is Baldur’s Gate 3 which I will likely do with one or two of my friends and its not an esport sort of game. The last time I did much of that was with either Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield or Quake Wars: Enemy Territory while they both still did MP. I never bothered with the single player Ravenshield but the multiplayer for its day was amazing and I enjoyed the heck out of it. Heck that is probably one of the few videogames I ever bought on launch day for full retail price. no less.
A few years ago I bought Batt;efield: Bad Company 2 and found it really unplayable from a community standpoint. I occasionally try a few other FPS games but they really fail to draw me in between the various wallhacks and 14 year olds screaming over voice chat I can’t waste my time on.
So I got to 4x Strategy titles, Wargames, RPGs and the odd Puzzler as well as a few retro titles. I too am content with those couch choices.
I am a bit skeptical to all X570 motherboards below $200, I would rather recommend the similarly priced B550 Aorus Pro AC for $169 in that case. For an extra $15 you get (optional) WiFi, bluetooth, USB C and 2.5G Ethernet, as well as a much better VRMs -> better CPU temps. Only two things you really lose are 2 internal USB3 ports and the ability of doing SLI - both not really a concern anymore.
For the Looking Glass Virtual Windows Gaming PC option a B550 should be sufficient, but you might need to wiggle things around a little and plan what goes where. It’s not ideal, but it’s doable.
No argument from me there, but at the same time Ubuntu LTS can get really stale - especially the last 6 months when LTS+3 comes along with all the new cool features.
At the same time, I prefer stale over new stuff breaking shit, and that is precisely the reason I run stock Ubuntu LTS. I also respect that other people have different needs from mine though.
I always run the latest 6-month Ubuntu for that reason. It seems to me the best compromise between being up to date and being stable. In fact, until this last LTS release I’ve been running Ubuntu devel on my day to day system. It was perfectly stable, but unfortunately few PPAs support dev releases, so I’m going back to running the latest stable instead.
The Masochist in me is pondering and with all the bugs and such perhaps an upgrade to the basic Threadripper will suit and since I am also pondering getting rid of my TV I may as well toss in a cheap but interesting 34" single screen to run it.
Do I have to game on Linux? No I don’t have to but I just want too. For that I can use most any of the modern systems though I will likely end up on Pop, Fedora or the real long shot… OpenSUSE. I admit part of me ponders a couple other debian varients, specifically MX Linux because deep down I have never had problem with SysV Init scripts and find parts of systemd something of a kludge I am not entirely convinced is a good thiing but rather than start what is still something of a religious war over the subject I am suspending judgement. In the last 10 years I have been dealing with Linux multiple times a week, on servers. I have had to run a few programs that would not virtualize and thankfully the one that was the worse is now out of my life.
There are still few things the whole passthrough thing looks useful to me other than games. Namely Fusion 360 since I am pondering diving more into the whole 3d printing/laser cutting world to support some of my hobbies and while there are alternatives. Fusion is very attractive for design and more importantly CAM work so I don’t have to manually program all those curves.
Fedora is actually a consideration for best gaming experience on Linux along with POP!_OS . . . Primarily because the WINE staging build is maintained by Red Hat employee along with MESA ACO patches.
On the plus side I did finally find a build guide that is a working VFIO setup using a Gigabyte X570 AORUS PRO that should work. Even if I have to drop in a LTS Kernel for now to cover the ACS bug, I have seen patches that should take care of any AGEAS issue I see over at /r/VFIO.
For now I will just use one NVME for the Host OS the other as an LVM for the guest systems. I will also toss an existing EGVA GTX 750 Ti 2gb Card I have now.
Unless I hear a compelling reason otherwise it’s the solution I think I will go with.
Just a little update. I did build the new box and it’s a rather nice glorious R9 3900x with 64gb of ram and while the Gfx card is only a GTX 1660 Super for now (I want to see what the upcoming AMD offering is before deciding on more of an upgrade). It was an interesting experience getting my hands into some real hardware again.
I will say that the be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU Cooler could have been chosen better by me. I ended up grabbing a Gigabyte Aoras Master x570 board and that particular cooler is ok as long as you are ok only using 2 ram slots. I should have gone with their slightly smaller version and that is on me for not checking. I would also recommend swapping out your stock cooler brackets before you mount the board as doing that in the case was something of a challenge.
Speaking of which I did run into one little thing the board wants in addition to the usual 24 pin plug 2x 8pin power plugs and I have yet to see a power supply that actually has that. I ended up using a Seasonic Focus GM-650, 650W 80+ Gold PSU and it only has 1 of the right power plugs. So far the system is nice and cool and stable but I am not overclocking anything at this point and in fact I am not even using the built in wifi the board comes with so I am hoping that won’t me too much of an issue.
Also that Meshify C case is nice but I don’t particularly care for how the glass panel mounts it just seems that its a break waiting to happen but that could just be my bias on such things too. Everything fit but it was rather tight. The cable management of the case was excellent however and very well designed even though I am not the uber cable tying guru I was more than satisfied with how it came out.
So far its whisper quiet and from what I can tell so far is running with 54c on the CPU, 37c on the motherboard, 30c on the NVME Drives and 49c on the GPU at idle. Running the Heaven Benchmark with a windowed 2560x1080 4xAA running the CPU jumps to 59/60C and the GPU up to 54c and I find that entirely acceptable with not even ramping up the fans one bit.
At any rate I thank everyone for the feedback and suggestions I have gotten.
PS when I put in my new workbench I will see about some non-potato pics as the ones I did already are just meh so far.
I’ll stick to couch coop like Overcooked, seems like a better use of my time.