Hi everyone! I’m building a new computer with out-of-the-box Linux support in mind but I’m a little overwhelmed with all the options that exists so I was hoping to get some advice here.
I already bought a new GPU (Radeon RX 6700XT) and a new PSU (750w Seasonic). My old CPU (i7-3770) is currently the bottleneck, that’s why I need to replace everything else.
Here I’ll provide as much details as possible following the general guidelines:
My budget is for a mid to high range CPU, mainly mid but I can stretch it a little bit to get something better if it’s worth it. I plan to keep these parts for 5 year or more so I hope to get something that will perform well for a lot of time. Motherboards with WiFi and Bluetooth are significantly more expensive so I think they’re out of the question.
I live in Argentina where PC parts are more expensive and generally less available.
I don’t have any preferences between AMD or Intel. From what I heard both work very well with Linux. I don’t know if Ryzen will perform better with my AMD GPU.
I’m not interested in overclocking.
I don’t plan on going for water-cooling, and it doesn’t matter if the CPU comes without a stock fan since I’ll be buying a custom one. I also don’t like RGB so I don’t mind the motherboard lacking support for it.
It’s mainly for gaming, but I also do some productivity tasks from time to time like rendering with Blender or editing videos with Kdenlive.
My GPU supports PCIe 4 but from what I’ve seen it isn’t much of a noticeable improvement over PCIe 3 and motherboards which supports only the latter are cheaper. I’m not sure if I should consider this factor.
I believe NVME SSD are faster so I was hoping to get a motherboard with support for it. Just one for the OS is enough. Currently I only have SATA SSDs.
I only use Linux, so this and the country where I’m from make it hard to pick parts. That’s why I want the be sure to buy something that I know will work well out-of-the-box both CPU and the motherboard.
From all this I considered going for the Ryzen 7 5700X since it has 2 more cores than the 5600X and it’s not that much more expensive. Intel 12th gen CPUs are also interesting choice but I’m not really sure what to do.
Intel will by far work best (specially video) but doesn’t necessarily mean that Ryzen is bad, pairing a Ryzen CPU with the Intel A380 is an interesting thought although I would expect drivers to be poor at this point given how new the hardware is. That being said, neither of these solutions are decent/great for gaming if that’s your priority just go with Windows.
Let’s start with what I consider the hardest requirement:
In my experience, looking for technologies that will be technically relevant for a long time and are hard to replace will enable longevity.
Longevity detailed discussion
Typically, the components that stay around for a relatively long time are bus system, memory generation, CPU socket. Let’s take them one-by-one:
CPU socket. AMD has announced to switch to a new CPU socket (AM5) later this year after a very long run on AM4. So, from that perspective it’s not great timing to buy into AM4 from a longevity point of view - although I think they will stay relevant for a while. Intel in the past generations has introduced a new socket with every CPU generation - so there is no longevity to be expected either.
Bus system. In the past looking carefully at the bus system offered has allowed me to upgrade storage and other peripherals, keeping my older systems relevant for a longer time. I look for how many slots are offered in what generation, and how many lanes will be enabled in these slots. Finally, I look for how many lanes connect directly to the CPU vs. through the chipset. AMD currently support PCIe Gen4 and their CPUs offer more PCIe lane connections compared to Intel desktop CPUs (24 vs. 20). However, the current generation of Intel CPUs support the brand new PCIe Gen5. If you don’t expect to add SAS controller cards that require 8x PCIe lanes, fast NVMe SSDs that in the near future will take full advantage of PCIe Gen5 speeds, or similar add-on cards, this may not be an important selection criteria for you.
Memory Gen. From a longevity point of view I need to recommend you to look into the Intel platform supporting DDR5 memory. This gen is very new and therefore relatively expensive. Later this year new CPUs from AMD will support Gen5 as well, but at this time it is DDR4 for now.
Summary: Unless you plan for future expansion of your system where number and configuration of PCIe slots is an important consideration, you should take a look at PCIe Gen5, DDR5 memory systems currently offered by Intel. However, they currently demand a price premium. In a few months AMD will offer similar systems that will be very competitive - waiting for that is a good idea, if possible.
Yes, they have been for a while and the gap to SATA or SAS based storage is widening with every generation. IMHO a modern computer should only use these legacy storage technologies for backup. Good news: all modern motherboards have m.2 slots (most have more than 1) for NVMe SSDs. Additionally more SSDs can be added later into PCIe slots with reatively cheap extension cards. If you consider that important, look for motherboards that support bifurcation of PCIe slots.
That one is short: in my opinion that’s sufficient.
Both gaming and video editing benefit from fast and plenty of storage. All use cases should primarily be GPU bound, although I don’t know what the current situation with support of your GPU by Blender and Kdenlive is.
So, to summarize this lengthy consideration of your requirements, I would steer you towards a new Intel system, including a MB that offers DDR5 memory. I recommend 2x 16GB (or even 32GB) sticks at a minimum and at the fastest speed the MB and your purse allows.
I’d steer you towards a 12700F (F=no GPU), depending on cost a 12600F or even a 12400F.
There are a myriad of MBs out there, I don’t know which ones are available in Argentina, but I gave plenty of guidance for selection in my details.
Well, the TLDR; Since your current platform is on DDR3 memory, you need to upgrade the entire core (RAM + CPU + Motherboard). The 6700 XT will eat everything in 1080p high details both now and five years later. 1440p and especially 4k, it will struggle after 2-3 years. Here is the quick rundown:
CPU: Get an eight core, either a 12700F or, for AMD, 5700X, 5800X or even the 5800X3D.
Motherboard: B660 with DDR5 if Intel, B550 if AMD. Z690 and X570 is simply not worth the price for the extra features.
Memory: Get 32 GB, 3600 MHz if DDR4 and 5200 MHz if DDR5.
That said, some points to consider:
AMD is soon (as in, 5 weeks or so) releasing their new AM5 platform. If you invest now, it would be theoretically possible to stick with what you have for five years and then just buy whatever is the top-of-the-line RAM and CPU once AM6 rolls around. Unfortunately, this will require $250-$300 for a decent X670 motherboard + $300-$400 for a decent CPU + $150-$200 for a decent RAM kit. Good news is, once AM6 comes out, you should be able to just max RAM and buy the hottest CPU for roughly the same amount of money. Do be aware that as a Linux user, you must be on the latest kernels for at least six months here though, this means if you run Arch or Fedora, awesome, Debian and Ubuntu will require some fidgetry though. Even then, you will likely encounter some instability the first six months, which is a bad place to be.
AMD current gen is no slouch, and if you buy now I see no point in waiting unless you are waiting for a Black Friday sale. For this, invest in a B550 motherboard for $100-$150, a 5700X for ~$250 and 32 GB 3600 MHz RAM for ~$100. The only drawback I can see is that AM4 is at the end of the generation, but it is at this point well tested and works great with Linux. That is $450-$500 + Argentina tax for a core system lasting you five years or more, not bad.
Here is a 5700X example, courtesy of PCPartPicker:
The big alternative to this is the 12700F, which is an incredible bargain and the big.LITTLE architecture promises some incredible benefits. Like with AM4, you won’t be doing much upgrading, and the 12700F is essentially a 12 core, 20 threads CPU. That said you can game like a boss for five years or more with this. Easily, and it will have DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 which makes it quite future proof, too. Unless you can find a heavily discounted Z690 board though, I recommend a B660 board since the 12700F does not support overclocking (but 12700K and 12700KF does). The bad news is that this will set you back $650 + whatever the Argentina tax is.
Again, an example of the core build, your mileage may vary.
Feel free to post a couple of motherboard options you find interesting and then we can perhaps help you narrow it down further.
Thank you so much for your replies! I’ll be sure to check all the options you mentioned. But taking everything into consideration I think I’ll go with the 5700X. As for the motherboard I found the Gigabyte B550M DS3H AC to be a nice option as it has all the features I need at a reasonable price.
I’ve installed Linux, and even BSD onto a vast number of different types of systems over the course of many years, and many different generations. So far, I haven’t come across a single issue with hardware support. As far as I can tell, the state of hardware support on Linux is so good that unless you’re using hardware that was released so recently that nobody has had the time to make drivers for it yet, somebody probably has. Or, if you can avoid using hardware which is so rare that practically nobody uses it, because if not enough people use it, then why bother making drivers for it? Of course, sometimes you just have to search around a little. Often, just because the drivers aren’t already baked-in, or available in the main repository, or the manufacturer’s website doesn’t mean that you can’t find something in a user’s github, sourceforge, COPR, AUR, PPA, or whatever your distro of choice uses. Sometimes, I’ve found even just a set of instructions on some random blog which helped solved my dilema. If it’s been around long enough and somebody’s got enough of a need to use it, they’ve probably managed come up with a way.
Also, sometimes you just have to try a different distro. Especially with recent hardware, you might try a more bleeding edge distro which receives its updates sooner than whatever one you’re using.
I bought a server cpu off ebay for quite cheap a few months ago. Has worked great, and was way cheaper than if I bought a similarly performing consumer grade cpu. It was Inel Xeon can’t remember named, socket LGA1150. Probably will have to go for a weird chipset or idk socket whatever the term is though.
Gigabyte has been very good with Linux support for me. MSI you may get one that does not have any support. Asus will have Linux support but not enough connectivity in my opinion
If you’re still a Gigabyte fan, then I suspect you’re not watching enough Gamers Nexus. Some of the shady products Gigabyte makes can be genuinely SHOCKING!
In regards to future proofing [for your 5yr window]. It could be looked on by 2 fronts
AMDs AM5 or Intel 6xx/7xx Platform:
It’ll be all bleeding edge standards, so [some] growing pains expected
AMD likely pursuing a new multi-year/multi-generation commitment
Intel cranking the frequencies to 11… Along with having early access to PCIe 5.0
Buying into AM4 platform:
Memory n’ such, are well matured and pricings more manageable
AM4 efficiency is remarkable [Even likes of an Noctua U12S, could handle a 5900x]
PCIe 4.0 is already rather fast, for likes of data handling
Can always start off with 5600, while waiting on said 5___x [moar cores] to dip more
Linux:
Hardware has been gaining greater [native] acceptance, esp. in the recent years
My fumbling with Linux, has been since Core2Duo/AM2 era → x299 / AMD 5xxx-U
My AMD Radeon 6600XT went through, with 0 issues of any sort, in my recent build
I will repeat that… 0 issues, of any sort…
they all made crappy boards with vrms and Gigabyte is no exception. But in my experience from my 2x Z-170s to my X370, 2x B450, 4x X570s, 2x 550 boards, I have had zero issues. I have an Asus X470 I bought brand new and a Sata connector fell of the dam board. have a MSI B550 that has no Linux support.