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AMD only gaming PC - August 2018
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Mercator Aug 5, 2018
Hello everybody,

I would like to assemble an AMD only PC for Linux gaming, both native and in Wine. I am looking at Manjaro as a distro because I definitely want the leading edge versions of drivers/DXVK etc. One game that I would like to play in Wine is Path of Exile, preferably with DXVK.

First I would like to know if there are any new products coming out in the next couple of months that it would be worth waiting for (also for price reasons of current hardware). I would be willing to wait until the end of the year if its worth it!

I have come up with some hardware components that I would like to run and to this end I have a few questions:

1) I would like to use one SSD (the Crucial one) for the system and the other one (which should be the faster one) for installing the games: Does this make sense or should I consider just one SSD?

2) Can I expect to run the system without problems? e.g. I heard that Ryzen can have stutter/system freeze issues or maybe the SSDs need some tinkering?

3) What is the best CPU for Wine gaming, I hear that single core speed is most important? (Maybe I am confusing it with Path of Exile performance in Wine...)

4) Does FreeSync work with all monitors that support it on Linux? Should I care for that and more generally what would be a good monitor for 1920*1080 gaming?

5) Is the 400W power supply enough for the system?

The proposed system specs are:

CPU:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 6x 3.40GHz, boxed

Motherboard:
MSI X470 Gaming Plus

RAM:
G.Skill Aegis DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3000, CL16-18-18-38

GPU:
PowerColor Radeon RX 580 Red Devil, 8GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DP

Harddrives:
Crucial MX500 500GB, SATA
Samsung SSD 970 EVO 500GB, M.2

Power supply:
be quiet! Pure Power 10 400W ATX 2.4

Currently at around ~1000€, I would be willing to pay up to ~1200 if necessary (excluding the monitor).

Thats it for now, thanks for reading!
lucinos Aug 5, 2018
Quoting: MercatorHello everybody,
I would like to assemble an AMD only PC for Linux gaming, both native and in Wine. I am looking at Manjaro as a distro because I definitely want the leading edge versions of drivers/DXVK etc. One game that I would like to play in Wine is Path of Exile, preferably with DXVK.
Manjaro is an excellent choice for amdgpu :-)

I have not done any experiment with DXVK, so I do not know about that.

QuoteFirst I would like to know if there are any new products coming out in the next couple of months that it would be worth waiting for (also for price reasons of current hardware). I would be willing to wait until the end of the year if its worth it!
personally I would prefer to spend less on the gpu and buy a better one later.


Quote1) I would like to use one SSD (the Crucial one) for the system and the other one (which should be the faster one) for installing the games: Does this make sense or should I consider just one SSD?
no that does not make much sense. Just buy one SSD as big as you can afford (and an hdd for things that you do not care about speed like movies and some games)

Quote2) Can I expect to run the system without problems? e.g. I heard that Ryzen can have stutter/system freeze issues or maybe the SSDs need some tinkering?
I heard that the new motherboards for the ryzen like 2600 do not have any problems like that

Quote3) What is the best CPU for Wine gaming, I hear that single core speed is most important? (Maybe I am confusing it with Path of Exile performance in Wine...)
I would not fear about the cpu, I would be more interesting how the gpu is doing with DXVK

Quote4) Does FreeSync work with all monitors that support it on Linux? Should I care for that and more generally what would be a good monitor for 1920*1080 gaming?
I have no idea

Quote5) Is the 400W power supply enough for the system?
I do not know but if you are going for an rx 580, 400W does not seem very safe.
mt7479 Aug 5, 2018
Next gen AMD CPU and GPU will drop next year. CPU samples should be available end of this year, with a general availability Q1/Q2 2019.

Next gen AMD GPU should start the same time frame with the exception that gaming cards should be available and the end of 2019.

I went for an a intermediate GPU upgrade to get rid of Nvidia, rx 580 as well, but will delay everything else until the next gen Ryzen CPUs drop. 7nm and expected base cock of 5 GHZ should be a massive upgrade from current gen.
Xpander Aug 5, 2018
Quoting: Mercator1) I would like to use one SSD (the Crucial one) for the system and the other one (which should be the faster one) for installing the games: Does this make sense or should I consider just one SSD?

Get a bigger SSD (or better yet a nvme/m.2) for system and some important games you play and then a cheaper HDD for all the other content you need.

edit: just see that you have nvme also. 500GB so it should be fine for system and few important games. Depends how much data you have you might be fine with another regular SSD.

Quoting: Mercator2) Can I expect to run the system without problems? e.g. I heard that Ryzen can have stutter/system freeze issues or maybe the SSDs need some tinkering?

That shouldnt be a problem with Ryzen 2nd Gen, and there are BIOS updates for C6 states and current options to mitigate this. I havent seen this quite some time on my Ryzen 1700X

Quoting: Mercator3) What is the best CPU for Wine gaming, I hear that single core speed is most important? (Maybe I am confusing it with Path of Exile performance in Wine...)

Singlethread performance is important yes, but more cores are also as wineserver will use one core itself also and ofc you regular OS things like input/audio and all other background tasks

Quoting: Mercator4) Does FreeSync work with all monitors that support it on Linux? Should I care for that and more generally what would be a good monitor for 1920*1080 gaming?

no idea, last time i heard it still isnt supported

Quoting: Mercator5) Is the 400W power supply enough for the system?

That might be a bit on the limit as RX580 is quite power hungry compared to say 1060. 500-600W 80+ bronze or more should be fine

Quoting: MercatorThe proposed system specs are:

CPU:
AMD Ryzen 5 2600, 6x 3.40GHz, boxed


Get a 2600X, its just 20-30€ more and you will get much better boost clocks and better stock cooler if you don't want to buy aftermarket cooler.

Quoting: MercatorMotherboard:
MSI X470 Gaming Plus

RAM:
G.Skill Aegis DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3000, CL16-18-18-38


If possible try to get something thats 3200 and CL16 or even better if its 3200 CL14 or 3600 CL16 which you can run at 3200 CL14. Thats the sweetspot in terms of price/performance on ryzen imo.

Quoting: MercatorGPU:
PowerColor Radeon RX 580 Red Devil, 8GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DP

Harddrives:
Crucial MX500 500GB, SATA
Samsung SSD 970 EVO 500GB, M.2

Power supply:
be quiet! Pure Power 10 400W ATX 2.4

Currently at around ~1000€, I would be willing to pay up to ~1200 if necessary (excluding the monitor).

Thats it for now, thanks for reading!
Shmerl Aug 5, 2018
Quoting: MercatorDoes this make sense or should I consider just one SSD?

No, your SSD will quickly fill up with games and other storage consuming data. Get one fast SSD (nvme) for the base system (fast booting, fast log-in time, fast I/O for common tasks), and one big HDD (something like 4 TB) for installing games and storing audio, video, images and so on.
crt0mega Aug 5, 2018
Quoting: Xpander
Quoting: MercatorMotherboard:
MSI X470 Gaming Plus

RAM:
G.Skill Aegis DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3000, CL16-18-18-38


If possible try to get something thats 3200 and CL16 or even better if its 3200 CL14 or 3600 CL16 which you can run at 3200 CL14. Thats the sweetspot in terms of price/performance on ryzen imo.
I second that. And I'd also recommend a ~600W PSU.
Quoting: Shmerl
Quoting: MercatorDoes this make sense or should I consider just one SSD?

No, your SSD will quickly fill up with games and other storage consuming data. Get one fast SSD (nvme) for the base system (fast booting, fast log-in time, fast I/O for common tasks), and one big HDD (something like 4 TB) for installing games and storing audio, video, images and so on.
Haha. That's exactly what I did :D
Mercator Aug 6, 2018
Thanks for all the answers! Those are clarifying a lot!

I guess I will aim for one SSD then, I was just thinking that the one with the games might wear out faster with more read/writes then the one with the system on it, so I wanted to split it. Also I would like to put most games on the SSD, e.g. the Steam folder so it might become quite large.

Quoting: mt7479Next gen AMD CPU and GPU will drop next year. CPU samples should be available end of this year, with a general availability Q1/Q2 2019.

Next gen AMD GPU should start the same time frame with the exception that gaming cards should be available and the end of 2019.

I went for an a intermediate GPU upgrade to get rid of Nvidia, rx 580 as well, but will delay everything else until the next gen Ryzen CPUs drop. 7nm and expected base cock of 5 GHZ should be a massive upgrade from current gen.

How does it usually play out for prizes/availability when a new CPU drops? Will I be able to buy an equivalent next gen CPU in the beginning of 2019 for the prize of the current gen?


Xpander, thanks for the tip with the 2600X sounds like an improvement, together with a RX 580 that will definitely require a 550-600W power though ;) I have to check what the RAM specs mean, but thx for the input there as well!
libgradev Aug 6, 2018
CPU: Looks good, no freeze issue anymore
GPU: There's no major AMD GPU upgrades planned in the near future (as far as current rumours go...) 580 is a good choice for 1080p
PSU: 600W+ (but make sure it's a quality supply - I, personally, go with Seasonic)
SSD: No, get the 1TB EVO (NVMe version though) - I've got 2 of the 960's (they can be had cheap at the moment)
RAM: G.Skill yes, 16GB fine
Freesync: Mesa, nope (not in release anyway) but it's a WiP (available with amdgpu-pro)
Manjaro: Arch based is a good idea :)
Monitor: IPS panel, many out there :)
g000h Aug 6, 2018
Hi,

I like much of what you've suggested, e.g using a Ryzen 5 2600 (good choice), and MSI motherboard (I use MSI B350 MATE with Ryzen 5 1600 and that works very nicely).

As others have already mentioned, it is worth considering having an M.2 NVMe drive as your main system drive, because you can get amazingly quick performance and there's not much price difference between M.2 and SATA3 SSDs. The Samsung 960 Pro NVMe or Samsung 960 EVO NVMe are examples of the really fast ones, but more expensive.

Here is my own recommendation, assuming you are dual-booting with Windows. No need to follow it, but it is how I like to do it.

Get a SATA3 SSD drive for hosting Windows 10, and install that first. If you get a particularly large one, then you could save some of the space at the end of the drive for a Linux LVM2 partition where you could mount a /home logical volume. Once Windows is up and running and installed, add an extra, preferably M.2 NVMe, SSD as your primary Linux system drive. Install Linux onto it (preferably with UEFI and GPT), and grub2 should find the Windows install and add it as a grub boot menu option. (Might need to prod the BIOS a bit. Remember to turn off Secure Boot.)

I like to partition the M.2 drive with a big LVM2 volume, and then put a small /home logical volume onto it. Then I can change my /home to point to the SATA3 SSD logical volume (and back again).

Finally, I'd recommend putting a big mechanical hard drive in the system, e.g. 4TB, for storing media, music, data, and so on (or an external USB3 drive). It is quite nice using a drive like this for storing backup snapshots of your system drive, in case you end up with a broken drive or file-system at some point and need to restore it.
pete910 Aug 7, 2018
Just to add what others have pointed out, don't skimp on the PSU. Go for a good brand(EVGA, Superflower ect) PSU and larger than you need as it will be more efficient.

+1 for a larger ssd/nvme drive!

Currently an all AMD sys my self(see PC info) and have a 1tb 960 pro + 1 TB 850 evo and the evo is full, My nvme drive is the OS + home drive and that's at 78% :O
I also use a 512 OCZ drive as videos for OBS caps plus vids obviously

I do have a server/nas so storage is not what's using the space, ITS GAMES, DAMN YOU VALVE/FERREL/ASPYR :D


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Edit:

To add, stay on stable mesa. Less headache for novice/general users. Amd staging kernel is fine and available through the AUR repo. Will test your 2600 at compiling whilst your at it too :D
Shmerl Aug 7, 2018
Quoting: pete910I do have a server/nas so storage is not what's using the space, ITS GAMES, DAMN YOU VALVE/FERREL/ASPYR :D

That's why I install games on HDD, not on SSD. They take too much space.
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