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Configuring AMD desktop PC
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Ne0 Sep 10, 2018
I am planning on buying an AMD desktop PC in India...
link to probable configuration

Questions:
  • Is it a good idea to have the SWAP partition on a separate SSD ? possibly taking up the whole SSD ? or should Linux and SWAP be on the same SSD, and /home on a separate SSD ?

  • I will have atleast 1 SSD and 3 HDD. My plan is to
    • SSD: install Linux, Steam, video editor, Blender, save games, etc.

    • HDD1: install games, Virtual machines

    • HDD2: photos/videos from camera, save edited videos, rendered 3D videos

    • HDD3: downloads & torrent

    is ^this^ a good idea ? or should I put the three 10 TB hard drives in RAID 5 ?

  • any other suggestions ?

tuubi Sep 10, 2018
I don't think you should waste SSD space for swap, unless you're worried about suspend-to-disk/hibernate performance. Also the stock (Wraith) cooler on the Ryzen should do the job just fine. The Arctic Freezer 13 isn't likely to be any better according to reviews.
ageres Sep 10, 2018
Is swap even necessary? I never use it.
It is a strange choise to buy powerful Ryzen 2700 and weak RX 560. Why not RX 580? Also, Ryzen CPUs love RAM with high frequency, so maybe it would be better to get something faster than 2133 MHz.
Ne0 Sep 10, 2018
Correct me if I am wrong: I think Video editing and 3D rendering uses swap, when RAM is full.

Quoting: ageresIt is a strange choise to buy powerful Ryzen 2700 and weak RX 560. Why not RX 580?
Was planning for Vega initially, but it is not powerful enough to handle 5k-8k. So, I plan to use RX 560 until AMD launches Vega 7nm GPU. Also, RX 580 costs almost 2-3x as much as RX 560, and no point in spending extra money if I am going to be upgrading that part in 1-2 years anyway.

@tuubi, ok, changed cooler to wraith
whizse Sep 10, 2018
Linux supports swap files, so you can just enable it when necessary and delete it when done.
ageres Sep 10, 2018
Quoting: Ne0Correct me if I am wrong: I think Video editing and 3D rendering uses swap, when RAM is full.
True, but isn't 32 GB enough for these tasks? If it isn't, maybe you should buy more RAM, 48 or 64 GB, instead of using swap? SSD is much slower tham RAM, so if an OS runs out of RAM, it slows down noticeably.

If you still want to use swap, there's no point to use a separate SSD for it or for /home. SSDs, unlike HDDs, have no moving mechanical components and don't work slower if two partitions are used simultaneously.
whizse Sep 10, 2018
Also, I don't know if RAID is the way to go, but having some sort of backup is a must IMHO.
Ne0 Sep 10, 2018
@whizse thanks for the advice about swap files in Linux, will check it out.

@ageres will be upgrading to 64 GB RAM in a few years, hopefully RAM costs will come down by then.
Xpander Sep 10, 2018
i have 32GB and i dont run swap at all. but i guess it depends what you do. i manage to get at around 24GB usage when i have my browser, game and render some video, but thats absolute max i get, so swap is pointless for me and i have it turned off.

the thing i noticed on your build link is that your RAM is incredibly slow 2133mhz one, which isnt that great for ryzen performance as ryzen infinity fabric will use half the RAM frequency.

anything above 2800mhz is good enough, 3200 and lower latency like CL14 is the sweetspot in terms of price and perf.
tuubi Sep 10, 2018
Quoting: Ne0@tuubi, ok, changed cooler to wraith
The Ryzen 7 2700 comes boxed with a Wraith Spire, which is why I suggested dropping the unnecessary Arctic cooler. No need to order one separately.

Nevermind if you knew this. Just wanted to make sure.
Stupendous Man Sep 10, 2018
I have 16GB of RAM with 8GB swap which is almost never used, only when compiling chromium on 16 cores (Ryzen 1700).
Regarding your partition scheme, I'd put /tmp and /var/tmp in RAM (tmpfs) to save on SSD writes (which isn't really important nowadays, but still). Then put your media on the HDDs.
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