I've had two of the older RM750 models (without the x) for a few years, and I've been happy with them. Silent and reliable, and the modular cables are nice.

Thank goodness, it looks like it was only the PSU that got fried. Managed to fire up the thing, but only through LiveCD. Most likely I reconnected the harddisks in different ports, so fstab is messed up. How do I update it so my old distro installation of Mint will load?

Could take a while to accidentally rearrange all five HDDs in the same ports as before.

Gave up on trying to get the old install working properly again after hours of fiddling with harddisks, ports and failing to update fstab and/or grub. Downloaded the Mint 19.2 image and installed anew (updated from 19.1 last time).

However, I'd still love to hear feedback about the proposed gear above. After reading so much about this stuff now, I'm even more tempted to buy than before. At this point it would make more sense to hold out for Black Friday for instance and hope for good sales, or maybe less absurdly overpriced X570 motherboards a few months from now (we can hope...). Going for 5700 XT would set me back an awful lot, but it sure it tempting after reading reviews and specs for that Sapphire Nitro card.

What about chassis? I have an ancient Chieftec so honestly wouldn't mind a new one. Especially if it's quiet and more resistant to dust. The current computer is fairly quiet, but less noise wouldn't hurt. One big reason I went for the RM 750x PSU was its silent profile.

About cooler: Currently I have a Noctua NH-U9B, which contained equipment for both Intel and AMD CPUs. But I suppose it wouldn't be possible to fit it on an AM4 Ryzen? It's pretty good, so it almost feels like a sideways move to fork out for the giant NH-D15.

How is the BIOS and GPU driver situation now? Stable?

For PSUs I recommend Seasonic. Always solid quality.

Example: https://seasonic.com/prime-ultra-titanium

Something like 750 W model gives you enough headroom for even quite demanding setups. It has a silent profile as well, I don't hear it basically.

As for Sapphire, I'm not sure if going Nitro is providing many benefits over their more balanced Pulse model. Three fans feels a bit excessive to me noise wise. I'm OK with slightly lower clocks of Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT that comes with only two fans, but it is really quiet.

I can't say much about comparing motherboards. The setup I have, so far worked pretty well:

Motherboard: [Asrock X570 Taichi](https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Taichi/index.us.asp)
RAM: [G.Skill Trident Z 3600 MHz CL16-16-16-36 1.35V (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZKK)](http://www.gskill.com/specification/165/168/1536288991/F4-3600C16Q-32GTZKK-Specification)

At some point, when buying X570 Taichi with new Ryzen CPUs, they offered a good discount (around $70 off). You can look around, may be those bundles are still available.

I'm able to run that RAM at 3600 MHz, using Ryzen DRAM calculator values. Out of the box XMP profile wasn't really working.

Apparently, X570 Taichi also has t-topology, so it's good for using 4 RAM sticks more efficiently unlike daisy chained topology motherboards.

About chassis - this is a thorny topic. I like more silent setups too, so I was looking for something that supports 200 mm fans for intake. It was very hard to find something that also has good surfaces for fine grained dust filters. I ended up getting [Cooler Master Cosmos II (25th AE)](https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/cases/full-tower/cosmos-2-25th-anniversary-edition/). It's monstrously big, but after using two 200 mm Noctua fans for intake and one 140 mm for exhaust, and Noctua NH D15 for the CPU cooler, it runs surprisingly silently, even at full load.

One trick though was needed to fit the top intake 200 mm fan. Noctua one is not very well aligned with fan holes in the case frame. However Noctua quite smartly provide rubber connectors that you could use instead of screws to attach fans. Not only they help to reduce noise by preventing vibration from the fans from spreading to the case, but they also allow to fit the fan even if holes aren't aligned properly! Basically I managed to fit it with some fiddling using those rubber connectors.

Plus I ordered custom dust filters from Demciflex for the case. They fit well and the whole thing keeps dust out a lot nicer than the default.

If you are interested, you can find them here:

* https://www.demcifilter.com/c1184-336mm-x-160mm-cooler-master-cosmos-ii-25th-anniversary-edition-top-filter
* https://www.demcifilter.com/c1185-310mm-x-145mm-cooler-master-cosmos-ii-25th-anniversary-edition-front-filter
* https://www.demcifilter.com/c1186-159mm-x-99mm-cooler-master-cosmos-ii-25th-anniversary-edition-bottom-filter

Regarding BIOS / UEFI situation, it very much depends on the motherboard. Asrock managed to fix most major bugs, but some annoyances still linger around, but nothing breaking at least so far. Other motherboard can have their own sets of issues.

Navi situation is a bit rough. AMD are fighting some bugs like this still: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111481

Plus, for example ACO is still in broken shape for Navi, but progressing. But at the same time, many things work fine. So it's work in progress, I personally don't mind it, but some might find it a bit unsettled still.

Quoting: PangaeaAbout cooler: Currently I have a Noctua NH-U9B, which contained equipment for both Intel and AMD CPUs. But I suppose it wouldn't be possible to fit it on an AM4 Ryzen? It's pretty good, so it almost feels like a sideways move to fork out for the giant NH-D15.

You can request a free [AM4 mounting kit](https://noctua.at/en/nm-am4-mounting-kit) for your Noctua using [this form](https://noctua.at/en/nm-am4-mounting-kit-order-form). I did this recently to fit my older NH-U14S on my new Ryzen 3700x and the process was quick and painless.

EDIT: I chose the Asus Prime X470-Pro motherboard, and it seems to work fine. No PCIe 4.0 support but I'm fine with that.

I just bought a seasonic prime titanium 750w, Nice build quality & packaging, hybrid mode is nice too.

Concerning the 5700xt, I was in the same spot a week ago and went for the MSI blower reference card. It's not as noisy as many says and in my country it's 100€ cheaper for a few MHz less than the one with big fat shiny cooler, that means better CPU, Motherboard or 16gb more.

Quoting: ShmerlAs for Sapphire, I'm not sure if going Nitro is providing many benefits over their more balanced Pulse model. Three fans feels a bit excessive to me noise wise. I'm OK with slightly lower clocks of Sapphire Pulse RX 5700 XT that comes with only two fans, but it is really quiet.

I can't say much about comparing motherboards. The setup I have, so far worked pretty well:

Motherboard: [Asrock X570 Taichi](https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/X570%20Taichi/index.us.asp)
RAM: [G.Skill Trident Z 3600 MHz CL16-16-16-36 1.35V (F4-3600C16Q-32GTZKK)](http://www.gskill.com/specification/165/168/1536288991/F4-3600C16Q-32GTZKK-Specification)

At some point, when buying X570 Taichi with new Ryzen CPUs, they offered a good discount (around $70 off). You can look around, may be those bundles are still available.

I'm able to run that RAM at 3600 MHz, using Ryzen DRAM calculator values. Out of the box XMP profile wasn't really working.

Apparently, X570 Taichi also has t-topology, so it's good for using 4 RAM sticks more efficiently unlike daisy chained topology motherboards.

About chassis - this is a thorny topic. I like more silent setups too, so I was looking for something that supports 200 mm fans for intake. It was very hard to find something that also has good surfaces for fine grained dust filters. I ended up getting [Cooler Master Cosmos II (25th AE)](https://www.coolermaster.com/catalog/cases/full-tower/cosmos-2-25th-anniversary-edition/). It's monstrously big, but after using two 200 mm Noctua fans for intake and one 140 mm for exhaust, and Noctua NH D15 for the CPU cooler, it runs surprisingly silently, even at full load.

One trick though was needed to fit the top intake 200 mm fan. Noctua one is not very well aligned with fan holes in the case frame. However Noctua quite smartly provide rubber connectors that you could use instead of screws to attach fans. Not only they help to reduce noise by preventing vibration from the fans from spreading to the case, but they also allow to fit the fan even if holes aren't aligned properly! Basically I managed to fit it with some fiddling using those rubber connectors.

Plus I ordered custom dust filters from Demciflex for the case. They fit well and the whole thing keeps dust out a lot nicer than the default.

If you are interested, you can find them here:

* https://www.demcifilter.com/c1184-336mm-x-160mm-cooler-master-cosmos-ii-25th-anniversary-edition-top-filter
* https://www.demcifilter.com/c1185-310mm-x-145mm-cooler-master-cosmos-ii-25th-anniversary-edition-front-filter
* https://www.demcifilter.com/c1186-159mm-x-99mm-cooler-master-cosmos-ii-25th-anniversary-edition-bottom-filter

Thank you. The bug you mention in the other post sounds pretty serious, so I hope it's resolved soon. Always a big headache when you fork out big for a new rig, and then it doesn't run properly, or worse yet, doesn't even boot up.

Filtered for 200mm fan chassis(es?) via prisjakt.no or its app, but very little available then. So I'd have to settle for 140mm. The one you link to there is also very expensive, so out of my range anyway. Same with the surely excellent motherboard. It's almost three times as expensive as the B450 I've looked at, which is way out of my budget. This is one reason I've looked at B450s instead of X570s.

On the flipside, I could downgrade the graphics card too. The few percentages extra performance from the Nitro is probably not worth the 10% extra price. But it is also more quiet and mostly cooler than the Pulse and some other alternatives, which is tempting. And since I won't buy a new GPU for probably 5+ years. At least that's how I try to excuse it to myself :P

About chassis, I've just read a long review on the [Phanteks Eclipse P600s](https://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/phanteks-eclipse-p600s-review,1.html). It's a little more expensive than I wanted (have also looked at Fractal Design Define S), but it does seem pretty good, and quite silent as well. Sounds like it may be more geared towards water cooling, but it's a fairly glowing review.

Motherboards: Am still looking at MSI B450 Carbon. It has a lot of good features, and got praised in this quite thorough [X470, X570, B450 review video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuyuS04lD4o) by some chap called Buildzoid.

An apparent downside is that it doesn't support 3600 MHz RAM. But I'm fine with that really. I won't overclock anyway, and in my experience the GPU and CPU matters more than memory speed. Might be different if I was editing videos and stuff like that.

It's really hard to decide on these things though. I feel like I know too little, so have to rely more on reviews than my own experience/knowledge.

Obviously a big thing for me, on Linux, is stability there in terms of drivers. So if that isn't in place yet, perhaps it's silly to fork out now. Although it's DAMN tempting.

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: PangaeaAbout cooler: Currently I have a Noctua NH-U9B, which contained equipment for both Intel and AMD CPUs. But I suppose it wouldn't be possible to fit it on an AM4 Ryzen? It's pretty good, so it almost feels like a sideways move to fork out for the giant NH-D15.

You can request a free [AM4 mounting kit](https://noctua.at/en/nm-am4-mounting-kit) for your Noctua using [this form](https://noctua.at/en/nm-am4-mounting-kit-order-form). I did this recently to fit my older NH-U14S on my new Ryzen 3700x and the process was quick and painless.

EDIT: I chose the Asus Prime X470-Pro motherboard, and it seems to work fine. No PCIe 4.0 support but I'm fine with that.

Thanks a lot! I had no idea about this. Will definitely take up that if I buy. Would save a decent chunk of money. Sounds like there will be a solid delay since I need to have a receipt for an AM4 CPU or mother board first, but still. It's a great option.

Quoting: GuestIf your current rig runs everything you need without issues there is no reason to upgrade. I've been asking myself a similar question for the last 2 years and I always come to the conclusion that I don't really need a new system even though it sounds appealing.
My current system just runs everything well enough and it is a bit older than yours. I did upgrade my graphics card from GTX 770 to RX580 earlier this year though. I can't say that I noticed a big difference with the games I'm playing though. I don't see myself building a new system for a while still.

This is a very fair point. I don't particularly NEED an upgrade. It's just tempting due to AMD's new toys, plus the fact my computer is probably five years old by now. I do have a GTX 770 card which still serves me well in the games I play, even in the Witcher 3. I've played a LOT of RimWorld recently, and it's not very demanding. For the most part. In the late game there are huuuuge raids, and the game will then start to lag a little, but it's not a big deal. And since I don't use steam, game selection is fairly limited in terms of "AAA" games.

But all this said, I also have to say that it's getting tempting to upgrade.

Quoting: ShmerlNavi situation is a bit rough. AMD are fighting some bugs like this still: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111481

Yep, I'm suffering from that issue, and also this one: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=111482

The first one is clearly a showstopper, the system is unusable.

If you want a stable PC stick to nvidia, at least for a while.

Quoting: barottoThe first one is clearly a showstopper, the system is unusable.

Not really. For firefox, you can use AMD_DEBUG=nodma, and sensors hang can be avoided by not querying them concurrently for now (i.e. not more than one sensor indicator used at the same time). So with some tweaks, the system is quite stable for me. Still annoying that you need workarounds of course. But eventually AMD will iron those out as well.

I wouldn't stick to Nvidia for anything. If you want something more stable than Navi for now, then may be get Vega or Polaris card. But as I said, those Navi issues can be dealt with in the interim.

Quoting: Pangaea

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: PangaeaAbout cooler: Currently I have a Noctua NH-U9B, which contained equipment for both Intel and AMD CPUs. But I suppose it wouldn't be possible to fit it on an AM4 Ryzen? It's pretty good, so it almost feels like a sideways move to fork out for the giant NH-D15.

You can request a free [AM4 mounting kit](https://noctua.at/en/nm-am4-mounting-kit) for your Noctua using [this form](https://noctua.at/en/nm-am4-mounting-kit-order-form). I did this recently to fit my older NH-U14S on my new Ryzen 3700x and the process was quick and painless.

EDIT: I chose the Asus Prime X470-Pro motherboard, and it seems to work fine. No PCIe 4.0 support but I'm fine with that.

Thanks a lot! I had no idea about this. Will definitely take up that if I buy. Would save a decent chunk of money. Sounds like there will be a solid delay since I need to have a receipt for an AM4 CPU or mother board first, but still. It's a great option.

I think I received the kit less than a week after submitting my request with pics of the two receipts. Took a couple of days more for the CPU itself to arrive, so no problems there. There's also the boxed cooler that comes with the 3700x. It's no Noctua, but I hear it is really quite decent so that's an option as well. If you're not allergic to the ridiculous RGB nonsense on the fan that is. :D

For a new chassis I can heartily recommend the Fractal Design Define R series for their build quality and silence, but they're not the cheapest option, and they're quite big. The smaller and cheaper Define C isn't that bad either, we've got a bunch of those at work. Might have a harder time fitting all your storage and/or a huge GPU though.

Cheers. The Phanteks is actually on offer right now (though only the black/transparent one). Seems like there are many excellent chassis out there. It's more a matter about price. Most likely everything is better than the giant Chieftec I bought some 15 years ago :D

Good point about the stock cooler. That's an option if it takes too long. Shipping is usually very swift here, so as long as it's in stock I may actually get it the next day. Kinda nuts.

Those bugs are concerning though. It's essentially a show-stopper, and it's been (almost) two months since it was reported there, and AMD still isn't on top of it? For such a 'big' card for their sales and reputation. That's a big problem. Is Linux still too small of a market for them to care (enough) about it?

Don't exactly want to blow ~1500 EUR/USD on a new rig and then not even be able to safely browse the internet. That's ridiculous.

They are actively working on it, but that sdma bug is quite a sneaky one. It's hard to reproduce. Likely some race condition, and fixing such bug is always quite exhausting. So hopefully it's not a lack of resources problem, but simply a really hard bug to fix.

Quoting: ShmerlThey are actively working on it, but that sdma bug is quite a sneaky one. It's hard to reproduce. Likely some race condition, and fixing such bug is always quite exhausting. So hopefully it's not a lack of resources problem, but simply a really hard bug to fix.

Yeah, I know a couple of things about debugging and how hard it can be for multithreaded software.

Unfortunately the fact of the matter is current AMD cards are not stable enough for poor man's workstations. Also, given the bleeding edge nature of this stuff, you'd be better off using rolling release distributions, even if you don't like them or think they are not really suitable for workstation use.
Or at the very least you should be prepared to tinker with your system at a very low level, routinely installing self compiled kernels and gfx drivers, or packages from external PPAs (while hoping they'll not break something else), and ultimately spending a considerable amount of time trying to fix bugs. I'd rather spend that time playing videogames.

I'll test the nodma trick on my Ubuntu 19.10 and see if it solves anything but, aside from the excessive power draw, I've already noticed gfx glitches in at least one program that are not present in the Windows version nor in my other Ubuntu workstation with Nvidia hw.

Quoting: PangaeaGood point about the stock cooler.

The stock cooler should be fine, test it and see how it does for you in terms of noise.

Just don't spend ridiculous amount of money on some ginormous AIO, as they are completely overkill.

I've been testing my 3900X with the be quiet dark rock 4 (non pro). I have comparable temperatures as people with very expensive 360s, while the noise is absolutely acceptable at 1300rpm at full load.

Quoting: barottoUnfortunately the fact of the matter is current AMD cards are not stable enough for poor man's workstations. Also, given the bleeding edge nature of this stuff, you'd be better off using rolling release distributions, even if you don't like them or think they are not really suitable for workstation use.
Or at the very least you should be prepared to tinker with your system at a very low level, routinely installing self compiled kernels and gfx drivers, or packages from external PPAs (while hoping they'll not break something else), and ultimately spending a considerable amount of time trying to fix bugs. I'd rather spend that time playing videogames.

Have to say I was really close to pulling the trigger yesterday, with this lot: [https://www.komplett.no/wishlist/shared/0f8bd746-68d4-4fe3-b93c-2065e1366688](https://www.komplett.no/wishlist/shared/0f8bd746-68d4-4fe3-b93c-2065e1366688). It corresponds to about EUR 1300. Which is a lot of money. However, I'm simply not skilled or confident enough to fix problems by self-compiling kernels and stuff like that. And when spending that much money on a new computer, I just want to boot it up and start playing. With serious bugs like this still unresolved, it is better to wait, hope they fix the issues, and maybe some hardware is cheaper in a few months.

Quoting: barottoThe stock cooler should be fine, test it and see how it does for you in terms of noise.

Just don't spend ridiculous amount of money on some ginormous AIO, as they are completely overkill.

I've been testing my 3900X with the be quiet dark rock 4 (non pro). I have comparable temperatures as people with very expensive 360s, while the noise is absolutely acceptable at 1300rpm at full load.

With "AIO" do you refer to the cooling solution here, or the computer as a whole? Apparently it stands for "all-in-one".

For cooling, I'm glad it's possible to re-use the Noctua I already have (NH-9UB SE2). It's not as big or efficient as the monstrous NH-15D, but it should more than suffice for the job (and I don't OC any more). It has two fans in push-pull (80 or 92mm I think). I'm sure that will do the job, and these big-ass coolers aren't cheap.

It's actually puzzling to read about chassis and cooling solutions now from reviews and forum threads. Currently I have zero chassis fans (disabled them years ago to reduce noise). Temperature is fine. And then I read about people with modern chassis with 10 or 16 120-140mm fans inside? WTF?! Do you have a nuclear reactor on fire in there?

Or custom watercool. It is very quiet and satisfying.

https://ibb.co/5BKnK3B

Keeps the 5700 xt around 55c at load. And 3700x about the same.

Quoting: stud68Or custom watercool. It is very quiet and satisfying.

https://ibb.co/5BKnK3B

Keeps the 5700 xt around 55c at load. And 3700x about the same.

Just keep in mind that many liquid CPU coolers are actually noisier and often a lot more expensive than one of the larger Noctua air coolers, and the extra cooling power (which isn't a given either) goes to waste unless you're going for some serious overclocks. Just check a few reviews if you don't believe me.

There is also [this](https://www.pcgamer.com/overclocking-a-cpu-to-7-ghz-with-the-science-of-liquid-nitrogen/). Which admittedly may be taking it a little too far.

Personally I'd be too concerned about leakage if I had a water cooled system. And from what I've heard it also requires quite a bit of maintenance, cleaning and the like.

I quite like my Noctua NH D15. It's very competitive with liquid coolers and is indeed very quiet in general. For Ryzen 9 3900X I recommend such one, since it cools it well. Lower end coolers will be struggling more, and in result will be a lot more noisy.