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Latest Forum Posts
Hello everyone, I'm excited to have found this community! I’m planning a new build, but it’s years (I think literally over a decade) since I built my last Linux box and I haven’t been gaming recently, so I’m completely out of touch with what needs to be considered nowadays. I would welcome any comments or suggestions for this parts list.
I’m looking for the following with the system:
Here’s the parts list I have so far:
Does this setup look OK? Is there anywhere that I would need to upgrade, or anywhere where my current choice is overkill?
Thank you in advance for any advice!
View PC info
If you're going for VR, I suppose you'll never have too much power. Maybe wait for a bit longer and pick up one of AMD's new Big Navi GPUs instead? The Sapphire Pulse RX 6800 perhaps, coming out later this month? If your budget allows. It's quite a bit more expensive.
You definitely can. I've got an R4, and I don't see any reason to replace it any time soon.
If you go with the CPU and GPU you mentioned, 650W should suffice I suppose. Depends largely on the GPU you pick. All those hard drives suck a few watts as well of course.
Looks like the Asus 5700 XT Strix may be more silenter, though.
Edit: the (S) next to the Asus Strix in the benchmark means it’s in silent mode I think, while the Gaming X is in normal mode and the review says it is "the fastest 5700 XT".
Last edited by stan on 22 November 2020 at 2:28 pm UTC
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I read somewhere that MSI's custom Nvidia designs tend to be better. Personally I don't think I'll even consider their hardware in the future, unless there are no other options available.
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Modern components will turn off fans when they aren't needed.
The trick, when you do need active cooling, is to have big heatsinks and big fans. A slow-turning large fan will be much quieter, and lower pitched, than a small fan turning quickly, but it will move the same amount of air.
SSDs are entirely silent.
I've also found various threads complaining about high idle power consumption (example ). Is it something you've come across? It looks like it applies to all RX 5700 XTs though, not just Sapphire, and not just Linux. It seems it's related to the memory clock speed getting "stuck" at maximum when using high refresh rates and/or multiple displays. I can't tell from those discussions if it's a real issue or not...
If I'm just using a not-so-fancy single monitor maybe it's fine, although I wonder if I'd run into that problem if I then add the Valve Index, since I presume that counts as a second display?
Hmm... I think that would be out of budget for me. The RX 5700 XT is probably at the top end of what I'd like to spend.
In fact, if I'm not going to go for VR immediately, would it make sense to economise with a lower-end GPU for now? Or is it hard to save much compared to the cost of an RX 5700 XT while still having good performance?
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I do my gaming on a single TV screen, so can't help you there. I did see reports of problems from people with multiple monitors a few months ago, perhaps using a certain combination of outputs, but I thought those were dealt with already. There's a long thread somewhere on the GOL forums, can't remember the title.
My idle power consumption has been fine since I bought the GPU about a year ago. Haven't had any trouble at all, in fact.
Well, you could get an RX 5500 XT or something for half the price, but I have no idea if that would be sufficient for Elite Dangerous. I gather it's about as fast or a bit faster than an older RX 580, but consumes less power. Of course, the 5700 XT is significantly more powerful.
My own strategy is to splurge for the best hardware I can reasonably afford at the time, and then ignore any new hardware completely for a few of years.
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Obviously everyone has their favourite distro/desktop environment, that they'll happily argue about at length, and I don't want to turn your thread into one of those threads. But. I'd personally recommend Kubuntu or KDE Neon over straight Ubuntu. You get the same user base, third-party support, hardware testing at Canonical's facility, and the hybrid conservative/forward-looking release model, but you get a more easily customisable experience. If you like Gnome, though, feel free to discount this as the ravings of a lunatic.
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As I understand it, Minecraft itself is fine with OpenJDK, but OptiFine (which brings some performance enhancements and some niceties) needs Oracle's Java. If you want to run multiplayer servers, Spigot helps a lot; I ran a four-player server on a Raspberry Pi 2 for a while using Spigot, and it was fine.
Last edited by CatKiller on 22 November 2020 at 10:47 pm UTC
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View PC info
the time you've spent composing the OP would've well sufficed to read up on at least the main compo's if you're that out of loop. phoronix.com is your friend here, on GPUs and CPUs especially.
Overall you're worrying about a lot of stuff you shouldn't be. Most peripherals, GPU cooling systems, and JAVA stuff would obviously work just the same on any sane distro. Ubuntu is a good choice since it has long had a solid if 3d party support for the latest MESA and almost official for the latest kernel(s).
You're going for the top ATI GPU (ex-top.. but nevermind), a mid-higher end CPU and topping it off with an old cranky HDD? No reason it won't work, albeit sub-optimally.
Also if noise is a special concern, sticking to the stock cooler is questionable. You're forking out on a 5700 but baulking at spending some dough on a tower cooler...
Most of your real concerns have little to do with Linux.
Last edited by mos on 23 November 2020 at 5:26 pm UTC