My laptop is running out of storage space and I don’t have anything I can remove anymore to increase it by much, so I’m thinking about building a pc. I’d also like to find a better gpu for doing video editing.
It will be the first one I’ve built, so I don’t really know what I need. Also, does it matter for compatibility for Linux whether I go with AMD or Intel?
The high end of what I want to use it for is video editing with Kdenlive or Davinci Resolve, some modeling and animation in Blender, and some light gaming, like Minecraft or TUNIC.
I figure one of these guides might be useful, but I don’t really know which.
Is there anything else I should know for setting up a PC to run Linux?
Edit: Maybe these guides from Logical Increments can help actually.
I’ve used Logical Increments in the past and found it very useful to meet a budget. Now I aim for “price to performance” sweet spots (since GPU prices have been crazy I’m now well overdue for a new GPU).
Both CPU manufactures are changing their naming schemes (to make it difficult to know what it is, I wish this was hyperbole). GPU manufactures also make some weird choice on naming GPUs (same-name GPU with different VRAM). Reading/watching reviews of specific parts will likely be the best way to know what you aught to buy.
If you’re confident in your technical knowledge or want to then narrow down your choices then I would recommend watching videos from:
- (GPU, CPU, Case) Gamers Nexus
- (GPU, CPU, Case, Monitor) Hardware Unboxed and Monitors Unboxed.
For a casual overview of CPUs/GPUs video review I’d recommend something like Linus Tech Tips (even with the prior controversy).
Some build advice:
- Be safe - don’t wear socks, stand on a hard floor if possible, ground yourself if you have a wrist strap for that, and discharge any static by touching metal and/or the case before touching any components. And no matter what, DO NOT open the power supply, and definitely don’t touch anything in it!
- The huge motherboard connector probably requires more force than comfortable.
- Watch through at least one build guide before starting. That way you know the process.
Hope that helps, and don’t let it scare you away - it’s really fun to do and if you’re careful, chances are nothing major will go wrong.
At first I thought you meant these “programming socks” from Linux community 😭 But still a great advice
Blender and DaVinci Resolve work better on Nvidia. AMD might work, but it will be a hassle and you’ll likely need the proprietary AMD drivers anyway.
With Nvidia supporting Wayland and the open-source NVK continuing to get better, you could even switch to open source drivers for gaming at some point, if you prefer.
Edit: I’ve had enough issues with AMD GPU’s clocking down while gaming, leading to micro stuttering. So don’t buy AMD just because everyone tells you they work flawlessly.
For CPU and mainboard, everything works well — just don’t buy a random unknown SSD from Amazon, then you’re asking for data loss and random issues.
Don’t go with Intel. Anyone recommending intel should be ashamed and should have kept up with the tech news about Intel’s CPUs basically burning up and Intel ignoring the issue, including all the warranty claims. NO INTEL. AMD Cpu and Gpu, because AMD develops more for Linux than Nvidia does. But you could still go for Nvidia (if you want raytracing on in games).
I wouldn’t recommend Intel CPUs (at least the last two gens) either but if all that matters to you in a GPU is hardware encoding (quality or codec support), like for a Jellyfin server, Intel ARC is unbeatable.
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Just don’t bother with a 13th/14th gen intel right now. Either go 12th gen intel, or straight up AMD which is what I’d recommend.
Good to know, thanks.
Uh… are you not aware of the catastrophically bad lithography issues Intel has had lately across both the 13th and 14th gen, and the subsequent ass-tier fashion in which they handled it?
Do not buy a 13th or 14th gen Intel CPU.
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Not to mention, iirc you should get a bit of a perf bump for the GPU due to AMD’s Infinity Cache, so long as you roll with (iirc) Zen2+ and RDNA2+
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pcpartpicker.com is a good place to start and can help you know if specific parts are compatible but it’s just a place to start and is often still missing important info.
So you still need to do due diligence and do things like check measurements to make sure, for example, your video card will actually fit inside your case, etc.
Also, since its your first time, you want to avoid any motherboards that require you to do a BIOS update to handle a newer processor, because that’s just complicated stuff that you’re going to want to skip as a beginner.
It’s more expensive but go for a newer motherboard that is compatible with your processor out-of-the-box. BIOS updates are a pain and scary even for advanced users.
- Stay clear from nvidia. AMD if you buy a graphics card, if you just use integrated graphics both AMD and Intel are fine
- When picking a motherboard, look what wifi chipset is used and check Linux compatibility. Some wifi chipsets require to manually install drivers, and some just don’t work at all
For DaVinci Resolve, you will need an nvidia gpu, even their amd support is half-ar3ed, and intel doesn’t work at all (they don’t support it under linux, while they do on windows). So you need to decide if you’re going to use resolve, or kdenlive (that works with everything, since it’s not really accelerated – it’s slower (their acceleration is buggy)). However, if you’re going with nvidia, you will probably experience problems on the everyday desktop. So I’d suggest an amd gpu and cpu possibly.
Alternatively, just get a refurbished Dell laptop, or an older Zenbook. These usually work great with Linux.
I would be fine with using windows just for Davinci resolve if that makes any difference. Thanks for the suggestions.
Not sure if this would help, but I found this channel helpful for understanding the basics and mostly avoiding wrong parts. Also he has some videos were he explains why you should choose one part over another.
Do it
My first question is about your laptop; is the SSD removable, because if so, even a pretty large SSD is cheap these days.
Also, the GPU question is complicated. For most use cases, AMD is better on Linux. However, since you’re doing Resolve and Blender, that gets a bit murky. It depends on if ROCm support is less dismal on later AMD cards - I have an RX 580, which AMD quickly dropped support for and I am bitter about.
This is not to say I like NVidia, but for fast video encoding and rendering, as far as I know, it’s the easier option. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.
As for actually building the thing, you’d start by look for what CPU you want, then find a compatible motherboard, then read the board’s compatibility list for RAM. They usually have compatibility lists for storage - those don’t matter, as it’s pretty universal. Then choose a graphics card, a case with the right form factor, a PSU, and a cooler. I tend to go with liquid cooling, as it’s not that expensive anymore.
Like others have said, check kernel support for your hardware, but also, it’s generally much easier on desktop. The main things to look out for are ethernet and WiFi controllers. By the way, what distro do you prefer, because that’s definitely a factor.
Thanks for the information, it’s all very helpful. I’m thinking of just using my laptop as a secondary device when I’m out of the house, so a hard drive upgrade won’t be necessary, but I’ll definitely keep that in mind. As for a distro, I’ll most likely be using Fedora.
you are getting advice that will make a good gaming pc but not a good workstation for what you said you’re gonna do.
do the opposite of what most everyone in this thread is saying:
intel over amd (this could actually go either way depending on the price point), nvidia over amd, start at 32gb of ram and go up from there. prioritize cores over threads, sneak a rotational hard disk in, spend more on your power supply than you planned to.
plan on not using wayland.
plan on not using Wayland
Strong disagree on that one, X11 sucks
I am not going to fight you on if x is better than Wayland.
The ops use case involves operations, software and hardware that function best with x.
The op should avoid Wayland.
Why should I plan on not using wayland? Is it because of the Nvidia support? I use Fedora normally so I’d have to install x11 after installation as Fedora recently dropped x11 support.
You mainly want to be able to do 3d and video editing right?
Those two, specifically with davinci resolve and blender, work best with nvenc and libcuda(?), the software libraries that let you take advantage of your nvidia cards encoders and cuda cores.
So if you were building for that workload, you’d have an nvidia card and many problems people encounter in Wayland come from using it with an nvidia card.
So yeah it’s the nvidia support. Most people will say “fuck nvidia, just don’t buy their hardware” but it’s the best choice for you and would be a huge help, so choosing between Wayland and nvidia is a no brainer.
It is a bummer that you’ll need to install x specially, but I’d be really surprised if there isn’t decent support for that.
There’s always the hope that Wayland will get better over time and you’ll be able to use it in a few years.
E: a word on encoding: both amd and intel CPU’s have video encode and decode support, but the intel qsv is more widely supported and tends to be faster most of the time. When people suggest intels arc gpus they’re saying it because those gpus use qsv and for a video editing workstation they’d be a good choice.
Part of the reason I put intel and amd cpus on an even footing for you is because any cost savings you get from going amd would likely be offset by the performance decrease. Theres some good breakdowns of cpu encoder performance out there if you want to really dive in, it remember that you’re also in a good place to buy intel because of the crazy deals from sky is falling people.
That kinda ties into the cores over threads thing too. If your computers workload is a bunch of little stuff then you can really make hay of using a scheduler that is always switching stuff around. One of the things that makes amds 3d processors so good at that stuff is that they have a very big cache so they’re able to extend the benefit of multi threading schedulers up to larger processes. You’re looking at sending your computer a big ol’ chunk of work though, so you’re not usually gonna be multithreading with that powerful scheduler and instead just letting cores crunch away.
Part of the reason I didn’t suggest intels arc stuff is that you’re also doing 3d work and being able to take advantage of the very mature cuda toolchain is more important.
Plus nvidia encoding is also great and if you were to pair it with an intel cpu you could have the best of both worlds.
You’re really looking to build something different than most people and that’s why my advice was so against the grain. Hope you end up with a badass workstation.
ebay, ebay, ebay (and also pcpartpicker).
Unless you want to frag people at 4k@140Hz in the latest AAA game, you probably don’t need the latest generation components (and I’d say your requirement are quite low here, consider how the only thing you complain about is storage space).
Unless you really want to assemble everything by yourself, consider buying one of the second-hand, previous-gen gaming rigs on ebay (but watch out for scams!). Even if you do want to assemble the PC yourself, consider buying used parts on ebay (or buying a full PC to cannibalize reselling the excess).
What are the specs of your current rig? Except for storage, are you satisfied with how it runs? How much storage do you need for the projects you are working on? How much to archive things? Do you want to do anything about backups? Is a full size tower ok? How good a video do you want? What is your budget?
If you’re using davinci resolve then you’ll need an Nvidia GPU for nvenc to work. Otherwise, I’d say go all AMD like I did with my current and first PC, too. Fuck Nvidia even though a lot of people say it’s better now, but I have Nvidia PTSD and will never buy their shit. I have a Ryzen 7 5700G that comes with a built in GPU and a friend of mine gave me an old ass RX580 GPU that has been doing just fine for two 4k monitors. If you can give up davinci resolve or work with it halfassed, then all AMD is amazing. It’s basically plug N play.
I agree with you on the 580, although I got mine new and use it with 2 1080P monitors. I do wonder if ROCm works any better on newer cards, but I don’t have my hopes up.
2 4k monitors have been working on all games. I do admit that some games have to be set to low settings, but in general, I’m have a blast What’s ROCm? Lol
ROCm is basically AMD’s GPU compute system, like CUDA but worse but better because the card is actually usable for desktop stuff.
However, they only support it on specific distros, and they’re really weird about what cards they support. This should be changing soon - Debian’s been working on packaging it natively, and I think so has Fedora.
Go AM5. The 7600x3d is 300 bucks and nice
