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Linux Gaming PC 2024 (with Coreboot-Support)?

Hi, I have never build a PC before, that is why I am asking you for your help and suggestions. I have informed (or misinformed) myself about a few aspects of building a PC. I will give my reasoning why I chose each part, and let you decide why I am wrong.

Usage:

The goal of this build is to create a Gaming PC which can play most games at least at lower resolutions and at sufficient frame rate. I plan to build this PC with future software requirements in mind, to reduce e-waste and to leave room for possible upgrades. This PC should support Coreboot to allow for firmware updates, even after the official firmware support has stopped. This machine will run Linux as the main OS and probably Dasharo as the Coreboot-distribution. The main use is playing games and emulation, but I also intend to use it for virtualisation.

Components:

  • Motherboard: Pro Z790-P Wifi (DDR5 Variant)
  • CPU: Intel Core i5-13600KF (Alder/Raptor_Lake-S)
  • CPU-Cooler: Scythe Fuma 3 67.62 CFM CPU Cooler (4-30 dB)
  • GPU: XFX Speedster QICK 309 Radeon RX 7600 XT 16 GB Video Card
  • RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5 5600 (CL 28)
  • Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive
  • PSU: SeaSonic FOCUS Plus 650 Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply

Why did I choose those parts?

Motherboard:

  • The main two reasons why I choose the Z790-P are, that the motherboard needs to support Coreboot and that it is DDR5 compatible.
  • I could not care less if the motherboard supports Wifi or Bluetooth, since the PC is not going to leave my desk, but I will not complain for having it.

CPU:

  • Since I already decided on a motherboard, the manufacturer decided the CPU-brand for me. In this case Intel. The CPU-socket only allows for microarchitectures Alder and Raptor Lake-S, so my choice is limited.Intels 13th and 14th generation CPUs have many reported issues. Intel reported that many of those issues are due to faulty voltage configuration in the motherboard bios, which cause the CPU to degrade at an accelerated pace. They are due to release a microcode patch mid-august, which reportedly fixes the issue without a significant performance loss. Obviously, this patch will not fix already damaged chips. Another problem is, that they had some issues while manufacturing these chips in 2023, which caused oxidation and therefore degradation.
  • Generally you want more from everything, cores, threads and core clock, except power usage.
  • You also have the choice between a CPU with integrated graphics or without. To save the environment and my bank account I will choose one without it. For Intel that is every CPU with the “F” designation.As thingsiplay and felsiq have pointed out there can appear several issues, when building a system without a integrated GPU. One which is, that it becomes harder to debug issues, since you can not just unplug your GPU, to test if the GPU drivers are at fault.

CPU-Cooler:

  • Check if the TDP matches your CPU, e.g. >=125 W for 125 W.
  • Check if it matches your motherboard and case, i.e. everything fits.
  • Lastly, make sure it is not to loud.

GPU:

  • Main OS is Linux, so I will spare myself the pain and choose AMD over Nvidia.
  • More demanding games use more video memory. I have read that 8 GB often is not enough anymore.

RAM:

  • Virtualisation often needs a lot of resources i.e. RAM.
  • For optimal performance your RAM-speed should match your CPU. Any more and you waste money, any less and you create a bottleneck. Since the i5 only has 5600 MT/s, any more is wasted.

Storage:

  • Since most games today use around 60-150 GB, this PC will need a lot of storage. About thirteen 150 GB games can be stored on a 2 TB drive. I hope this will suffice.

Power supply unit:

  • Deciding factors are form factor and power. You can not use your PSU, if it either does not fit in your PC-case or does not have enough juice to power your other components.
  • Your PSU should have a few more 20-30 % clearance in case of a spike. I think a 650 W PSU should be enough for a workload of 490 W idle. Please, correct me, if I am wrong.
  • Some people recommend buying a PSU with more power than needed to allow for upgrades with higher power usage, but apparently the PSU will not run efficiently in this case. I have read that a PSU should be most efficient at idle hardware usage to maximize power savings. E.g. do not buy a 1000 W PSU, when you only use around 400 W at idle.
  • Also important are the +12V-rails. You should make sure the supply at least 24 A. Lastly you should check which power plugs the PSU will/can use.

Since I plan something special for the PC-case, it will not be part of this post. I hope this post can be used by others in the future, as a reference for building a Linux PC.

PS: This is my first post on lemmy. I am sorry for any formatting errors. I hope the post is legible.

Edit:

  • added links for explanation
  • fixed some grammatical errors
  • added suggestions from the comments

It is getting late here. I will look into a substitute for intel tomorrow (8 hours from the latest edit) and add this here.

boredsquirrel ,
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net avatar

Didnt know there were so new mobos with coreboot support! Really great!

B0g3nNutz3r OP ,

There are more, but sadly the selection is still very limited. Another issue is that you have to buy dasharo, since there is no coreboot support from a free distro like libreboot, yet.

boredsquirrel , (edited )
@boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net avatar

Oh it is dasharo too! Dasharo is free, but you buy support and binaries.

I am on an 11th Gen Clevo NV41, having a strange firmware bug but hardware flashing should solve this.

jodanlime ,
@jodanlime@midwest.social avatar

I love seasonic PSU. They are the among the best IMO and all my personal machines use them.

CaptDust ,

Switched to a seasonic focus with my new build, I’ve never owned such a nice power supply. and it was cheaper on sale than competitors. Second this recommendation.

nfsm ,

Thank you for the write up. It’s very helpful.
I’d pick another CPU (even Intel) but I understand that you’re bound to the motherboard. I’m looking for a SFF build, what’s your PC-case?

B0g3nNutz3r OP ,

That is sort of a surprise. Sort of, because I am not yet sure, if I can make it work. It will be part of a later post, but first I need to make sure the internal parts work. The linked articles and videos, suggest buying Intel 13th/14th generation is like playing lottery and the faulty vender bios configurations do not make things easier.

felsiq ,

Your build looks good (setting the ongoing intel issues that somebody else already mentioned aside), but personally I’d consider a different drive than the Samsung - it’s a great drive, but usually overpriced imo. If you can get it for a good price then absolutely go for it, but most times I find sn850x drives significantly cheaper and insignificantly slower. Otherwise, the only other note I’d make is that grub is abysmally slow at higher resolutions on chips with no igpu, at least when using a nvidia gpu. I’m not certain if this would apply to an AMD gpu, and either way you can just use something better (cough cough refind) to avoid the problem, but for anyone who just wants the default out-of-the-box bootloader on most distros to just work properly it might be worth spending the extra ~$40 for the K series instead of the KF to get the igpu. It’s not something I’d recommend doing personally, but it’s at least worthwhile to know about when you’re making the K/KF choice imo. Anyway, good luck with your build and have fun with setting everything up!

B0g3nNutz3r OP , (edited )

Thank you for this interesting information. I use systemd-boot with secure-boot. I do not know if it has the same issue, but I hope not. If it does, I might consider switching my boot loader or when nmbl is ready ditch it entirely. Like thingsiplay mentioned though, it still might be a good idea to use an iGPU for debugging purposes.

Dendr0 ,

Might want to reconsider the mobo/cpu choice, given the current situation with Intel chips failing at a pretty high rate.

B0g3nNutz3r OP ,

Thank you for this information. In my research about these chips I have not stumbled upon this issue, since intel seems to be tight lipped about this issue. The seem to blame the high failure rate on the motherboard manufactures and suggest that they are caused by a wrong voltage configuration.

sfera ,

There also seem to be oxidation problems during the production.

B0g3nNutz3r OP ,

I have seen that. I am currently reading the article linked by thingsiplay. When I am done absorbing the information, I will edit my post and incorporate the information into it.

30p87 ,

According to current information, there are two main issues: Certain 13th gen chips have had manufacturing defects, specifically oxidation. Also, a bug in the microcode for 13th and 14th gen orders a higher voltage for the chip than the transistors can handle long term, which means especially systems with a high uptime and load essentially burned themselves to a point of constant crashing. They will fix that soon tho, but affected units are permanently damaged now. And no one knows for certain that all issues are fixed now, so I’d advise to either wait for some time (a few months), or go AMD - possibly the new Ryzen 9000s, launching in 15 days (after a 15 day delay).

thingsiplay , (edited )

I’m not sure if an Intel 13th or 14th gen CPU is the best choice at the moment. They are defective:

Edit: A little note on the iGPU of your CPU. I used one without integrated graphics for almost 10 years and is one of the things I regret to be honest. You might encounter an issue in the future and want to disable the graphics card in example, to eliminate issues with driver or whatever. Or if the card is failing. Then you would be happy if you could access your system without a dedicated graphics card. Or like in my situation, I would use the old computer for something else without a graphics card, but can’t. Not the worst thing in the world, but reconsider this decision.

ipacialsection , (edited )
@ipacialsection@startrek.website avatar

I don’t have much PC building experience, but these specs seem sufficient. Only comment is that you might need to use a distro with a new-ish kernel and graphics stack, given the very recent CPU and GPU. So not Debian stable, but Fedora, Ubuntu, or any rolling release distro will be fine.

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