I’ve been slow to make an upgrade, and figure what better time to switch to linux?
Did what I could to try to research that the parts were all fairly linux friendly, with a warning about the motherboard’s wifi7 maybe not yet supported yet by the kernel.
Looking for a mid-high range build without going crazy on the cost. Build actually came in a bit cheaper than I expected, so feel like maybe I’m missing something here.
My monitor, which I’m planning to keep, does have G-Sync, but I don’t know that I’ll miss it.
PS: I know i can get more life out of my old hardware, but I want to turn that into a NAS.
EDIT: Fixed link.
Heads up:
I’ve swapped a couple parts:
- cpu cooler
- motherboard
- ram
- gpu
- case
- psu
If you’re able to use ATX parts you can get a cheaper build with better performance. Not sure if this is on the table for you but if size isn’t a limitation you might like this setup as it’ll provide you the best cost to performance ratio longterm.
The ram was swapped from 64GB CL30 to 32GB CL30, while the decrease in capacity and increased CAS latency might seem much, the savings you can then spend on a better gpu and liquid/AIO CPU cooler will benefit you for much longer.
- Ram prices also rarely stick on the high end so upgrading is super easy on that front in comparison to upgrading GPUs.
If size isn’t a limitation, it’ll free you from buying an expensive SFX power supply and instead you can get a higher capacity 1000W one from EVGA.
- While the PSU’s motherboard 24pin isn’t modular I think the overall tradeoff is worth it in my opinion.
I also swapped the case to Antec’s Flux line as it was a top performer in thermals and this varient also has Back Connect support which opens up future motherboard upgrades if the manufacturers decide back connect is the way to go.
Expensive but that’s a good build
If you were looking to save costs, where’s the first place you look?
I’m looking for something I can set and forget for a bit. Lots of RAM is about the only thing I won’t budge on in the build here.
I’d like to be able to do some AAA gaming from time to time, but this is a big upgrade, so I don’t expect I’ll be sweating any frame rate drops. I spend most of my gaming time in simpler stuff anyway.
Compared to all those Amazon prices, I think everything would be a little bit cheaper if you are within reasonable driving distance of a Microcenter. Getting one of their bundle deal might save even more on top of that, and there’s also the possibility of lucking out on an open-box item in-store.
Your 64GB DDR5-6000 CL30 RAM is apparently about $50 more than it needs to be, compared to the cheapest RAM of that spec on PCPartPicker.
From the description of how much and what kind of gaming you do, you’d probably be fine with a 9060 XT (16GB) ($350ish?) or maybe even an Intel Arc B580 (12GB) ($250ish?). Just don’t get an 8GB card; they aren’t future-proof enough.
Finally, if compactness isn’t actually a need, you could probably save some money ditching the ITX motherboard and SFX PSU in favor of regular ATX ones, even if it causes you to have to spend a bit more for your case.
Speaking of the case, I was also considering a cheap Cooler Master case (a Q300L) for my recent build, and while it looked good on paper, it wasn’t so great when I saw it in person. For that reason, I’m kinda skeptical about the NR200.
It’s exactly the opposite of saving costs, but cases last a pretty long time. I’d consider splurging on something that’s actually high-quality, like a Fractal Design Terra or Lian Li A4-H2O. (I ended up getting the latter myself, which I found as a discounted display model from Microcenter for ~$50!)
Yeah I don’t need the small case. It’s an aesthetic thing. Could use a medium tower again. Was a little worried about that, and saw another commenter saying they thought it might be too tight. Worth a think.
Thanks for the pointers
With 3-slot height and 330mm allowed length, the case you picked should fit literally any AMD or Intel graphics card you might want to put in it (and all Nvdia cards but the absolute largest 4090s, for that matter).
The two ITX cases I mentioned have slight restrictions on graphics card length, but still fit 3-slot cards. I have a Gigabyte 9070 XT (which is not the smallest 9070 XT) in my A4-H2O, and it fits just fine with room to spare. It’s really the CPU sides of those really tiny sandwich-style cases where things get tricky: the Terra can only fit a very short CPU cooler when using a 3-slot GPU, and the A4-H2O not only requires a 240mm AIO water cooler, it’s even slightly picky about which one you get: I had to swap out my initial choice for a different brand because the fitting at the radiator caused the tubing bend radius to be too large. It’s also legitimately a bit challenging to fit all the power cables and such. That’s tight!
I think it’d still be worth it compared to a cheap-feeling case that’s larger than it needs to be (if you’re going for ITX at all vs. a big case with a window and whatnot), though.
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor
Can’t go wrong there. This processor will go down as one of the best of all time.
Overall the build looks extremely solid. AMD on linux these days is 🤌 💋
Extremely solid build. Probably right in the sweet spot for cost-to-performance and being at least somewhat future proof. 16gb of vram is a bit on the shy side, but probably fine for a decade or so of gaming.
Thanks for the feedback.
Thinking of going with PopOS, as it seems like a good fit with decent dev support out of the box.
FWIW, I’m coming from a lot of experience with MacOS as my primary dev environment, and loads of sshing into various terminal environments.
I run pop os also love it. it’s very slick.
I’d probably get the 9070 XT over the 7080 XT, just for full performance FSR4 (there’s some compatibility with it on Linux, but it’s slower). Maybe even the non-XT model for the same reason.
I feel like you might be able to do better price wise on the RAM, although I’m not up to date on current prices for DDR5.
EDIT: I see you have an itx case, so maybe that limits your GPU options a bit.
Guess I need to look into benchmarks a little bit more here for 9000 series vice 7000 series.
I’d probably get the 9070 XT over the 7080 XT, just for full performance FSR4 (there’s some compatibility with it on Linux, but it’s slower). Maybe even the non-XT model for the same reason.
I concur. I would only get a 7000 series card if I wanted the 20 or 24 GB of RAM from a 7900 XT or XTX, since there isn’t an equivalent high-end 9000 series card.
EDIT: I see you have an itx case, so maybe that limits your GPU options a bit.
It appears to support 3-slot cards, so it should be fine.
I’m doing the same as you and I’ve come up with such a similar list that I probably won’t bother posting it since I can just use your build’s feedback.
I don’t know what space constraints you’re working with or how confident you are at PC building but this will be a tight build. NVME as your only storage will help but I’d be legitimately concerned if that cooler, your video card, and all your memory will physically fit on the board and in your case. That ignores your ability to physically put everything together without breaking anything. Thirdly you’re building a small space heater, that thing will run pretty hot under any decent load
Otherwise this is a pretty capable machine that should handle any reasonable tasks you throw at it
I would say it’s a good build but I’m biased as this is near enough to the previous iteration of my own build (7950x/PS120SE/7900xtx/NR200P).
I’d disagree with other posters about it being tight; this is the biggest ITX case at 20L and the entire thing disassembles to make it easy to route cables. Your build will fit perfectly, and the NR200P can take a 3 slot GPU of at least 320mm, as per my own experience. Be aware you will most likely need to intake from the rear of the case though, where there is no dust filter.
The only notes I would have is, to echo another poster, go for the 9070 XT or even 9070 if it is within 20% of the price; and don’t cheap out on the mobo. Go for a B650 or even B850 at least, since as a general rule, connectivity now and in future will be limited by your motherboard. The Asrock B850i isn’t far off your choice currently: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9hqNnQ/asrock-b850i-lightning-wifi-mini-itx-am5-motherboard-b850i-lightning-wifi
Conversely, the only reason I transplanted my setup to the Lian Li Dan A3 is I wanted something with a teensy bit more room (26L) and more air flow paths (its basically all mesh). I will say that the slight step up to mATX brings a lot more options and negates the ITX tax. The NR200P is a GOAT case though and I plan to hold onto mine.
I don’t see any info about your use cases, but for distro, I would recommend taking a look at some of the “gaming” distros if that is even a slight ask; I myself have gone Mint -> PopOS -> Fedora and now landed on Bazzite, which has been a surprisingly good all-rounder for both work and play. It has done gaming better than any other distro for me, and even though it is marketed as an immutable gaming distro, it has a plethora of ways to install general use software. Check out Framework’s guide (or any of the multitude of others floating around) for an easy to follow setup: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Bazzite+Installation+on+the+Framework+Desktop/415
You figure the 9070 just has that much extra longevity here, or just that much more power?
As for the mobo, to be honest I mostly was just looking at something that seemed like it would fit the case well, but will give those a look.
Really appreciate the distro advice as well. I haven’t had a home linux since whatever version of fedora was around like 15 years ago.
I don’t see any info about your use case
hm yeah sure enough.
Looking to do some gaming, but don’t really care about it being ultra settings at 100FPS. Mostly single player stuff and do appreciate it looking pretty though.
Also looking to do a bit of dev work. Usually running IntelliJ or whatever other Jetbrains product fits the language I’m working in.
You figure the 9070 just has that much extra longevity here, or just that much more power?
As always, it is price dependent; the 9070 series is a decent jump from the 7800 in a few areas, so if it is within say an extra $50 I’d consider it. The XT model is only like 5% more performance on top of that as well.
Really appreciate the distro advice as well. I haven’t had a home linux since whatever version of fedora was around like 15 years ago.
Happy to opine since I have been on the Windows > Dual boot > full Linux journey myself in the last couple of years. Regardless of distro, you’re in for a treat; any of the modern distros are pretty good now. I’m a KDE Plasma stan as well, but thats a personal taste thing haha
Looking to do some gaming, but don’t really care about it being ultra settings at 100FPS. Mostly single player stuff and do appreciate it looking pretty though.
Definitely spend the extra for the 9070 then, price comment withstanding, as it will last you awhile.
Also looking to do a bit of dev work. Usually running IntelliJ or whatever other Jetbrains product fits the language I’m working in.
I don’t do much coding these days since I stick to my crayons, but looks like most of these are cross-platform. It’s also worth mentioning that there are plenty of cool tools like Distrobox as well, which allow you to easily run any Linux distro + toolchain as a container to provide a sandboxed, mutable environment, so immutable distros aren’t a dealbreaker either.
This is why I like Bazzite so much for dual use, because if you are at all gaming, all of the baked in QoL features make setup easy when I have had many issues with other non-gaming distros in the past, and the rest has tools to make it work somehow. Immutable distros mean you can’t really screw up the OS either.
Old build that I’m upgrading from, for fun: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/ysoslo/saved/#view=LtnXHx
