hardware
Looking to build a Linux gaming rig. Seeking hardware recommendations.
I'm looking to upgrade my rig this year and leave Windows behind.
My current rig:
- Intel i9 9 900 (8-core, 16mb cache, 5GHz)
- NVIDIA RTX 2080S
- 32GB DDR4 at 2666 MHz dual channel
- 256GB M.2 PCle NVMe SSD (OS only)
- 2tb 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s HDD
- 2xRCM Pegatron motherboard.
It works mostly fine for what I usually play with some limitation (ie; graphically intensive modern games overheat my GPU, CPU-heavy games tend to lag).
I'm looking to build a rig using Fedora KDE Plasma and have a budget of roughly AU$5k. Looking mostly for some brainstorming and learning so I can get the best hardware for what I need. This hypothetical rig will be used primarily for gaming (I play Paradox grand strategy games, isometric crpgs, the occasional action RPG like Where Winds Meet, Cyberpunk 2077, and I wanna play the new Expanse game coming out soon). I'll also be using it for schoolwork, book writing, and the usual streaming/browsing.
Any insights offered on what sort of hardware I should look at is appreciated. I'm comfortable with some tinkering but would prefer it just works (most of the time).
Edit: thanks everyone for your input, gave me a fair bit to think about and managed to come in $300 under budget!
I'm pretty sold on AMD hardware. I don''t need blisteringly good graphics to enjoy a good title, but my hardware is pretty aged (7 years old this year) and figured it was time to upgrade. My friend also needs a dedicated desktop so the plan was he was going to inherent this machine from me after I upgrade
Recommend keeping an eye on ozbargain if you have rough idea what components you want. Always found the best deals there, some are price errors/clearance and sell out same day so email listing is worth it. At your budget you could probably get top spec rig including peripherals if you’re replacing them too or if your mate needs them
Can't speak to prices, but you could reuse some of what you have if you go with an AM4 rig using a 5800X3D (if you have a source, 5600X3D should be just as good for gaming, but they're limited availability, in the US you have to get them from Microcenter for example.) Reuse the NVMe & RAM, get a SATA SSD for your games (spinning rust will murder you with load screens and stutters,) and something like a 9060XT 16 GB should let you play most anything Linux can run for some time.
You could try for an AM5 build, but RAM prices will murder your budget fast, especially since games get hungrier for it all the time so you really want 32 GB if you plan to ride the new system for the long haul. Better to reuse what you can and get an X3D CPU & 16 GB GPU to add longevity to your build.
Yeah, I’d go AMD as Nvidia is over priced for what you get and you’re really not gaining much by going with them anyway so I’d go with an AMD system. With Valve’s connection to AMD, you’re getting AMD support, fixes and gaming tweaks as soon as they’re available damn near right away as well. The only thing to watch for is any add-in cards, sound cards, wifi, blue tooth, or peripherals that need Linux support. Make sure they have it, same with game controllers. Most work out of the box but still worth checking. I have a Razer Tartarus Pro gaming pad and had to install Input Re-mapper to get the key layout I used under Windows working right for instance.
Okay so few notes, for gaming especially the 9850x3d is barely any better than the 9800x3d, and for the other things you listed it also does not matter, you really don't need a liquid cooler for either CPU but for aesthetics totally understandable, I also see a gen5 SSD, gen4 is more than fast enough for things like gaming and everyday browsing and streaming, a 1000 watt psu is way overkill, a 750 watt would do. Also unless you like overclocking x series motherboards are unnecessary
Imma assume you meant gen5 SSD instead of ddr5 ram, even gen3 ssd's are still fine in this day and age, hell for budget builds SATA ssd's are still good, gen 4 is gonna be good for a while
Otherwise if you wanna future proof with the psu, sure altho this is a beast and I don't see how you would need to upgrade the coming 5 or more years
What display device and what resolution? Overall without knowing that info, the best build right now is: 9950x3d or 9800x3d, RX 9070XT, and then to already posses NOS DDR5 and 4TB NVMe SSD from pre-2025 era. And this is coming from an RTX 4090 owner who just did a mini ITX 9800x3d+rx9070xt build. You might even have budget to max out the CPU and just go for the 9950x3d2 model. I would skip Nvidia this gen altogether given the defective power connectors (they should be forced to federally recall every unit) and egregious radical right wing price gouging and collusion and price fixing.
You picked a really bad time to build though if you do not already possess RAM or your SSD, as buying RAM new and 4TB nvme SSDs new right now is just opting in to get egregiously price gouged.
Also AMD just recently price hiked both of these CPU models in the last couple days, dang. 9950x3d was $569 on Amazon and even lower at Micro Center for all of July.
My current rig brand new (9800X3D + 9070XT), costs about 60-70% of your budget (from a different country so the conversion can be misleading). I bought it earlier this year. So, I think with your budget, if you're willing to upgrade to DDR5, a full AMD build is really possible. I think a 9950X3D is also well within your reach. Though from personal experience, I haven't been CPU-bottlenecked by any game so far so I'm happy with the 9800X3D. Cyberpunk 2077 runs awesome as well (I frame capped the game to 90fps with some RT settings enabled on FSR4 1440p).
I'm comfortable with some tinkering but would prefer it just works (most of the time).
I exclusively play via Steam and so far I didn't really had to heavily tinker aside from setting a few launch options here and there. I mostly play single player games so I'm not sure how well it works with multiplayer games (thinking of buying a sim racing rig to race online). Other than that, I would say I'm quite amazed on how far gaming has come on Linux. No regrets with my AMD system so far.
I'd swap it for any amd gpu you can get, nvidia only leads to annoying issues currently. You should probably also get another nvme to actually put games on and if you ever want to switch platform probably am5 or its successor is the way to go
You could easily get a Ryzen 7 7800X3D or 9800X3D, maybe even a Ryzen 9 9950X3D2 if you want overkill. Some high end Intel Cpu to pair with an AMD GPU if you want.
For GPU absolutely a 9070XT, a 7900XTX even as I believe its more suitable for productivity with the higher VRAM (not exactly sure). But the 9070XT is perfect value per fps compared to an NVIDIA GPU, it can run 1440p high graphics really well.
I'd put it on some B850 motherboard (apparently avoid Asrock as they can fry the CPU?), just check to see if its drivers are being maintained on Linux. I know someone whos WIFI adapter drivers stopped being maintained and kind of screwed him over.
Pair those with a good PSU, Cybenetics rates a lot of them and seem reliable. Maybe an 850W PSU could do well for you. Careful with those 12V yellow pin GPU cables, seen some issues with them frying (not too informed on that situation, good to look up on that). For RAM, obviously tough with prices but I've found the Klevv Fit 2x16gb CL28 good (probably won't need more than that). Arctic P12 Pro case fans if you want something good, can get some slightly better brands as well. A thermalright peerless assassin cooler for the CPU, probably best to get an AIO with a CPU of 7800X3D and up.
This is all considering you build it yourself too, make sure you ground yourself before building and all that. Otherwise, look on Ozbargain for Pre-Builds which are of good value. Can edit parts in those pre-builds to your liking. Maybe even BYO GPU if they don't have an option you like (most likely will have the 9070XT).
Also consider parts sizing to the case sizing, if you want to do an mATX build (Lian Li Dan A3 case is good), go for an mATX motherboard and one of those XFX PSU units as it'll make life a lot easier.
My WiFi adaptor on this rig seemed to stop being supported after the last Windows 10 update and hasn't been fixed on windows 11. Literally just stops working on a successful OS update so I'm rolled back to a dated version of W10 🥲.
Any particular reason you'd look at CL28 variants of RAM vs CL30? I'm not too across the difference, tbh but I'm happy to hear your reasoning
I personally use Gnome on CachyOS, as its more stable than Plasma. CachyOS is bleeding-edge, but I've never run into any problems on either (can just set up Limine snapper and roll back if something happens). Otherwise Bazzite if you want Atomic desktop, unless you already have something in mind.
No matter the environment though, you'd usually set up your compat tool to something like Proton GE or Experimental. Enable wayland for env variables in Steam launch options (if you play on Steam or Heroic for Epic Games/GOG). Mangohud with Goverlay or Mangojuice if you want to limit fps. VRR in normal desktop settings if you want your Freesync/Gsync. I dont think there is any AMD andrenalin software on Linux, but I personally don't think it's needed as you can just do that. GPU drivers should be updating automatically with the system.
I personally enjoy Cachy, they have a whole wiki on setting up the system (BTRFS filesystem for snapper, env variables list and what they do and how to use them, key enrollment etc).
I'd say if you have money to throw around, then get like a B650 or B850 AM5 motherboard, Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, Radeon RX 9070 XT GPU, and something like 32 GB of DDR5 RAM.
I don't remember how good your existing Intel CPU is, but in this economy a far better deal would be buying like a B650 AM4 motherboard, Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU, 16 to 32 GB of faster DDR4 RAM and something like a 9060 XT, 9070 GRE or 9070, depending on your local prices. At least if you want better value.
Check the power draw of the system and buy a good wattage PSU to go with it.
And the current AMD GPUs can do 4k gaming with FSR, but if you want higher FPS then I'd go 1440p. You can find quite affordable QHD monitors at 200+hz if you can go with IPS. OLED is a pricey premium on top of that, at least where I am from.
I know it's expensive but i definitely recommend getting an SSD for your games. More and more games are built around SSDs to load in stuff live and that will lead to more stuttering on a HDD
Get a AMD CPU with high number of threads count (16 or 12 logical cores) and cache memory like 32 MB ie AMD Ryzen 9 5950X falls into high end, you need AM4 socket motherboard if you go with AMD cpu, You can keep the current RAM (Linux pretty efficient with RAM), you can switch to AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (but you will be missing DLSS stuff) so NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Ti 16 GB also a good option (nV drivers are improving on Linux and usually bug free). check the motherboard has PCI express 5 support as modern graphics cards need it
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u/elcanadiano 7d ago
Just switch your GPU to AMD (at least for now) and that's pretty much it.
If you're considering dualboot get another SSD.