Advice needed on new PC

[mikep]

Hello folks,

Here's a link to my Ebuyer wishlist of components for the new PC.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts on compatibility and whether it should support Linux. I assume it would, since it's the same chipset as the board Rich suggested (Ebuyer hasn't got that one).

Most of the components seem to be oriented towards gaming, which I don't do, but the extra grunt wouldn't go amiss, especially as the whole lot comes in at £284.59 - less than half what I was thinking!

I'll reuse my case and PSU...




https://www.ebuyer.com/lists/E284F5C2D2FE78966B5F70C1495D69E7

[Rich J]

Hello folks,

Here's a link to my Ebuyer wishlist of components for the new PC.

I'd really appreciate any thoughts on compatibility and whether it should support Linux. I assume it would, since it's the same chipset as the board Rich suggested (Ebuyer hasn't got that one).

Most of the components seem to be oriented towards gaming, which I don't do, but the extra grunt wouldn't go amiss, especially as the whole lot comes in at £284.59 - less than half what I was thinking!

I'll reuse my case and PSU...




https://www.ebuyer.com/lists/E284F5C2D2FE78966B5F70C1495D69E7

Looks ok to me!   

[Mad Penguin]

Looks ok, two thoughts;

• You'll get more power for a similar price from an AMD Ryzen
• The board only looks to have two DIMM slots, which limits your memory upgrade paths, I tend to go for boards with 4 slots, use two dimm's initially, giving me the option to double down in future without scrapping the existing modules. 8G is "ok", but if you move into virtual machines etc, you will so wish you had more ..

[mikep]

Thanks both.

I could install two 8GB modules, but I'm already running Virtualbox in a 4GB machine without using swap. I suppose the extra cost would provide a bit of future-proofing, but I'm never likely to get into gaming. Well, not the first person shooter kind. VR seems to be getting quite interesting. Would 16GB be enough for that?

And if I go the AMD route I'll have to spend time identifying a chipset that works with linux and a board which has an M.2 slot...

[Mad Penguin]

Yeah, I use an XBox for gaming .. for Virtualbox (I actually use KVM, but same principle) you can never get too much RAM, but yes, 16Gb is good. In terms of AMD, you'll find my working spec in this thread;

https://linuxforums.org.uk/index.php?topic=13939.msg111881;topicseen#msg111881

I'm actually running with 2 x 16G DIMM's with two empty slots ..

[mikep]

Thanks Penguin,

Interesting. I'll check your link and give it some thought.

I'm tempted to go for a lot of RAM, although somewhere on this board I seem to remember Mark telling me that if I wasn't using swap, more memory would be a waste of money. I suppose things get more memory intensive all the time, so get prepared...

There used to be a problem with adding too much RAM, whereby the OS couldn't address it all so wouldn't even boot. Do we still need to worry about that?


Edit:
KVM is new to me (except as the acronym for keyboard video and mouse switch). I may pick your brains about it if you don't mind. Don't want to steer us off topic though so I'll start a new thread sometime.

[Mad Penguin]

> I wasn't using swap, more memory would be a waste of money

Mm, maybe if you're not using swap "now", then you don't "need" more memory "now" .. but more memory of rarely a waste as the kernel will use any spare memory as disk cache to speed up your IO and general operation ..    (and memory now is so [relatively speaking] cheap ...) just for example, this is first thing in the morning before the machine has really started to work;

Code: [Select]

$ free 
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available 
Mem:       32872092    24376732     1369164     2697824     7126196     5332000 
Swap:       1003516     1003516           0

I don't think you will have any RAM problems re; too much, at least not on 64 bit kernels, and I think Ubuntu has stopped support for 32-bit ..
KVM: https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-KVM

Is the virtualisation system being touted by RedHat, whereas I think virtualbox is an Oracle project. (any alarm bells sounding yet?    )
I have used Virtualbox in the past in situations where I've had no choice, but Oracle is kinda on my "avoid like covid" list ..

I switched to KVM from XEN I think sometime around 2008.
(I also prefer the KVM management tool; https://virt-manager.org/)

[mikep]

Hello Mad Penguin.

I'm always willing to be proved wrong, but doesn't the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 512GB M.2 beat the WD Blue SN550 500Gb M.2 hands down?

And something else which confuses me. Is an M.2 on a PCIe card as good as the same M.2 in a 'native' slot on the motherboard?

Things have changed since my last build. My head hurts!

[Mad Penguin]

Erm, well .. second question first as I think that's a less subjective one. My understanding of the M.2 onboard connector is that it effectively connects to the PCIE bus, so as long as the plug in card has at least 4 lanes, devices with this sort of throughput should be equivalent regardless of whether on-board or via a PCIE card.

Hands down question .. the answer is that I don't know, I guess it depends on your definition of "beat".
That will include questions like "does each one do what the spec says" and "how long does it keep doing it".
I note the ADATA comes with a heat-sink, and the WD doesn't need one .. for me I prefer a silent PC, so heat generation also enters the equation.
(which is why I use fanless graphics cards )

Some of the reviews would indicate than the quoted speeds / benchmarks might be a little misleading and some imply it slows over time .. this is from the WD in my box which has been running for six months;

Code: [Select]

# sysctl -w vm.drop_caches=3 
vm.drop_caches = 3 
# hdparm -tT /dev/nvme0n1p1  
/dev/nvme0n1p1: 
Timing cached reads:   15044 MB in  2.00 seconds = 7530.52 MB/sec 
Timing buffered disk reads: 512 MB in  0.17 seconds = 2937.14 MB/sec

If you get an ADATA, I'd be interested to hear how it does / what sort of performance you get ..

[Keith]

By chance, I've been searching the web today about PCIe because I hadn't a clue, and MP is right: the M.2 form is connected directly to the PCIe bus.  Hence the speed. 

Keith

[mikep]

Sorry guys,

Had a few distractions to deal with but I'll make a decision in the next two or three days and report back..

[mikep]

Just found this.

https://www.novatech.co.uk/motherboardbundles/view/mbb-360x16.html

Unless I'm missing something, it ticks all the boxes and then some, and comes pre-built and tested. The chipset looks to support Linux...

I'm a bit baffled by..

"Supports 1st, 2nd and 3rd Gen AMD Ryzen™ / Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics and 2nd Gen AMD Ryzen™ with Radeon™ Graphics / Athlon™ with Radeon™ Vega Graphics Desktop Processors for Socket AM4".

and.. whether there are any PCIE 4x slots although it apparently has an onboard M.2 slot

Any thoughts much appreciated. I need to get this sorted ASAP now. My current box is dying on it's @rse.

TIA

[Keith]

Hi Mike.

The baffling quote just means that it will support all the Ryzen CPU generations, each of which comes in two flavours: with or without built-in graphics processing.  The version with graphics built in has a "G" suffix to the name.  This link might help:https://www.pcworld.com/article/3253306/ryzen-apu-review-ryzen-plus-vega-saves-budget-gamers.html

If you are gaming I suggest checking which it is as you might need a graphics board, although as it's a gaming bundle I guess it will be fine. 

I'm new to this modern hardware so others might disagree with my thoughts.

Keith

[mikep]

Thanks Keith, and hello folks.

Sorry to keep throwing questions at you, but how does this look?

https://www.novatech.co.uk/barebonebundles/view/bb-36008d.html

Novatech says no onboard graphics. Gigabyte.com suggests otherwise.

https://www.gigabyte.com/uk/Motherboard/B450M-DS3H-rev-10/sp#sp

Obviously I'd add another 8GB of ram and an M.2 SSD.

I'm finding the idea of a self build to be more of a chore than a challenge these days. I just need a reliable, modern, fairly fast machine that will run Linux and I'd rather someone else built it and tested it so I can get on with other things and just use it.

Thank you all for your input. Much appreciated.

M

[Keith]

Mike
There seems to be "onboard graphics" and "onboard graphics"! 

By chance, I have just built up a modern PC system for a friend so have been learning form scratch, like you. 
The board is an Asus B450 (same chipset as the Gigabyte) which has an HDMI output so I assumed "onboard graphics" - i.e. on the motherboard.
My CPU is Ryzen 5 2600 (similar to yours) without "onboard graphics" - i.e. not the "G" version of the CPU. 

Upon first switch-on there was no output from the HDMI, but fitting an old PCIe graphics board provided output from its HDMI port - as expected. 
I am guessing that the motherboard's "onboard graphics" means that it will process the graphics output from the "G" version of the CPU - i.e. the one with its own "onboard graphics".

Since the Novatech CPU is  not the  "G" version, I think you will need a graphics board, as they state.  I have since fitted a MSI GeForce GT 710 graphics board to my friend's PC which is perfectly adequate for her needs. 

The Gigabyte page includes the following note:
Remark
    1. Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors' website or 3rd party website.
The B450 board that I bought works fine with Ubuntu 18.04 but not with Ubuntu 20.04 which wouldn't let me log in, so I might explore that issue. 

I hope that helps a bit.
   Keith