this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2025
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PC Master Race

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Linux build guidance (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 day ago by dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works to c/pcmasterrace@lemmy.world
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Today my PC finally ate it. No POST, no disk activity, so I'm pretty sure the mobo has failed. I built this PC 8 or 10 years ago, and I'm honestly too old and out of touch to know where to start on a rebuild lol.

I'm an arch Linux user, my job is in machine learning, and I'm looking at a soup to nuts style rebuild but I don't know where to start. I want as much future proofing as I can get and I'm happy with a budget anywhere from $2k to $8k. I don't game now, but I might want to in the future.

So it seems like to leverage good ML tools I'm locked to cuda, so probably Nvidia GPU. Does that mean 4070 Ti is the knee in the curve? CPU I came from AMD but I have no idea. RAM speed is something I have never ever considered. And mobo wise, I have a couple of M.2 drives now, but I'm not sure what else should drive decisions? 1 monitor currently that I intend to replace, so I'm not sure why I would need multiple GPUs or something that necessitates a lot of PCIe connections.

I want a plain old closed black case, no color changing gamer shit, and about as much computing power as I can get. Pcpartpicker came up a little short, how do I start?

I've got maybe a week of lead time, then I would like to pull the trigger. This whole build process was a lot easier circa 2003!

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[–] dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Probably not going to get in the 5000 series just because I can't go without for a month, but your point is well taken. It seems like though I have stuff to learn about cooling for RAM (and ram clock speed), CPU cooling, and motherboard features.

I can remember a time you could just buy it all and put it together and it would work, now the PSU may not be right, the CPU and mobo might not play, and physical space and fans are kind of wild West.

I'm apprehensive I guess to just start buying stuff and end up with no working PC for 3 weeks or a month

[–] Mistic@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

It's quite the opposite, though. PC components have never been as compatible as they are today with the inclusion of different standards like ATX and stuff.

As for you figuring stuff out, here's how I pick parts:

Coolers: I go see the temperature tests to decide on which one fits depending on noise vs temps vs price.

Motherboards: Here are the main bits I look at

  • Compatible socket
  • Amount of USB ports
  • Amount of Sata ports
  • Amount of M.2 slots
  • Other ports you'd want to use
  • Supported type of RAM (DDR4 vs DDR5)

Then there's extra

  • Chipset (top-tier chipsets are often a waste of money)
  • Bluetooth and wifi (can always be added later, but nice to have built-in)
  • A button for updating BIOS (bypasses need for CPU)
  • Troubleshooting LEDs (very handy when tinkering)
  • How chunky the heatsing is (bigger = better)
  • Amount of power phases (black cubes around the socket, more = better, only need to pay attention to those when going for high power-draw CPU)

PSU: Very simple, go to power draw calculator or multiply power draw from pcpartpicker by 1.3 or 1.4, that's your Wattage requirement. Then find a list of reliable PSUs, look for cheapest reliable one that has enough Watts. It's a good idea to have some overhead as well. Alternatively to a tier-list is knowing which manufacturers are good.

Cooling for RAM: ignore cooling for RAM, not important at all. It's mostly for looks.

RAM clock speeds: MT/s, aka Mhz, is bus width. Higher amount = more data can pass at once. But we're currently at a point when 6000mhz doesn't make much difference against 3600mhz. So, latency is more important. Google, which combination of clock speed + timings (they look like 36-38-38, can also be written as CL36) has lowest latency, go with lowest.

Pcpartpicker makes sure things you put together are compatible with each other. So, start with CPU and GPU.