I'm thinking of building a PC - any advice?
I'm thinking of building a PC - any advice?
My laptop is running out of storage space and I don't have anything I can remove anymore to increase it by much, so I'm thinking about building a pc. I'd also like to find a better gpu for doing video editing.
It will be the first one I've built, so I don't really know what I need. Also, does it matter for compatibility for Linux whether I go with AMD or Intel?
The high end of what I want to use it for is video editing with Kdenlive or Davinci Resolve, some modeling and animation in Blender, and some light gaming, like Minecraft or TUNIC.
I figure one of these guides might be useful, but I don't really know which.
Is there anything else I should know for setting up a PC to run Linux?
Edit: Maybe these guides from Logical Increments can help actually.
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I've noticed that when I am specking out a new computer I typically fall into the trap of wanting the absolute best computer I can get for the money.
I've always been on the cheaper side, so I have found myself spending days or weeks researching various parts at various quality levels at various prices.
It becomes a huge drag.
Set the budget that you're comfortable with, find the motherboard that has the features that you want, then get a CPU that fits in that price range, a case that fits your use cases, and then if you're going to splurge on anything splurge on the power supply as a good power supply can last you through multiple computers.
If you have to save money somewhere, save money on RAM as you can always order more or upgrade the rim that you have relatively inexpensively. Maybe if you're going intel, purchase an i5 CPU and then consider upgrading if you max out its abilities or you find yourself frequently running at 100% utilization.
And don't overlook pre-builts. There are lots of refurbished computers that you can purchase for far less than the cost of the individual parts that have all of the minimum specs that you want in exchange for little things like only having a single stick of ram or having a low quality SSD.
There's nothing that stops you from upgrading later should your use case change.
Thanks so much. I don't have a budget set yet, but it didn't occur to me that I can just upgrade if I need higher specs haha, so that'll make budgeting a lot easier.
Also, wait until Christmas if you can. Most computer parts have their deepest sale then (it's not Black Friday, surprisingly).
If there's a Microcenter in the area, they do pretty great deals around tax return season (if in US), lots of cpu+RAM+MOBO combos for a good $200 off.
Second the power supply. Nicer ones come with longer warranty (i think the Seasonic Titanium+ ones have a 10 year?). A bigger motherboard with more features/ports/slots can also be shifted to home server duty in the future better than say, an ITX board.
Nicer ones come with longer warranty
Nicer ones also come from companies with actual customer support that will replace your PSU if it fails in that warranty period, too.
Be Quiet is good, Seasonic is good and uh, yeah. Buy one of those.
I have no idea what you're referring to, diablotek is a perfectly valid power supply manufacturer (/s do they even still exist? I heard they were legendary for exploding)
The really fun ones were the Deer PSUs.
They existed in one of two conditions:
- Destroyed your entire computer, and currently on fire
- About to destroy your entire computer, and maybe on fire