It looks like !buildapc community isn’t super active so I apologize for posting here. Mods, let me know if I should post there instead.
I built my first PC when I was I think 10-11 years old. Built my next PC after that and then sort of moved toward pre-made HP/Dell/etc. My last PC’s mobo just gave out and I’m looking to replace the whole thing. I’ve read over the last few years that prefabs from HP/Dell/etc. have gone to shit and don’t really work like they used to. Since I’m looking to expand comfortably, I’ve been thinking of giving building my own again.
I remember when I was a young lad, that there were two big pain points when putting the rig together: motherboard alignment with the case (I shorted two mobos by having it touch the bare metal of the grounded case; not sure how that happened but it did) and CPU pin alignment so you don’t bend any pins when inserting into the socket.
Since it’s been several decades since my last build, what are some things I should be aware of? Things I should avoid?
For example, I only recently learned what M.2 SSD are. My desktop has (had) SATA 3.5" drives, only one of which is an SSD.
I’ll admit I am a bit overwhelmed by some of my choices. I’ve spent some time on pcpartpicker and feel very overwhelmed by some of the options. Most of my time is spent in code development (primarily containers and node). I am planning on installing Linux (Ubuntu, most likely) and I am hoping to tinker with some AI models, something I haven’t been able to do with my now broken desktop due to it’s age. For ML/AI, I know I’ll need some sort of GPU, knowing only that NVIDIA cards require closed-source drivers. While I fully support FOSS, I’m not a OSS purist and fully accept that using a closed source drivers for linux may not be avoidable. Happy to take recommendations on GPUs!
Since I also host a myriad of self hosted apps on my desktop, I know I’ll need to beef up my RAM (I usually go the max or at least plan for the max).
My main requirements:
- Intel i7 processor (I’ve tried i5s and they can’t keep up with what I code; I know i9s are the latest hotness but don’t think the price is worth it; I’ve also tried AMD processors before and had terrible luck. I’m willing to try them again but I’d need a GOOD recommendation)
- At least 3 SATA ports so that I can carry my drives over
- At least one M.2 port (I cannibalized a laptop I recycled recently and grabbed the 1TB M.2 card)
- On-board Ethernet/NIC (on-board wifi/bluetooth not required, but won’t complain if they have them)
- Support at least 32 GB of RAM
- GPU that can support some sort of ML/AI with DisplayPort (preferred)
Nice to haves:
- MoBo with front USB 3 ports but will accept USB 2 (C vs A doesn’t matter)
- On-board sound (I typically use headphones or bluetooth headset so I don’t need anything fancy. I mostly listen to music when I code and occasionally do video calls.)
I threw together this list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/n6wVRK
It didn’t matter to me if it was in stock; just wanted a place to start. Advice is very much appreciated!
EDIT: WOW!! I am shocked and humbled by the great advice I’ve gotten here. And you’ve given me a boost in confidence in doing this myself. Thank you all and I’ll keep replying as I can.
GPUs these days use a whole lot of power. Ensure your power supply is specced appropriately.
And make sure it’s an actually good PSU too.
I know in gaming, possibly in other loads Nvidia 40 series, and especially 30 series love transient spikes which can easily exceed 2x the nominal power consumption. Make sure your PSU can handle those spikes both in terms of brevity, and current.
My 3090 is a light flickering machine. Kind of annoying tbh.
That’s what finally did in my 10 year old Corsair. I was technically within specs on wattage with my new 4070 but certain loads would cause it to trip the over current protection anyway.
Well, let’s see:
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You no longer have to set jumpers to “master” or “slave” on your hard drives, both because we don’t put two drives on the same ribbon cable anymore and because the terminology is considered kinda offensive.
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Speaking of jumpers, there’s a distinct lack of them on motherboards these days compared to the ones you’re familiar with: everything’s got to be configured in firmware instead.
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There’s a thing called “plug 'n play” now, so you don’t have to worry about IRQ conflicts etc.
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Make sure your power supply is “ATX”, not just “AT”. The computer has a soft on/off switch controlled through the motherboard now – the hard switch on the PSU itself can just normally stay on.
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Cooling is a much bigger deal than it was last time you built a PC. CPUs require not just heat sinks now, but fans too! You’re even going to want some extra fans to cool the inside of the case instead of relying on the PSU fan to do it.
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A lot more functionality is integrated onto motherboards these days, so you don’t need nearly as big a case or as many expansion slots as you used to. In fact, you could probably get by without any ISA slots at all!
While I love this list, it is more applicable to the turn of the century than a a decade ago. I was half expecting to see “ram no longer has to be installed in pairs” on the list.
ETA: Talking about EDO memory not dual channel
I think you may have misread OPs post. They haven’t built a PC since shirtly after they were 10-11, which was almost 30 years ago. So developments since the turn of the century are in fact relevant here, heh.
They haven’t built a PC since shirtly after they were 10-11…
Well, they’d need a much bigger shirt now than when they were 10 or 11.
I’ll see myself out.
LOL
Wait RAM doesn’t need to be installed in pair? I am an old apparently
plug 'n pray
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Compared to those pain points building a modern PC should be a breeze. CPUs go in Zero Insertion Force sockets so as long as you remember to lift the little lever you won’t bend any pins. People don’t even wear static discharge wrist bands anymore (all though it couldn’t hurt) or worry about shorting things out. And power connectors only fit one way unlike the AT power connector.
Speaking of breeze your only pain point might be making sure you have enough air circulation for cooling all that gear.
I remember working on a PC back in my Geek Squad days that had a lever.
For air circulation, what should I be on the lookout for? Making sure I have clearances, of course, but should I buy more fan that I need?
Case usually have fans preinstalled that should be fine. Just pay attention to the direction, have tham all blow air front to back. There is usually an arrow indicating which way it moves air.
Run a benchmark after buiding the PC and check temperatures.
Don’t just look at temperatures though, look at clock speed too. 95c+ is normal for modern high end CPUs (AMD 7000 series actively try to run at that temp under full load). What you want to make sure is that it’s not throttling.
If this is a server and you don’t want your thermal paste to be toast in a year then I’d suggest lowering the maximum temperature in the bios if it lets you.
That and you need to decide how much positive or negative pressure you want in there as well. You could always do some calculations. Treat your case as an open control volume where mass can transfer across the boundaries. Then the sum of air going into and out of the case must equal the rate of change of air in the case. Assuming the volume of air in your case is constant, this term would be zero. So you can look at the rated volume flow rate for each fan (CFM - aka cubic foot per minute) and see if this summation is positive or negative. A positive value would mean “positive pressure” and a negative value “negative pressure”. The only problem is if the fans are not running at max RPM and/or the rated CFM value - which is the case if you have your fans plugged into the motherboard( regardless of whether you’re using PWM or 3 pin). In this case, you would have to calculate the volume flow rate of each individual fan as a function of the RPM. This may not be a linear function and would probably require taking some data and coming up with a regression for the data. This would be way harder to do.
tldr: add up the CFM going into the case, subtract the CFM leaving the case. If the value is positive you have “positive pressure”
There is no need for a separate sound card now, it is built in.
Some thoughts:
Ubuntu, most likely
I’d encourage you to take a look at Linux Mint, it alleviates some of the Ubuntu fuckiness. And if you want to join the “I use arch btw” crowd, maybe checkout EndeavourOS if you’re feeling more brave than just Ubuntu variants (which is built on arch, but makes barrier to entry a little easier).
i9s are the latest hotness but don’t think the price is worth it
Take a look at last generation to soften the blow to your wallet. E.g., instead of looking at a 14900k, look at 13 or even 12 series. In fact, this is a useful strategy all around if you’re being price conscious: go one gen older.
GPU that can support some sort of ML/AI with DisplayPort
Probably going to want to go with a discrete card, rather than just integrated. Other major consideration is going to be nvidia vs AMD, for which you’ll need to decide if CUDA should be part of your calculus or not. I’ll defer to any data science engineers that might wander through this post.
The rest of your reqs pretty much come as regular stock options when building a pc these days. Though another nicety for my latest builds, is multi-gig nics (though 2.5Gb was my ceiling, since you’ll also need the network gear to utilize it). Going multi-gig is nice for pushing around a fuckton of data between machines on my lan (including a NAS).
Very last thing that I’ve found helpful in my last 3 builds spanning 15 years: I use newegg for its reviews of items, specifically so I can search for the term “linux” in any given product’s reviews. Often times I can glean quick insight on how friendly (or not) hardware has been for other’s linux builds.
And I lied, I just remembered about another linux hardware resource: https://linux-hardware.org/?view=search
You can see other people that have built with given hardware. Just remember to do a scan too once your build is up to pay it forward.
Good luck, and remember to have fun!
maybe checkout EndeavourOS
After about a decade of being exclusively on Ubuntu I got fed up with it and moved to EndeavourOS and I love it.
Although I am being tempted by the NixOS crowd, right now I’m perfectly happy with EndeavourOS.
I have to agree here. I use PopOS mostly, but most Ubuntu derivative nowadays beat the living crap out of Ubuntu. PopOS, Zorin, Mint, etc. Like many others, Ubuntu was my gateway to Linux, but I lived out of that in less than a year. Started spinning Mandriva (damn I’m old), Debian itself, and I’ve tried Ubuntu a few times over the years, mostly on VMs now, since now I hold no hope that it’ll ever go back to what it was.
Used EndeavourOS for a few years too but switched to Fedora Workstation recently. EndeavourOS is still great but I like Fedora more now since it’s just easier. A lot of stuff I did manually before like switching ext4 for BTRFS, enabling compression and switching to Pipewire is done by default (also LUKS for full diks encryption which I was too lazy to install before) and I can update my system and install most software through GNOME Software without having to use the CLI. It’s also very easy to get OpenCL and HIP working, it’s just one package each you need to install. Only downside for me is that it’s not as easy to install stuff from COPR than it is from the AUR because you first have to enable the repo for each package you want to install from COPR. I think COPR is more secure tho, especially for someone like me who never looked at the PKGBUILD when installing from AUR.
And if you want to join the “I use arch btw” crowd…
I may be a linux nerd and pedantic, but not that pedantic. 😅 I’ve looked into Linux Mint and not opposed to an distro switch. I’ve been very happy with Ubuntu over the years. My first distro was slackware, then Fedora. Settled in Ubuntu and haven’t turned back.
if CUDA should be part of your calculus or not.
Probably not, if my cursory google search is correct. But happy to be convinced otherwise.
Though another nicety for my latest builds, is multi-gig nics (though 2.5Gb was my ceiling, since you’ll also need the network gear to utilize it)
I’ve had the benefit of laying my own CAT-5e in my house. Given the distances, CAT-6 was going to cost twice as much with a negligible increase in bandwidth. That said, I’m restricted by the narrowest straw, which is wifi (when streaming media to my phone) and ISP (which taps out at around 300mb/s). My current PC has 1gb/s card and I’ve only occasionally had issues.
I use newegg for its reviews of items, specifically so I can search for the term “linux” in any given product’s reviews.
Oh that’s a good tip!
I may be a linux nerd and pedantic
There’s nothing pedantic about using Arch. There’s a reason it and its derivatives are so popular.
There’s nothing pedantic about using Arch. There’s a reason it and its derivatives are so popular.
Way to show off how not-pedantic you are!
I’m not sure you know how to use that word.
Pedantic is an insulting word used to describe someone who annoys others by correcting small errors, caring too much about minor details, or emphasizing their own expertise especially in some narrow or boring subject matter.
??
Ya, that just solidifies that you don’t know how to use the word.
How does using a certain operating system equate to “someone who annoys others by correcting small errors”?
Get Nvidia GPU for AI, period.
Read the manual for the motherboard you want and make sure that the M2 slot supports NVMe rather than SATA. (Also, learn to tell NVMe from SATA chips.) M2 slots that are SATA usually share a SATA lane with the SATA connectors and if you populate the M2 slot you might lose a connector.
Another thing to read about is whether populating which M2 slot reduces the speed of one of the PCIe slots. Same reason (shared lanes) but with PCIe instead of SATA. These things should be spelled out next to the M2 connectors.
NVMe drives in Linux have /dev/nvme* designations not /dev/sd*.
For AI/ML workloads the VRAM is king
As you are starting out something older with lots of VRAM would be better than something faster with less VRAM for the same price.
The 4060 ti is a good baseline to compare against as it has a 16GB variant
“Minimum” VRAM for ML is around 10GB the more the better, less VRAM could be usable but with sacrefices with speed and quality.
If you like that stuff in couple of months, you could sell the GPU that you would buy and swap it with 4090 super
For AMD support is confusing as there is no official support for rocm (for mid range GPUs) on linux but someone said that it works.
There is new ZLUDA that enables running CUDA workloads on ROCm
https://www.xda-developers.com/nvidia-cuda-amd-zluda/
I don’t have enough info to reccomend AMD cards
I got ROCm to work on a 7800XT after fixing some Python errors. It was quite unstable though.
lots of good advice here. I just want to restate: do yourself a favor and migrate your HDDs over to any solid state drive. Whether that means “classic” SSDs with a SATA-Port or M.2s is your prerogative, but in either case you’ll start wondering how you could ever stand that s pinning noise and the vibrations and the slow, slow data transfer.
AMD is the gold standard for general user PCs in the last 5+ years. Intel simply cannot compete at the same energy expenditure/performance. At the same/close price/performance, Intel either burn a small thermonuclear power plant to deliver comparable performance, or simply is worse compared to similar Ryzens
Ryzens are like aliens compared to what AMD used to be before them
So I’d go with them
As for the GPU, if you want to use Linux forget Nvidia
Honestly any parts you buy today probably won’t be much good in 30 years.
Honestly any parts you buy today probably won’t be much good in 30 years.
At least not when AGP comes to town.
I’d defintely go with an M.2 SSD, you can get 1tb for 50€ and 2tb for 100€ now and they’re much faster, more reliable and take up way less space.
For ML/AI stuff, you might be just fine using an AMD GPU. AMD GPUs are a lot easier to use on Linux and are also a good bit cheaper. I use Fedora with an AMD GPU and I just installed the packages for OpenCL and HIP and now I can run LLMs on my PC using my GPU. I’ve also used Stable Diffusion with that GPU on Linux before. If there’s something specific you want to do regarding that, I’d look up first if you need an Nvidia GPU for that but from my experience AMD GPUs work just fine.
I’d take a look at AMD CPUs again. Last time I checked they were even cheaper (including mobo price) than Intel even though they’re also more efficient (faster and less power draw). Prices might have changed tho. You should probably use a Ryzen 5, a Ryzen 7 will only make sense if you use all cores because game performance is pretty much the same. A Ryzen 3 is more of a budget option tho, I wouldn’t use that. If it’s in your budget, you should also use the newest generation that uses the AM5 socket because you’ll be able to upgrade your CPU without needing a new mobo. I think it also only supports DDR5 RAM, which is more expensive than DDR4. If you use a Ryzen generation that uses the AM4 socket, it’s gonna be cheaper but if you want to upgrade you’ll need a new mobo with AM5 and new DDR5 RAM in addition to the new CPU.
As for Linux distros, my recommendations are Linux Mint if you want something very easy, EndeavourOS if you want something Arch-based or Fedora if you want something that’s not quite as easy as Mint but more up-to-date. I personally use Fedora but I used EndeavourOS before. I detailed why I switched to Fedora in a reply here somewhere.
I for one would not purchase any Intel hardware as long as AMD is around. Not that they’re bad or anything, but AMD gives me much Kore “bang for the buck”. To future proof your rig, I strongly suggest you go with the latest socket (be it Intel or AMD, doesn’t matter) and make sure you get DDR5 RAM. PCI Gen 4, and then have at it.
Getting an 80 Plus Gold power supply is always nice too.
And then there’s the cooling. I see you went with a radiator and fan, but I strongly suggest getting some type of liquid cooling. The prices are not that bad anymore (unlike about 10 years ago, which was insane).
As for the board, you’ll get all kinds of different suggestions. Some people swear by Asus, I’d rather go with Gigabyte (love the Aorus line), so it’ll come down to brand trust at the end of the day.
As for the card, I hear a lot of crap given to Nvidia about being closed source, and I sort of agree that’s messed up, but ATI cards (while pretty good) are always a step behind Nvidia. Plus, most distros have them working out of the box.
It can be intimidating after so many years, but its way simpler than it was back then.
Good luck man, you got this, there’s nothing to fear but fear itself.
I for one would not purchase any Intel hardware as long as AMD is around. Not that they’re bad or anything, but AMD gives me much Kore “bang for the buck”.
If you have a processor line in mind, let me know. Happy to give them another look, given my experience with AMD is 30 some years old.
And then there’s the cooling. I see you went with a radiator and fan, but I strongly suggest getting some type of liquid cooling. The prices are not that bad anymore (unlike about 10 years ago, which was insane).
I’m not tied to the cooling solution I picked. I just picked something that looked affordable and did what I wanted. I’d love to do liquid cooling so long as it isn’t a pain. I helped my friend back in high school do liquid cooling and it was a proper mess. We came close to shorting his entire rig.
As for the board, you’ll get all kinds of different suggestions. Some people swear by Asus, I’d rather go with Gigabyte (love the Aorus line), so it’ll come down to brand trust at the end of the day.
I have zero brand loyalty here. The boards I’m looking at right now all have embedded wifi with the annoying antenna…I really want bluetooth embedded so it seems like I’ll have to have wifi but just not use it.
May I ask why water cooling? Its just more loud and more expensive afaik, they just look awesome.
Decent air coolers are cheap, silent and easier to install. When I was overclocking i5 9600k temperature was not an issue at all. Is it different with CPUs today?
Simple, the difference in cost is negligible in terms of keeping the CPU at way lower temperatures, extending the life of the CPU and better avoiding throttling. And they are not louder than a regular fan with heatsink, since the fans spin at lower RPMs most of the time because they don’t need to increase it since the CPU is already running cooler. And if you add a high end GPU, that’s way louder and will drown the noise of any other fan in the rig when it kicks in.
ATI cards (while pretty good) are always a step behind Nvidia.
Ok, you mean AMD. They bought ATI like 20 years ago now and that branding is long dead.
And AMD cards are hardly “a step behind” Nvidia. This is only true if you buy the 24GB top card of the series. Otherwise you’ll get comparable performance from AMD at a better value.
Plus, most distros have them working out of the box.
Unless you’re running a kernel <6.x then every distro will support AMD cards. And even then, you could always install the proprietary blobs from AMD and get full support on any distro. The kernel version only matters if you want to use the FOSS kernel drivers for the cards.
I agree that I could be wrong on the comparison. Maybe they are not that far behind, but guaranteed not at the same level when comparing apples to apples. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it still is.
when comparing apples to apples.
But this isn’t really easy to do, and impossible in some cases.
Historically, Nvidia has done better than AMD in gaming performance because there’s just so much game specific optimizations in the Nvidia drivers, whereas AMD didn’t.
On the other hand, AMD historically had better raw performance in scientific calculation tasks (pre-deeplearning trend).
Nvidia has had a stranglehold on the AI market entirely because of their CUDA dominance. But hopefully AMD has finally bucked that tend with their new ROCm release that is a drop-in replacement for CUDA (meaning you can just run CUDA compiled applications on AMD with no changes).
Also, AMD’s new MI300X AI processor is (supposedly) wiping the floor with Nvidia’s H100 cards. I say “supposedly” because I don’t have $50k USD to buy both cards and compare myself.
I have absolutely no counter for you on this one, as I’m jot aware of the highest level stuff between manufacturers. And it makes sense. Nvidia has been the goto manufacturer for gaming and developers usually improve their code based on what’s needed to run the best possible on Nvidia hardware. I’ll research Kore on this when I have a chance, this seems to he a very interesting topic. Thank you for pointing this out.
AMD graphics are terrible at any kind of media encoding or decoding. That probably won’t affect most people but it can be a problem for self hosting.
I also find that Intel CPUs are much easier to find than AMD when it comes to used hardware.
They are not terrible, they just don’t hold a candle to a Nvidia card of the same tier. And the Op is buying new not old. Not once did I say anything bad about any brand, like the Op, I’m not married to any of them, and only speak out of personal experience. I dont make money from them, they make money out of me.
I take it your taking about Intel? AMD GPUs tend to be a pretty good deal as there are tons of them used on eBay.
Maybe, I’ve never bought PC parts on eBay, or used for that matter. Too risky from my perspective. And yes, I’m talking about AMD GPUs. They are very good, but still behind Nvidia in every aspect.
Except for Linux support. Nvidia is awful on Linux compared to Intel (best) and AMD (solid).
Name one example in which an Nvidia card from the same gen of an AMD GPU performed equal or worse, regardless of the driver. Why do you think that even manufacturers focused on hardware for Linux choose Nvidia over AMD GPUs? Cost? Unlikely, since Nvidia is usually more expensive.
Cost wise I believe they are close. For instance, according to Toms Hardware a RTX 3070 is the same cost and performance as a 6700XT.
https://www.tomshardware.com/features/nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-vs-amd-radeon-rx-6700-xt
What your saying doesn’t align with what I’ve seen and read online. Admittedly I’m not a GPU expert so maybe I’m just out of touch. Anyway I wouldn’t by Nvidia because the free software drivers are still being worked on. We are seeing a lot of progress with NVK but its nowhere near complete.
To be honest with you I mostly use Intel integrated graphics which works very well and can even do some light gaming.
Some value software freedom more than performance, and the open source Nouveau Nvidia driver isn’t quite there yet on performance.
It is not exactly what you asked, but if it is customization and expand ability you are looking for, did you consider custom build cites like cyberpowerpc.com? You can select from wide variety of components, they build and test it for you, and make sure that everything is compatible and working. You do pay a bit premium for the assembly and tests but it is not that much, and you save your time and have a peace of mind that everything works.
Oooh, I had not considered that but thank you for the recommendation. The only thing I don’t like about these PCs is that they all have RGB lighting. I really don’t need this and I don’t get their appeal.
I really don’t need this and I don’t get their appeal [of RGB].
It costs manufacturers pennies to include but gives them an excuse to mark the price up by dollars, so every single one of them shoves it down all our throats.
The only PC fan manufacture that has not gone RGB at all is a Noctua (premium). Their fans are poop brown and beige or black for consumer, grey for industrial, but are great in terms of noise to cool performance. If noise is important then there’s videos of people comparing fans so you can pick a tone that is subjectively best.
I enjoyed the days of one color LEDS. Couldn’t beat a Tron blue or The Matrix green.
They have tons of cases, including those with minimal RGB, but yes, those are gaming PCs.
A lot of great suggestions here already. But nobody is mentioning that if you really want to future-proof, you should go fully quantum.
I actually did. And the quantum twin that succeeded is now solving global warming.
I am the twin that didn’t succeed.
According to global trends, your twin did not succeed either. Sorry.
You state i5s can’t keep up with what you code. What do you code?
I typically code a lot of back-end and processor intensive workloads. The issue I have with i5s is that they don’t seem to be as “snappy” as i7s. I’ve worked with both for good long periods of time. When I had an i5 laptop, I had to off-load a good majority of my development to the cloud because I couldn’t do containers and listen to music and run two monitors at the same time. I never had the same issue with i7 processors, even on a laptop.
