Selecting a performance PC for linux

General Computing
1

Hello! Please advise me on the choice of components for a working home PC. I don’t play games, I don’t watch movies, I don’t edit anything. I need a modern, productive machine for years to come, with an emphasis on security from backdoors and hardware attacks. I use 2 4K monitors.
Need a build with good linux compatibility and virtualization. I don’t want nvidia, in my experience poor compatibility with linux and wayland. AMD likes it better as a video card and as a processor. AMD video card has an open sorce driver. my monitors support AMD’s FreeSync technology.
There are no risks with intel ME. AMD PSP can be disabled in UIFI often and it has less vulnerabilities.
the possibility of coreboot installation is welcome, but the hardware must not be outdated
Definitely not a Gigabyte motherboard, there are backdoors, written many times in the media.
good compatibility with qubes os is desirable

Under virtual machines need a productive processor and 64 gb of RAM DDR5.
Legacy ports are not needed (VGA, DVI, PS/2). Backlighting is not needed. built-in sound card, microphone, bluetooth, wifi and hdd 2.5 are NOT needed. I already have the nvme and sata SSD’s.
The case I like is Fractal Design Era 2, I haven’t even looked into the others.
Some processors, such as AMD Ryzen 7000 series, support memory encryption technology - its presence is relevant for me.
usb 3.2 and usb-c ports needed
Support from 2pcs nvme m2 PCIe 4.0

chatGPT advised:
1 Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Supports AMD Memory Guard technology for memory encryption.
2. Motherboard: ASUS TUF Gaming X670E-PLUS Or ASRock X670E Taichi Carrara.
3. RAM: Kingston FURY Beast DDR5 64GB (2x32GB)
Or Samsung DDR5 64 GB (2x32 GB) 4800 MHz
ECC Registered
4. Cooling system: Noctua NH-L12S
or water cooling: Corsair iCUE H100i Elite Capellix (240mm)
NZXT Kraken X53 (240mm)
Arctic Liquid Freezer II 240

  1. Graphics card: AMD Radeon RX 6600 or AMD Radeon PRO W6600
  2. Power Supply: Corsair SF750 Platinum - 750W, 80 PLUS Platinum

please advise, please, on the final choice of the assembly and adjustments to the assembly from chatgpt, perhaps there is not an optimal option there

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woah woah woah that’s alot to uncover too hold on.
First and foremost don’t consult chatgpt as it doesn’t have up to date data and even then probably won’t be on par with human recommendations.
Second of all, with Nvidia opening their kernel drivers slowly (with userspace still proprietary) I actually have heard wayland is better here so if you need Nvidia I wouldn’t go against it and wayland is way more secure than X11.
With that being said if you’re putting emphasis in security first, I would not recommend a PC with Linux, Unless your priority is Linux first Security second (as the creator of Secureblue put it). Get a Mac or a ChromeOS Device for the best possible security.

There are no backdoors on Gigabyte boards, It seems the post referring to it refers to the App Center, which is the truth here, and it’s possible to actually disable it via the BIOS anyways and updating to the latest bios after helps so whenever gigabyte gets chosen it wouldn’t matter, it is an exaggeration that there is a backdoor. Reports also say this doesn’t affect Linux (then again for security I don’t recommend Linux unless security is your secondary priority)
there’s also the list of boards that are affected and the ratio is within the 50%, So again backdoor is not an issue if anything it is solved. Reported boards are also not affecting B800 and X800 boards so that’s good.

With coreboot well, ya might want to check:
https://doc.coreboot.org/mainboard/index.html

I will remind if security is a priority, a Linux and PC is not the way to go.

idk what memory encryption are you talking about, there’s no memory encryption to speak of whatsoever and Full disk encryption is actually standard on almost every single system nowadays.

With that being said let me know if you wanna proceed if you set the Right priorities.

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Not necessarily true and it clearly depends on which distribution you choose and how you set up your OS.

4

Alright hold on
I never said it’s a bad choice just depends on priority
if linux first security second, I definitely recommend Secureblue in this case.

1 Like
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Would it still be debatable if you consider Qubes or Whonix or Tails? Not that this is what’s being considered here… I’m just saying. There are always exceptions.

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if im being honest I wish for Qubes to actually be based off secureblue, but until then I dont see how you couldnt unto exctly replicate it there? Again if that’s the choice.
QEMU+KVM, you know.

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For me it’s the safety and performance of the system that matters.
I want to use a full desktop computer, not a laptop. I already have laptops, but for home use a full-fledged computer is better.
I don’t like apple operating system: ios , mac, I don’t want to use them ever.
Choosing between windows or linux, definitely I will choose linux.
I want to buy new components for my computer with emphasis on security and excellent compatibility with linux and preferably qubes OS. I am not well versed in hardware and computer hardware so I am looking for help here.

I will buy a Pixel laptop with GrapheneOS when it is released and available for sale. Currently
moment I want to build a productive, modern home computer for daily work.
I will be using multiple virtual machines luks encryption.
I do not need legacy hardware support. If there is hardware support for RAM encryption , this feature could be useful for me.
I am leaning more towards choosing AMD system components. I am asking for help in finding a complete computer build that better fits my criteria. thank you.

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The components are probably Linux compatible. Motherboards and their integrated components (soundcard or wireless for example) can be hit or miss, but most of the time they aren’t or will work well with at least popular distros.

Don’t trust ChatGPT on compatibility or feature lists, verify the spec or feature list on the manufacturer website. LLM’s like ChatGPT seem to have a problem with confusing specs for products listed on the same site.
AMD memory encryption seems to be listed as a Pro feature?
These seem to require support from the motherboard, CPU and OS.
It’s mostly aimed at businesses.

On the actual picks I wouldn’t get this hardware but that also depends on what you want to do with it and the price.
Disclaimer here, I’ve only “built” one PC. I did not assemble it myself. But I researched enough components to have some idea of how this list compares. A forum more dedicated to hardware might be able to provide a better answer.
Going through a complete guide on how to build PC’s and checking compatibility is probably a good idea. Having a service that deals with part compatibility on your behalf might be more convenient.

Mostly a number of components seem overkill compared to what most people need.
The Ryzen 7000 series might be a bit outdated especially since the 9000 series is probably starting to or close to coming out. But Linux compatibility is probably better on the 7000 series.

The rest is individual components and a brief idea of what to compare compatibility with.

I don’t know how well it will work with dual 4k monitors but the graphics card options seem decent. I’m mostly basing this off the multiple DisplayPort sockets, but as long as you aren’t gaming or running AI with it that should be fine.
Checking the minimum power supply recommendation for the GPU tends to be a good idea.
The case has to be long and wide enough to fit it, but I don’t expect any issues since it isn’t a large graphics card.

The Power Supply is overkill and an odd form factor. The RX 6600 recommends 450w minimum and I wouldn’t have sprung for Platinum. A 500w Gold rated PSU would probably do the trick. But I have a Corsair RM750 because it was the cheapest option I could find from the brands that seem well regarded.
The form factor here will mention something like ATX or SFX and must be compatible with the case.
Usually the rule of thumb is sticking to the graphics card’s recommended minimum wattage or a bit higher to leave room for upgrades.

The CPU and RAM are entirely dependent on what exactly you plan on doing here. But the choice seems a bit odd and again too much?
The jump from laptop to desktop seems bigger than the jump from 7 to 9.
I’m running a Ryzen 7900 with stock cooler, it rarely reaches 60*C on Linux Mint with desktop usage. It’s far more than I need. Unless you plan on compiling something or hosting a computationally intensive server a Ryzen 5 or 7 is probably a better choice. I’d also avoid the X variants unless you plan on overclocking, but that is a personal choice.
The thermal requirements on newer AMD processors are generally low enough that almost any cooler would keep up with it as long as you aren’t overclocking.
Liquid cooling AIO’s do tend to “ware out” due to evaporation though.
I’d probably go with 32GB of RAM these days, especially on Windows. But unless you have a specific reason, I wouldn’t recommend more. It’s also something that’s accessible and easy to upgrade on a desktop.

I sort of get the high end motherboard. There isn’t really any other way to get more ports. I’d mostly ask why.
Do you need to add more than 2 NVME SSD’s? More USB ports?
An AMD motherboard (B650 or B850) potentially PRO series seems better suited.
Along with the Power Supply the motherboard needs to fit in the case.
It also needs to support the CPU and RAM.

The case basically needs to fit the Power Supply, CPU cooler, motherboard and GPU.
Enough fans to keep everything cool along with them.

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That still does not answer if you acknowledge the drawbacks of Linux?
Like if you need full security, a computer isn;t the way to go regardless of what you think, if however security is a secondary priority, that’s fine.

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The Quebes OS system requirements documentation recommends an Intel CPU, using its integrated graphics rather than a discrete graphics card.

Intel is recommended for security reasons, which are detailed in the documentation.

Given you don’t intend to play games nor did you mention any other graphically demanding workloads, you should be able to get away with integrated graphics.

The Intel 14900K is the current top-of-the-line CPU from Intel with integrated graphics.

As for a motherboard to pair, you should be looking at Z790 boards as they are the high-end boards with the most features — especially for virtualization.

I personally would avoid water cooling. A Noctua cooler especially will be perfectly capable while requiring much less maintenance.

I would go with a different power supply. The Corsair SF750 is fine, but the “be quiet! Straight Power 12 750W” is a better performer for a comparable cost.

I think I touched on the important things — follow up with any further questions or context.

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correction, the latest intel processor is actually the core 2 ultra (also a different motherboard for it, I think now it is on H-Z8X0 or 9X0) and the board doesnt matter for virtualization to be frank, it doesn’t have to be high end.
with that I’ve yet to see if they acknowledge it, more importantly I would recommend Secureblue with QEMU until Qubes becomes based on it (it = Secureblue).
I definetely did not know intel is recommended for security so yeah nice to know.
Anywho OP let me know before going any further.

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You’re right — the “Core Ultra 285K” is technically Intel’s latest. Looking at Hardware Unboxed’s review of it, it’s actually a considerably worse performer than Intel’s prior 14900K. I suppose the lackluster performance is why I wasn’t aware Intel changed their branding.

There’s also some compatibility issues reported with the 285K — though I don’t know if those issues would affect Qubes or only gaming. The 285K being a year newer is something to consider regarding end-of-life timelines, however.

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If you plan on using Qubes OS, it’s really only the main board you need to worry about. You can check the official Qubes OS forum, there is a section where people post hardware compatibility reports, it’s a good place to find hardware that is confirmed to be working.

The AMD main boards typically have more USB controllers, which is a pretty big advantage when using Qubes OS. Having 3 or 4 on-board controllers gives you a lot of freedom, when using USB devices. Not a much have, but it really is a huge QOL improvement.

Intel’s asymmetrical chiplet design can be a little annoying when running Qubes OS. Xen can use both the P and E cores, but can’t do any form of hybrid scheduling. It’s also not possible to change the scheduler granularity to core level when using an asymmetric CPU, this is a minor issue and really only matters is you decide to run Qubes OS with hyper threading enabled.