PC Hardware Recommendation

Ask Fedora
1

Hi guys, I hope you’re all doing well :+1:

I’ll get straight to the point. I’m planning to build OR buy a PC that runs Fedora Workstation.
My primary usage will be for :

  • Data storage
  • Office suite
  • Multimedia streaming

I’m NOT gonna use :

  • Games
  • Multimedia editors
  • Or any other heavy work

At start, I know that I got to have large capacity of SSDs. 500 GB for OS and apps, and the other one would be x TB for my data.

Please take my needs as consideration, and may you suggest the minimum requirement hardware ? which includes :

  • Motherboard
  • Processor
  • RAM
  • GPU
  • And if there are any other parts required ?

I appreciate the support, thank you :wink:

2

Hello and welcome @technoxer!

Do you have a rough budget that you are trying to stay under for the new computer?

If you are looking for a full desktop processor, AMD and Intel integrated graphics can usually do quite well for the primary usages that you list, meaning that you might be able to defer the purchase of a GPU. Intel and AMD GPU drivers are included with the Linux kernel and are generally pretty stable.

NVIDIA GPUs can be a bit of a pain when it comes to drivers, especially non-open ones.

For RAM, 16 GB would probably be the bare minimum that I would recommend, especially with web browsers being quite memory hungry; but, it is a decent starting point.

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3

That was really helpful. Thank you so much for the support.

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4

Very new models often have issues because the open source community doesn’t get advanced access to the hardware, and even if the vendor supports a linux distro, there can be delays getting the new drivers into Fedora. The LHDB has detailed “probes” of linux systems so it is very worthwhile checking for systems on your shortlist. Some vendors (Dell for one) offer several choices of wifi hardware so you should pick an option with good linux support.

5

Excellent, I’ll go through it and see. Thank you so much for the support

6

For your use case, you do not need a GPU, which will save you a lot of money and power use (watts).

You could ALMOST get away with a Raspberry PI 5, but I would recommend getting something AMD or Intel for a really snappy performance. Personally, I recommend AMD for a slightly better performance to price ratio, but they both work great.

You do not need the latest generation. For example an AMD 3600G will do all you need and they are now so very cheap! You could go 5600G or 5700G if you feel like spending money will make surfing the web or reading office documents better.

You will need a AM4 B550 Motherboard for those chips. You could really save and get a B520, but get the 550.

The other thing to consider is your motherboard and case form factor. I rock a 5700G in a mITX form factor, and it is full featured in a 1 litre size box, using very low power draw. mITX can be difficult to find depending on where you are. Look up motherboard sizes and compare.

Then your Power Supply is very important - get either a Gold or Platinum rated if you are going to use it a lot or leave it on all day. Don’t skimp on a Power Supply! If you are getting a inbuild graphics CPU, you will not need a big one, you need a PSU rated to about your CPUs max power draw x2 (times two). It can be difficult finding these lower power PSUs.

RAM - just go 16GB, you will never use any more than that. Try and find RAM with ‘tight’ timings - fast RAM. No need for RGB lighting or such nonsense.

HDD, as you say, m2 SSDs, a 500GB for system, and 1TB for files will be heaps.

Look up reputable online stores in your area (country), and compare prices.

The CPU cooler that comes with Intel and AMD chips is fine, no need to splurge there.

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  • Processor: Anything without HT/SMT ideally with at least 8 real cores (can use HT/SMT optionally but shouldn’t buy based on advertised core count with that tech)
  • GPU: Internal with the CPU, or NVIDIA if multimedia streaming includes GPU encode/decode
  • RAM: 16GB+, but with 4 slots you can plan for more with initial large sticks
  • PSU: Likely 600W+ but higher than the GPU by a good bit
  • Motherboard: Not Gigabyte (rep), not ASUS (rep), ASRock (personal with warranty). If heavy use of USB, not AMD (rep + personal)

If I were buying hardware now for something similar, I’d buy a decent Intel motherboard, probably a RTX 3060 (worked well in the past for encode) or Intel Arc, 32GB RAM so I can build Android, and re-use a 600W PSU.

8

Wonderful! I really appreciate the details and efforts. Thank you so much.

9

I really appreciate your detailed comment.
But If I understand you correctly, then using Plex will require NVIDIA for transcoding. Is that right?