Schyken

It shouldn't be bad as the 49" samsung is still a 1080p panel, just very wide. Keep in mind though that image quality and sharpness will be reduced compared to your current 1440p monitor, despite overall increase in the amount of pixels.

Multiply the resolutions out (2560*1440 for example) and compare the total pixels.  Performance will generally drop by the percentage difference in total pixels.
 
Looks like you will end up with ~89% of your current FPS.

I absolutely loved elementary. My only issue with it was that it doesn't support my older pc's - which is my reason for using Linux in the first place - to make old hardware like new again.

I've used it before (albeit a few years ago) and it was honestly fairly buggy. Other Linux distros like Debian or even Ubuntu are a lot more stable, so if you use Elementary OS, don't use it to judge all of Linux.

i might do that. it looks and feels very macOS like, which i love. i've been looking for a Linux distro to put on my PC so i might just install Elementary on it. 

Sorry, I'm not going to wipe the last 10 months of ricing just for a challenge ? I'm sure it's nice... I'm just partial to more barebones distros. Nice blog post though, it can be very helpful for new users.

I use fedora on my computer. It has been awhile since I tried elemtary, but it's Pantheon DE was pretty limited.  It had terminal so you could install synaptic and such, but KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE & LXDE are much more capable DEs

On my experience, elementary OS was quite good looking. It had some bugs here and there but honestly nothing too major since it is still in beta. Tweaking the pantheon environment a bit made it really good, and I used it for a whole year or more. It is still installed in my old desktop

The challenge is a nice idea but I gotta say I'm uncomfortable using a derivative of a derivative, i.e. elementaryOS, which is based on Ubuntu, which is based on Debian. I believe in the KISS principle.
 
Jason E. writes about getting out of the "Ubuntu Comfort Bubble" which seems like a great suggestion. But what if I'm using Ubuntu and am happy with its look and feel, don't face problems, it meets my daily computing needs and just generally works well?
 
I get the idea of exploration for the sake of exploration and enjoy distro-hopping every now and then to see what's out there. But I also think a PC and its OS are tools that let people get on with their daily lives. Solving issues like bugs, crashes, hardware and software incompatibilities, etc. shouldn't be a part of most users' daily experiences.
 
I enjoy tweaking, customizing, breaking and fixing, but nobody else in my family does. None of my friends do either. They're not tech-savvy and their only concern is using their PC to get their daily dose of Netflix, replying to emails, online banking and other work done. If something goes wrong, they have zero interest in trying to fix it themselves because they don't consider it fun--it's just a frustrating roadblock in the way of getting things done.
 
I started off using Debian (Stable) on my PCs at home and work about 5 years ago, and since then I've put in a decent effort to move out of my "Debian Comfort Bubble" by installing (and using for at least a few weeks if not months) Ubuntu, Mint, pop_OS, elementaryOS, Fedora, Antergos and Manjaro. Each one of these eventually gave me at least one compelling reason to abandon them and return to Debian. It meets my daily computing needs and I am not spending (read: wasting) time troubleshooting issues instead of using it to get things done. I think that's what the devs were going for?
 
So, again, I think the challenge is a nice idea. But I won't be participating. I'm in a good place with Debian and I'm busy using it to do stuff other than fixing it.

Backup your data first and foremost. Once that's done and out of the way, you can download our free diagnostic tool SeaTools to test the health of the drive. If you would like to dig into any potential warranty info, you can check it using our Warranty Validation Tool.

Backup your data, now. 

Failing sectors and missing free space sounds like your drive is failing, you could run the risk of anything that's being saved there temporary or otherwise to disappear at any moment basically.

This will be added in the next update, coming soon.

As someone who uses Linux full-time for just about two years, I'm going to call out some of the fanboy bullshit the first reply spouted.
Might want to do that before you spout some of the nonsense.
This is all dependent on the user and what software they use.
This is not a downside in the slightest if you understand how competition drives things forward. Each also has its target market and use case. Mint is typically a common gateway into Linux, and often popular among newer users.
 
And just a quick callout here...
This is not quite true. Driver management nowadays is easily accessible via GUI in Ubuntu, Mint, Solus... There's not too much you actually need to do in the terminal for the most part. For many basic users, it's edge case, not the other way around.


Well, whatever works.
Piracy, but okay.
 
The accuracy is spot on.
Don't think someone who's never used it should be the one spewing the trash.
 
Heh.

 
So many sources!
Agreed. Also, sites like OMG! Ubuntu constantly post great GUI applications and tools that do things you didn't even realize you wanted them to do.

Huh might try it if I find a AM3 CPU for cheap and a storage drive

Hmm Solus looks interesting is it for the faint hearted?

I have never used it personally but I am able to comment on the downsides. 
 
Linux's biggest flaw is that it has very limited program/application support. Gaming is basically a no go, even MacOS would be better at that. In addition there are a lot of different versions that you have to choose from that fit your use. 
 
One of the biggest upsides is that it is free, and most browsers (like Chrome) will work just fine. 
 
 
I would consider a Hackintosh (though this forum cannot help you per the rules), not as easy to set up but when it works, MacOS is a much more full featured, and supported OS

this is bullshit. Theres plenty of games on steam. I have a mac and linux and differences are very small. Typically if a game was made for mac with opengl then it also gets ported to linux.
credibility.value = 0
 
 

Most of my steam games are on linux. Its actually pretty easy to demonstrate linux gaming or productivity. You said you never used it so everything you are saying you are making up or regurgitating from somewhere.

The biggest issue you'll run into with a portable install is speed.  USB is a lot slower than a hardware install, so you'll want a distro that specifically addresses this issue by being super duper tiny (way lighter than even Lubuntu) and/or loading as much of itself into memory as possible (so it doesn't have to access the drive very much).
 
In general, any of the ultra lightweight Linux distros will be what you want for this.  I'll point you specifically at SliTaz--it's a pretty neat distro, designed from the ground up to be compatible with portable USB drive installations.  It's also super light and loads entirely into memory (sort of--I've run into occasional issues where this doesn't quite seem to work as it should, but all of the core OS stuff definitely loads up properly).  It doesn't have a lot of software availability, but it's still enough to do basic tasks like editing some simple documents (last I checked, Libre Office wasn't ported to it yet, but Abi Word and GNUmeric are).  It can compress its file system before saving to minimize write cycles to the flash drive (EMMC memory has far fewer write cycles than SSD storage--part of why it's so cheap).  SliTaz isn't the most user friendly--it has some quirks you have to learn to deal with, but if you've got a decent bit of Linux knowledge under your belt and aren't afraid to muck with the occasional config file, you should be fine.  I have a 32GB flash drive with SliTaz on it that I carry with me for those rare times when it's the perfect thing for whatever I'm doing.
 
Another option might be Puppy Linux.  I haven't used it so I can't speak to it directly, but people tend to like it a lot and say very good things about it.  And it's designed to be a super lightweight distro, so it could be a decent candidate for a flash drive install.
 
Tiny Core would be the last one t look at.  It's super lightweight--you can get a 9MB ISO image, or a ~100MB one with a lot more software pre-installed.  Unlike SliTaz, it's not designed for portable installations, but it's so damn small it can be used like one.  Tiny Core is...odd, in a few ways, and I don't quite recommend it as a general-purpose desktop distro.  But if you just need to occasionally spin up a Linux USB on some computer, it should be fine.

Look at word B.... Unfortunately for MS though, that view was pretty damn far.........

i havent read everything through here, but to shorten in up:
 
wrong.
 
3GB is not enough for all 1080p games this day, i had a 970, and came to the limit of 3.5GB on multiple games (tomb raider, division etc.).
The 3GB model is fine, until you reach the limit. Low fps, stuttering and texture bugs will be result.
I am sure once you have this problem, you would've wished to spent the 30 or what € more on the card..
 
but in the end its your decision..

I'm still questioning the point of this thread. As you mentioned earlier, about just wanting FPS power, you should have specified that. Many replies are considering REAL, VALID arguments to buying a card, not aware that all you want is FPS. That's like asking why a MacBook pro is any more worth it than a MacBook air, and then saying "Oh, I just use Word and Safari".

The only sticking point in the mud is the way NVIDIA does graphics and compute at the same time is different than AMD. AMD's architecture naturally is better suited for those tasks, but NVIDIA has ways to get close enough. Though here's the other thing, this is not a required feature of DirectX 12 (and I'm guessing Vulkan too).
 
Otherwise the GeForce 10 cards, AMD R9 200 to RX 400, and Intel HD 500 series all support DX 12 and Vulkan. Surprisingly, Intel supports every feature that DirectX 12 has (there's a list of optional features that AMD and NVIDIA don't support)

Like a BA unicorn! But seriously, thanks. I have been windowshopping that exact card, to be fair.