Debian 11 (Bullseye) light gaming / academic workstation

Zappi_ · December 14, 2021

Budget (including currency): $2,000 Australian Dollars

Country: Melbourne, Australia (south of Sydney)

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Light gaming, developing, academic workstation

Coming from a ThinkPad T420 w/ an i5-2520M @ 3.2 GHz w/ 8 GB RAM, no dedicated 3D card. This is my ideal laptop but I'm looking for an extendable desktop to last me a while.

G'day! I've picked out most of my parts and have already got some advice on /r/buildapc, but I just wanted a second opinion just before I pull the trigger on this purchase.

I'm a GNU/Linux (Debian 11 "Bullseye") user trying to build a light gaming rig / academic workstation that will last me for the next few years.

GAMES / WORKLOAD:
I mostly play games like Deus Ex (2000), Minecraft, Terraria, Half-Life 2, ClassiCube, Unreal Tournament 1999, Team Fortress Classic, Morrowind (OpenMW), etc. My ideal FPS is anywhere between 100 and 200 with no significant thermals (I'm very anxious with temperatures).

However aside from gaming, I'm also building this PC as a workstation for things like LaTeX typesetting, software development / compilation, virtual machines, on-line Zoom classes, etc.

While the parts I've picked out are absolutely overkill, I'd rather have a bit of flexibility when it comes to the performance as I might pick up some newer game titles once I have a computer that can properly support them (none come to mind immediately but there were some)!

BUDGET / LIMITATIONS:
My original limit was $1,500 AUD but after some scouring I've raised it to $2,000 AUD, but even the current ~$1,800 AUD is pushing it a lot. I'm living in and buying from Melbourne, Australia. I have a preference for buying from local stores so sites like Amazon are NG; I've mostly been looking at https://mwave.com.au/. To save on shipping I'm mostly looking at this one store, plus it's not too far from where I live so RMAs would be easier.

My current list:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/LKrgYg

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 (12nm) 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor ($209.00 @ Mwave Australia)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper H411R 34.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($35.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Thermal Compound: Noctua NT-H1 3.5 g Thermal Paste ($19.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Motherboard: MSI B450M MORTAR MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($99.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory ($99.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Storage: Kingston A400 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($49.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($175.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Video Card: ASRock Radeon RX 6600 8 GB Challenger D Video Card ($699.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Case: Corsair 100R ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MasterWatt 750 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply ($129.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Optical Drive: Asus BC-12D2HT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($99.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link Archer T4E PCIe x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter ($45.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Case Fan: Cooler Master SickleFlow 62 CFM 120 mm Fan ($12.00 @ Mwave Australia)

Total: $1748.00 AUD
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-12-14 16:59 AEDT+1100

DISPLAYS:

I play on dual 1280 x 1024 60 Hz monitors (with only VGA and DVI inputs) with no plans on upgrading anytime soon (not until they cark it at least).

MISC:
While it's definitely outdated a BD-R burner is essential for my use case as our piss-pour internet connection (1.5 Mbit down / 0.3 up) means we still depend on optical media for most things!

I'm picking a HDD mostly for longevity's sake as well as pure cost. Since I'm not doing any heavy gaming on this PC HDD speeds are probably enough for me. I added a small boot SSD as per /r/buildapc's advice however.

OPERATING SYSTEM:
I only use GNU/Linux on my machines (Debian 11 "Bullseye" at the moment), except for in virtual machines or toy computers, so using parts with open-source firmware / drivers or at least functional non-free firmware which isn't absolute shit is really important. Because of this as well, using a MBD with a legacy BIOS boot mode would be nice but isn't essential.

Thank you everyone in advance!

Edited December 14, 2021 by Zappi_
moved display information to be more noticeable