this post was submitted on 23 May 2024
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Linux

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102
Custom Libreboot 9020 Optiplex PC (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Specs:

i7 4790K ($50)

9020 Optiplex Motherboard ($10)

32GB DDR3 RAM ($35)

7900 XTX 24GB VRAM ($900)

1TB M.2 NVMe ($50)

EVGA 700 BR PSU ($50)

24 pin to 8 pin adapter for motherboard ($20)

NVME PCIe x4 Adapter ($12)

Molex to fan adapters ($7)

Power button adapter ($6)

Total: $1140

Using Arch GNU/Linux (Tried installing Debian, couldn't get the AMD drivers to work properly, so I'm using Arch for the moment)

Can run Stable Diffusion, LLMs, and basically all my games at 1440p High to Ultra settings (RDR2, GTA V, Arma 3, etc.)

GPU passhtrough doesn't work for the moment, but I can still run virtual machines. This is a Haswell motherboard, which can be 100% freed in the BIOS over time when we have enough Libreboot devs who can reverse engineer the rest of the blobs. Intel ME is also disabled (theoretically, since you can't actually fully remove it). This is a build that I did for fun, in the future, I'm planning on switching to a Z690-A motherboard with DDR5(can be flashed with Dasharo firmware). If you have any questions, feel free to ask!

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (2 children)

i5 4790K and a… 7900 XTX?

[–] Shalade 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The mother of all bottlenecks.

[–] Tikiporch 4 points 1 month ago

It's bad, but is it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

i7, and honestly still a ridiculously powerful one

I'm still rocking my 4790K with an AMD 7600XT, the videocard is more often the bottleneck to heavy tasks than that CPU is.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

You are not supposed to power the GPU like that. You should use two separate cables from the supply. The other connector of the same cable is intended to "daisy chain" low power cards.

It will probably work anyway, but better safe than sorry.

Edit: I think it's needed because:

  1. The power supply might have separate circuits for separate cables and might not be able to supply all the power needed by the GPU through just one
  2. The cable might not be rated to have that much power flow through and might overheat and melt over time
  3. If you could just fork the cable into two why would they put two connectors on the GPU, it's not like they have different voltages, they are literally daisy chained
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

I just fixed it, thank you for the heads up!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Unless you have a very bad PSU, this doesn't actually matter.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This picture raises some questions.

  • Why do GPU vendors make the top look all fancy if no one sees it, because it's always mounted upside down?
  • And why no one mods the GPU itself for looks, adds crawly legs or whatever, if the case is a glass box anyway?
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

Some cases let you mount the GPU vertically, especially SFF cases. This would display the fans of the GPU through the glass.

I've seen some people paint their GPU backplate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

I'm quite curious, are there many advantages to building a libre PC? Last I checked, my hardware doesn't bombard me with ads, AI and other manifestations of enshittification. Yet.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You can encrypt your /boot partition with Argon2, which allows you to have a fully encrypted disk. You can check the integrity of your kernel at boot via Libreboot GRUB using GPG. Not as much spyware as you get with modern day computers. I know there is still proprietary ECs, microcode, etc. but we should all be trying to minimize proprietary software as much as possible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

minix is the end of user privacy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Minix inside everyone cpu

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Well theoretically this is how you secure your bios properly?

But it ain't ready for mainstream at all is my understanding. OP is a FOSS trail blazing chad.

Hoping to go libre on my next built around 2030

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

I remember a colleague who had a laptop with a cpu that supported virtualization, but it wasn't enabled, and there was no option in the uefi to enable it, so he couldn't run virtualbox. Perhaps libreboot could help getting rid of such arbitrary limitations?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Nice. For folks who wouldn't need a lot of storage space I guess this could make a nice rather low budget Libreboot computer.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

7900 XTX

"""Budget"""

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

TBF the whole PC was apparently only about 1100, not a budget PC in my book but a far cry from expensive

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

He said it was only 900! haha

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

There are PCIe x4 cards with dual NVMe slots, and there's other PCIe cards that have like 4 SATA slots. You can use as much space as you want :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Did you get a heavy duty power button because you'll have to hold it down for ten seconds so often 😂