Build a punchy Linux box

Zak Storey demonstrates how to construct a punchy Linux PC!

THE CONCEPT

‘Linux’ is a fairly taboo word for most here at APC, yet we write about it a lot — and with good reason. It’s a free, diverse, opensource operating system, with a huge breadth of potential. It rattles the cages of the likes of Microsoft and Apple, and constantly helps to improve the technological ecosystem we all call home.

However, due to the very nature of the beast, the fact that it’s easy to get hold of a free copy of the rebel OS, and most of its users are more inclined to run older hardware, the vast majority of Linux-powered systems tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to purchasing newer hardware. So for many people, the concept of a super-fast Linux system, powered by the latest Intel Z170 chipset and M.2 PCIe SSDs, is something of an oxymoron.

The plan with this project, then, was to satisfy two separate criteria. Firstly, to build a super-fast Linux system, powered by a quad-core Intel processor in conjunction with the latest Samsung M.2 PCIe SSDs, and secondly, to keep the budget as low as humanly possible at the same time, to stick to the Linux ethos. Did we achieve it? Almost.

THE LINUX DREAM

To start with, we knew we wanted to use a quad-core processor, preferably of Skylake origin. The newer chipsets would support M.2 drives over the PCIe bus, and the four cores of Skylake’s mighty Core i5-6500 would be plenty for any demanding Linux task.

For a base hard drive, we opted for a Samsung PM961 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD. Coming in at a relatively cheap $239, this OEM drive boasts a whopping 3,000MB/s sequential reads, and 1,100MB/s sequential writes, proving to be one of the best deals around when it comes to current NVMe drives. However, as it’s an OEM drive, it’s worth bearing in mind that you’ll receive no support from Samsung with regard to drivers, troubleshooting or software issues. It’s also hard to find at retailers, but at the time of print you could readily find them on eBay.

Our motherboard was a cheap and cheerful ASUS B150 A/M.2. At the low end of the pricing spectrum, it’s a fairly well-equipped mobo capable of housing 8GB of DDR4, in conjunction with an M.2 drive, and a plethora of SATA drives. And our last worthy mention is the 550W Kolink budget power supply, which we scavenged from our storage containers. It’s not available to buy right now, but swapping it over to an EVGA 500B would be more than enough to satisfy all your power needs — even with an additional GPU — without breaking the bank.

1 REAR I/O PLATES

Whenever you start building any system, the first thing you should do (after stripping out everything you don’t need from the case, of course) is install the rear I/O plate. On the more expensive boards out there, these are nicely designed, clean plates, with protective EMI-shielded padding. However, on the more budget-focused boards, you may find they are simply a thin sheet of tin, with a variety of pins sticking in place. Our best piece of advice is to try to bend these out of the way so you can install your motherboard securely afterward, and if that fails to work, snap the extra metal pins off entirely to make sure you keep everything installed in place. Rear I/O plates keep the vast majority of dust out of your system.

2 CABLE MANAGEMENT

For this build, we opted to use one of Bit Fenix’s Nova cases. Generally speaking, Bit Fenix makes some fantastic budget-oriented chassis, which beside looking good, generally make our lives a little easier when it comes to constructing a system. You can find these for about $50 here and there, but we opted for the slightly pricier $59 windowed variant. Cable management is slightly limited in these budget-friendly models, but we still managed to route the PSU cable up and through the rear of the chassis. Although this doesn’t do much to make things look any tidier, it does help keep the cable out of the way of any graphics cards you may wish to fit in the future. We just wish we could say the same for the 8-pin CPU power.

“Coming in at a relatively cheap $239, this OEM drive boasts a whopping 3,000MB/s sequential reads, and 1,100MB/s sequential writes, proving to be one of the best deals around when it comes to current NVMe drives.”