WEBVTT

00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:06.720
i just built a new computer which is funny because

00:00:04.640 --> 00:00:11.040
i don't really remember doing that maybe i need to retrace my steps

00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:15.519
retrace my steps retrace my steps

00:00:13.040 --> 00:00:19.520
let's see here we've got a threadripper CPU

00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:21.359
yep aorus master motherboard

00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:24.880
okay fedora Linux

00:00:23.840 --> 00:00:28.800
hey wait a minute i'm the wrong Linus oh

00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:35.760
well as long as we've got all these parts together we might as well assemble them

00:00:32.239 --> 00:00:37.520
and see what it's like to compute as the

00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:40.399
one and only Linus

00:00:38.879 --> 00:00:45.040
or Linus okay there's two of us but

00:00:42.160 --> 00:00:49.600
the other one and today's video was brought to you by

00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:53.920
our sponsor storyblocks video save time and money with storyblocks video getting

00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:57.440
studio quality stock video clips for a fraction of the cost you can check them

00:00:55.680 --> 00:00:59.840
out today at the link in the video description

00:01:07.360 --> 00:01:13.520
funnily enough i've never actually made a video

00:01:10.720 --> 00:01:19.040
about the other Linus he's a finnish american immigrant with u.s citizenship

00:01:16.000 --> 00:01:21.119
Linux is his namesake and brainchild and

00:01:19.040 --> 00:01:25.280
he holds the Linux trademark but no longer contributes much code himself

00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:30.320
most of his personal contributions since 2012 have been in merging code written

00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:34.079
by others he still does retain the highest authority to decide which new

00:01:32.320 --> 00:01:39.040
code is incorporated into the official Linux kernel and he is famously

00:01:36.479 --> 00:01:45.119
opinionated saying exactly what is on his mind and says he is agnostic with no

00:01:42.320 --> 00:01:50.960
political affiliation Linus's law is that given enough eyeballs all bugs are

00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:56.399
shallow since we're on a bit of a fun facts role how about some fun facts

00:01:53.200 --> 00:01:58.799
about the Linux mascot tux through three

00:01:56.399 --> 00:02:04.719
logo competitions tux was submitted as an entry but actually won none of them

00:02:01.920 --> 00:02:10.879
as a result tux is not the logo but rather the brand character inspired by

00:02:08.239 --> 00:02:17.040
Linus's love of a picture of a penguin figure he found on an ftp site

00:02:14.640 --> 00:02:21.040
tux was coined as an acronym for torvald's eunuchs

00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:26.640
and the first and official drawing of tux was done on a 486

00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:28.400
dx250 running Linux and the first public

00:02:26.640 --> 00:02:33.360
release of a defeated contender was

00:02:30.239 --> 00:02:34.560
and i kid you not a furry with a

00:02:33.360 --> 00:02:40.080
keyboard thank goodness we ended up with the penguin

00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:44.640
who could very well be a furry but without a keyboard about tux Linus

00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:49.599
has said some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really

00:02:46.640 --> 00:02:52.959
embodies the grace of Linux which just tells me they have never seen an angry

00:02:51.519 --> 00:02:57.120
penguin charging at them in excess of 100 miles per hour they'd be a lot more

00:02:54.560 --> 00:03:00.959
careful about what they say if they had all right

00:02:58.239 --> 00:03:05.200
fair enough sir enough chit chat let's get building now normally over the

00:03:02.959 --> 00:03:09.680
course of building a computer like this i would talk through my

00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:14.480
rationale behind the various parts as we install them but because i didn't pick

00:03:12.319 --> 00:03:20.159
any of these parts i am instead going to lean on zdnet's excellent interview of

00:03:17.200 --> 00:03:26.000
Linus torvalds explaining why he chose all the parts he did now we've settled

00:03:22.480 --> 00:03:27.599
on a 3970x 32 core AMD ryzen

00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:31.920
threadripper processor here and apparently that was because he had

00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:36.080
originally planned to go with the ryzen 9 3950x

00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:42.159
but determined that it would have been a small incremental upgrade over the 9900k

00:03:39.440 --> 00:03:46.959
that he was using previously now lynas normally goes for regular consumer cpus

00:03:45.040 --> 00:03:51.920
because they are typically the best bang for the buck and he actually likes the

00:03:49.440 --> 00:03:56.640
integrated gpus that Intel puts on their cpus because he doesn't like any more

00:03:54.560 --> 00:04:00.040
fans in a machine than absolutely necessary

00:03:57.920 --> 00:04:05.680
this might make a threadripper with its 250 watt plus power consumption seem

00:04:03.599 --> 00:04:09.840
like a bit of a weird choice because that does bring the potential for more

00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:14.879
or noisier fans but what's great about threadripper is

00:04:11.760 --> 00:04:16.239
that foreign hedt platform if you need

00:04:14.879 --> 00:04:20.079
the performance it's actually not a bad bang for the

00:04:19.120 --> 00:04:25.919
buck so i think this was a really great choice

00:04:23.680 --> 00:04:30.479
lioness's choice of the Gigabyte aorus tier x40 master is probably going to be

00:04:28.479 --> 00:04:34.320
pretty uncontroversial he looks specifically for motherboards

00:04:32.320 --> 00:04:38.960
that have good power delivery believing that there's little more basic than

00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:44.160
power delivery and this is apparently a result of him having systems that were

00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:45.919
unreliable due to brownouts so

00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:49.600
it's kind of a funny thing to look for a motherboard that specifically has

00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:54.080
features designed for like great overclocking and then

00:04:51.919 --> 00:04:58.160
never overclock them at all for my part i like the board's mix of

00:04:56.080 --> 00:05:03.520
good onboard features like five gigabit Ethernet and wi-fi six and expansion so

00:05:01.440 --> 00:05:07.919
it's got five pci express expansion slots four of them are 16x physical and

00:05:06.320 --> 00:05:12.080
one of them is one x physical meaning you can plug basically anything you want

00:05:10.080 --> 00:05:17.199
in it it's got support for the usb type-c internal connector as well as

00:05:14.400 --> 00:05:21.280
three m.2s all of which have little heat sinks on them which admittedly aren't

00:05:19.280 --> 00:05:26.080
going to increase their performance and probably won't increase their longevity

00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:30.720
but they can help to soak up some of the excess heat during short periods of

00:05:28.400 --> 00:05:34.560
intensive use but one thing to watch out for with this guy is case compatibility

00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:38.800
because not only is it slightly wider than standard atx it has a right pin 24

00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:46.600
pin connector so you got to make sure you have a bit more space available in your case for cooling Linus

00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:50.080
went with a Noctua nhu14s with a second

00:05:46.600 --> 00:05:52.160
nfa14 fan in a push-pull configuration

00:05:50.080 --> 00:05:56.400
this was apparently because he's very sensitive to noise and wants something

00:05:54.160 --> 00:06:01.440
quiet and has had good experiences with Noctua in the past truly a man after my

00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:05.840
own heart about knocked to his fans lena says that even when the fans ramp up

00:06:03.759 --> 00:06:10.639
under load he doesn't find the noise particularly annoying and it's more of a

00:06:08.720 --> 00:06:15.440
soothing whoosh white noise sound without the whining or rattling that he

00:06:12.880 --> 00:06:20.240
associates with lower end fans apparently despite the noise advantage

00:06:17.520 --> 00:06:26.160
that a liquid cooler could provide Linus is not a fan he doesn't want to deal

00:06:22.960 --> 00:06:29.120
with a custom loop and doesn't trust the

00:06:26.160 --> 00:06:35.199
reliability or even the capabilities of aio coolers and especially doesn't want

00:06:31.840 --> 00:06:36.560
to deal with any unnecessary gurgling or

00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:40.800
pump noises for RAM Linus actually couldn't find

00:06:39.039 --> 00:06:47.120
exactly what he was looking for and ended up settling on some generic ddr4

00:06:44.280 --> 00:06:52.720
2666 memory saying that it was fine memory but i really wanted ecc the

00:06:50.400 --> 00:06:58.960
problem was that because of parts availability ecc is not currently priced

00:06:56.160 --> 00:07:04.639
sanely so he just decided you know what forget it this is good enough for now

00:07:01.520 --> 00:07:07.280
and should work fine he actually doesn't

00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:10.639
even need apparently 64 gigs of memory he just went with it because he wanted

00:07:08.880 --> 00:07:16.080
to populate all four of the memory channels and RAM is cheap right now

00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:20.560
anyhow for our part we chose these g skill rip jaws v sticks just because

00:07:18.160 --> 00:07:26.319
they are low profile enough to clear our cooler and they're the same speed that

00:07:23.440 --> 00:07:30.319
venus is is using for storage there was no question that Linus was going to

00:07:28.400 --> 00:07:35.039
choose solid state it has apparently been over a decade now since he's

00:07:32.319 --> 00:07:41.520
touched any spinning media and he even tries to avoid using cables which is

00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:43.440
possible thanks to m.2 anywho after

00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:49.039
experiencing some reliability issues early on in the SSD era Linux apparently

00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:53.919
found samsung to be quite reliable and is sticking with what works for him if

00:07:51.599 --> 00:07:57.919
puge's data has anything to go by i would say this seems like a pretty darn

00:07:56.240 --> 00:08:03.680
good choice so he settled on a one terabyte 970 evo plus as i mentioned

00:08:01.520 --> 00:08:09.599
before when it comes to cooling products Linus does prefer Noctua over other

00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:10.879
brands unfortunately Noctua doesn't make

00:08:09.599 --> 00:08:16.960
cases so he went with his second choice be quiet!

00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:19.680
this is the dark base 700 a quiet

00:08:16.960 --> 00:08:22.800
optimized case but with plenty of room for hardware and

00:08:21.520 --> 00:08:28.800
um well Linus did notice when looking at the

00:08:25.919 --> 00:08:33.440
front intake that it looked a little bit more restrictive compared to the rear

00:08:30.720 --> 00:08:39.959
exhaust so what he did was order an extra silent wings 3 fan to go in the

00:08:36.320 --> 00:08:39.959
front of the chassis

00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:53.120
one thing to watch out for if you were to replicate this build is you're going

00:08:50.640 --> 00:08:58.160
to want to remove the middle standoff in the top row because

00:08:55.040 --> 00:09:00.000
like many Threadripper boards this one

00:08:58.160 --> 00:09:03.519
doesn't actually have a screw hole there to make more room for

00:09:01.760 --> 00:09:07.760
power delivery very thoughtful preparation from the manufacturer here

00:09:05.680 --> 00:09:11.279
you can see even this fan cable up here has been carefully routed above the i o

00:09:10.080 --> 00:09:16.560
so that it doesn't get in your way when you're trying to install your motherboard one of the things lena said

00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:20.880
about this case is that with the right fan control setup in the BIOS and of

00:09:18.959 --> 00:09:25.120
course assuming that you connected your fans to the correct headers the paper

00:09:23.680 --> 00:09:28.880
manual for the motherboard apparently had horrible pictures and you got the

00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:32.720
CPU and system fan headers the opposite way around for the first build

00:09:30.560 --> 00:09:37.519
what you get is a machine that is basically silent when it's idling and

00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:45.440
then without any annoying wine although not silent under full load for power

00:09:40.240 --> 00:09:47.519
supply Linus settled for the gx 850

00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:51.839
and i do mean settled because parts availability due to the pandemic has

00:09:49.279 --> 00:09:58.000
made it difficult to find some specific parts in fact we even had to switch out

00:09:54.480 --> 00:10:00.240
to a gx 650 for our build because not

00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:05.920
even csonic could provide us with a gx 850 directly now as with the motherboard

00:10:03.440 --> 00:10:11.920
Linus cares a lot about power delivery basics he goes basically what's the top

00:10:09.440 --> 00:10:16.800
potential power use of this machine okay i'm going to pick a power supply

00:10:14.240 --> 00:10:21.440
with 2x that rating and then look for reviews and reputable brands this is a

00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:25.440
good strategy for a couple of reasons number one it means that you are

00:10:23.040 --> 00:10:30.000
basically guaranteed to not under buy your power supply which is an obvious

00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:34.480
problem and number two if you're a silence freak which we know that he is

00:10:32.320 --> 00:10:40.720
it means that your power supply may in many cases barely ramp up its fan if at

00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:44.000
all even under heavy load hey

00:10:40.720 --> 00:10:46.240
yeah it's clean it's clean boys that

00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:53.279
leanest knows how to build a computer for graphics Linus went with and i quote

00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:54.320
some random sapphire rx 580 graphics

00:10:53.279 --> 00:11:00.640
card thing is Linus isn't that interested in

00:10:57.839 --> 00:11:05.120
gaming and dislikes having to account for graphics in fact preferring to just

00:11:02.880 --> 00:11:09.120
have something modern built into the CPU and i can understand that how it's more

00:11:06.959 --> 00:11:12.880
important to have the correct feature set in the hardware than it is to

00:11:10.880 --> 00:11:17.440
actually have the performance if you're not a gamer this is another quote it's

00:11:15.360 --> 00:11:21.680
overkill for what i do fair enough sir

00:11:19.920 --> 00:11:27.040
as for why he might choose to go team red versus team green well it is no

00:11:24.560 --> 00:11:30.800
secret that lenas has publicly feuded with NVIDIA

00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:33.519
in fact even one time going as far as to say

00:11:32.079 --> 00:11:37.120
unvidia um in the middle of i think it was a

00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:41.040
conference or something wasn't it yeah it was it was pretty it was pretty

00:11:38.560 --> 00:11:45.360
public so um rx 580. we didn't find any pictures of

00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:50.720
the actual machine online so i can't verify this but given his choices i

00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:55.360
think it's fair to assume that Linus didn't spend many many hours on perfect

00:11:53.519 --> 00:11:59.279
meticulous cable management but did at least do a decent job so that's what

00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:02.880
we're going for here it seems like a pretty well thought out machine the kind

00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:06.639
of thing you wouldn't just throw all the cables in willy-nilly with the machine

00:12:04.959 --> 00:12:10.000
fired up it's already what i would describe as

00:12:08.079 --> 00:12:15.120
quiet but it's definitely not silent

00:12:12.079 --> 00:12:16.800
fortunately Gigabyte has extensive fan

00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:22.160
tuning options in their BIOS and we're gonna go ahead and take some guesses as

00:12:19.120 --> 00:12:24.639
to what Linux might be using so first up

00:12:22.160 --> 00:12:30.480
we're gonna set both our CPU fan and our CPU fan opt so that's the

00:12:27.839 --> 00:12:34.720
optional secondary one to silent mode and we're going to use our CPU as the

00:12:32.880 --> 00:12:38.480
fan control temperature input the other thing that we're going to do

00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:44.399
is we're going to change both of them to enabled for the opt stop mode right here

00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:48.639
that allows the fans to actually turn off completely under very very light

00:12:46.720 --> 00:12:53.440
loads although there's no guarantee that with the 32 core processor anything

00:12:50.880 --> 00:12:58.240
qualifies as low enough thermal output to completely turn off sysfan6a this is

00:12:56.240 --> 00:13:02.000
the header that i'm using for my case fans so i'm going to go ahead and

00:12:59.920 --> 00:13:06.320
because his graphics card is clearly not going to see heavy use i'm going to tie

00:13:03.839 --> 00:13:12.000
this one to CPU as the temperature input as well and once again i'm going to

00:13:08.079 --> 00:13:13.760
enable stop mode our RAM has xmp i'm

00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:18.079
gonna go ahead and enable it just so we can lower the latencies a little bit i

00:13:15.760 --> 00:13:22.399
doubt his does but okay all right we deviated in one way

00:13:20.959 --> 00:13:26.240
after firing up the machine for the first time i wasn't actually happy with

00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:32.800
the level of silence so what i'm doing is i'm changing the threshold for the

00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:34.800
zero RPM operation to about

00:13:32.800 --> 00:13:37.839
50 degrees on the CPU and then i'll have the fan speed ramp up

00:13:36.560 --> 00:13:41.760
from there and that is one

00:13:39.760 --> 00:13:45.200
quiet system the only thing we could do now to make

00:13:43.040 --> 00:13:49.440
it quieter would be to put the panel

00:13:46.839 --> 00:13:54.880
on not only does it look nice it actually blocks a lot of sound

00:13:51.680 --> 00:13:57.040
that is not a shabby looking machine

00:13:54.880 --> 00:13:59.440
other than the fedora Linux installer that we've got sticking out of the front

00:13:58.320 --> 00:14:04.720
of it yes that is the daily driver flavor of Linux

00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:09.120
that Linus torvalds prefers so we're going to go ahead and

00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:13.519
just boot it live for now of course it's not enough for us to just build lena's

00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:17.680
system we have to benchmark it and we can't just use any old gaming benchmark

00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:21.120
so instead we're going to be compiling the Linux

00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:25.760
kernel and this is the kind of thing that he might actually have to do on a

00:14:22.959 --> 00:14:30.240
fairly regular basis taking some patch applying it booting it for testing

00:14:27.519 --> 00:14:33.120
purposes and what our hope is is that we'll be able to do it very quickly

00:14:31.760 --> 00:14:38.800
because otherwise i'm going to be standing here for a very long time you might have

00:14:36.880 --> 00:14:42.480
noticed we had a couple of arguments in the command line there so one of them

00:14:40.560 --> 00:14:46.880
was time that's going to tell us how long the test took after we're done and

00:14:45.279 --> 00:14:53.600
another was the number of threads so we're using 64 threads to take advantage

00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:55.440
of the 32 core smt CPU in our machine

00:14:53.600 --> 00:14:59.090
here even sounds high performance doesn't it

00:14:57.519 --> 00:15:00.560
strong you know like

00:15:00.560 --> 00:15:08.160
stop it we are done already that only took just over three and a half minutes

00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:13.040
this is one fast machine and yeah the fans ramped up a little bit we

00:15:10.880 --> 00:15:18.079
got some heat coming out of the back but that is very reasonable you know i think

00:15:15.839 --> 00:15:24.320
the thing that stands out to me most about this machine is just how

00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:29.279
carefully thought out everything about it is now you might assume that an

00:15:26.959 --> 00:15:33.920
average software developer really takes the time to get to know the pc hardware

00:15:31.839 --> 00:15:37.279
but many of them don't even bother to build their own computer because they

00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:42.000
can't be bothered they're busy writing software latest on the other hand has

00:15:39.440 --> 00:15:46.199
actually done us a huge favor you guys might have noticed that over the years

00:15:43.760 --> 00:15:50.959
we have actually never done a developer-focused build guide or even

00:15:48.959 --> 00:15:54.720
build log and part of it is that we don't really fully understand the needs

00:15:53.120 --> 00:16:00.639
of developers as much as a true developer would well thank you Linus

00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:03.600
other Linus for doing it for us because

00:16:00.639 --> 00:16:08.160
this is not only performant it looks great it's quiet and the only thing that

00:16:06.399 --> 00:16:11.199
i look at here and i go ah that's really not the way i would have done it is the

00:16:09.920 --> 00:16:16.160
memory which is something that he already acknowledged was not perfect i'd

00:16:13.600 --> 00:16:20.240
have gone with maybe 3 200 megahertz RAM just to get that

00:16:17.600 --> 00:16:25.519
little bit of extra snappiness so thank you Linus for helping us out hooking us

00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:29.519
up with this fantastic parts list here for development work and thank you to

00:16:27.519 --> 00:16:32.880
zdnet for the original interview that we obviously leaned on for making this

00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:37.360
video you're gonna find links to all these parts as well as that interview in

00:16:34.880 --> 00:16:41.199
the video description finally thank you to our sponsor

00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:46.560
storyblocks with storyblocks you can save time and money thanks to their

00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:51.360
massive library of high quality footage after effects templates music and more

00:16:49.279 --> 00:16:56.880
all the content is royalty free for personal or commercial use and speaking

00:16:54.480 --> 00:17:00.720
of commercial use we use them all the time commercially especially over on our

00:16:58.720 --> 00:17:05.120
tech wiki channel where the goal is to make videos as fast as possible so we

00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:09.360
don't always have time to go and get a pickup clip or shoot something when and

00:17:07.439 --> 00:17:12.480
why bother when you can just download it new clips are added regularly so you

00:17:10.959 --> 00:17:17.039
don't have to worry about using clips that are like 10 years old so go check

00:17:14.400 --> 00:17:21.679
them out at storyblocks.com Linus tech tips if you guys enjoyed this

00:17:19.039 --> 00:17:26.880
video maybe check out uh hey check out my video on the dell xps

00:17:23.760 --> 00:17:30.080
13 two and one it's a variant of the xps

00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:31.600
13 that Linus torvalds has also spoken

00:17:30.080 --> 00:17:34.720
very highly of he says he likes that machine so much for himself that he

00:17:33.360 --> 00:17:40.120
ended up buying one for his daughter when she went away to school so there

00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:40.120
you have it