Some build advice:

• Be safe - don’t wear socks, stand on a hard floor if possible, ground yourself if you have a wrist strap for that, and discharge any static by touching metal and/or the case before touching any components. And no matter what, DO NOT open the power supply, and definitely don’t touch anything in it!
• The huge motherboard connector probably requires more force than comfortable.
• Watch through at least one build guide before starting. That way you know the process.

Hope that helps, and don’t let it scare you away - it’s really fun to do and if you’re careful, chances are nothing major will go wrong.

Older generation hardware usually has better support on Linux. So don’t buy the lastest chipsets. Otherwise you might have to live with an unstable driver and compiling your own kernel for up to a year.

I’ve noticed that when I am specking out a new computer I typically fall into the trap of wanting the absolute best computer I can get for the money.

I’ve always been on the cheaper side, so I have found myself spending days or weeks researching various parts at various quality levels at various prices.

It becomes a huge drag.

Set the budget that you’re comfortable with, find the motherboard that has the features that you want, then get a CPU that fits in that price range, a case that fits your use cases, and then if you’re going to splurge on anything splurge on the power supply as a good power supply can last you through multiple computers.

If you have to save money somewhere, save money on RAM as you can always order more or upgrade the rim that you have relatively inexpensively. Maybe if you’re going intel, purchase an i5 CPU and then consider upgrading if you max out its abilities or you find yourself frequently running at 100% utilization.

And don’t overlook pre-builts. There are lots of refurbished computers that you can purchase for far less than the cost of the individual parts that have all of the minimum specs that you want in exchange for little things like only having a single stick of ram or having a low quality SSD.

There’s nothing that stops you from upgrading later should your use case change.

• Stay clear from nvidia. AMD if you buy a graphics card, if you just use integrated graphics both AMD and Intel are fine
• When picking a motherboard, look what wifi chipset is used and check Linux compatibility. Some wifi chipsets require to manually install drivers, and some just don’t work at all

You only mention your laptop is running out of space so you need to get a new computer? does your laptop have a soldered SSD? If that’s not the case, I think the reflex should first be to see what storage you can get your laptop so that you can keep using it rather than discarding it :(

Not sure if this would help, but I found this channel helpful for understanding the basics and mostly avoiding wrong parts. Also he has some videos were he explains why you should choose one part over another.

Scatter volt channel

GPU go with AMD, I don’t think I need to give much explanations here.

CPU you can do either, BUT AMD is usually better for multi-threaded applications (like video editing, modeling or animation), also an AM5 slot should last you years to come, AMD stayed with AM4 for a long time (I had most of the same PC for almost a decade thanks to that, it’s still the same AM4, but I had to replace the MOBO since the old one broke). So I would also choose AMD here, although Intel is not bad either, and if you get it in a sale it might come out cheaper.

cpu wise both amd and intel are decent.

gpu wise stick with amd.

pcpartpicker.com is a good place to start and can help you know if specific parts are compatible but it’s just a place to start and is often still missing important info.

So you still need to do due diligence and do things like check measurements to make sure, for example, your video card will actually fit inside your case, etc.

Also, since its your first time, you want to avoid any motherboards that require you to do a BIOS update to handle a newer processor, because that’s just complicated stuff that you’re going to want to skip as a beginner.

It’s more expensive but go for a newer motherboard that is compatible with your processor out-of-the-box. BIOS updates are a pain and scary even for advanced users.

My first question is about your laptop; is the SSD removable, because if so, even a pretty large SSD is cheap these days.

Also, the GPU question is complicated. For most use cases, AMD is better on Linux. However, since you’re doing Resolve and Blender, that gets a bit murky. It depends on if ROCm support is less dismal on later AMD cards - I have an RX 580, which AMD quickly dropped support for and I am bitter about.

This is not to say I like NVidia, but for fast video encoding and rendering, as far as I know, it’s the easier option. Someone correct me if I am wrong, please.

As for actually building the thing, you’d start by look for what CPU you want, then find a compatible motherboard, then read the board’s compatibility list for RAM. They usually have compatibility lists for storage - those don’t matter, as it’s pretty universal. Then choose a graphics card, a case with the right form factor, a PSU, and a cooler. I tend to go with liquid cooling, as it’s not that expensive anymore.

Like others have said, check kernel support for your hardware, but also, it’s generally much easier on desktop. The main things to look out for are ethernet and WiFi controllers. By the way, what distro do you prefer, because that’s definitely a factor.

As you have in your post, Logical Increments is a good place to start.

As others have said, AMD is your best bet currently, mostly because of raw performance compared to recent Intel offerings. If you have no limited budget or power requirements, here are my recommendations:

If you have the paid version of Davinci Resolve, AMD does not have the best selection of hardware encode/decode options, but people have reported that Intel Arc GPUs work, so I would get and Intel A310 as a secondary GPU if that is something that you need.

If you want the best of the best GPU, without going Nvidia, the AMD RX 7900XTX is it. Also, AMD has stated publicly that they are moving away from high-end GPUs, so there probably won’t be a better one coming out anytime soon.

If you want to plan for more gaming than you stated in your post, the Ryzen 7800X3D is the best gaming CPU on the market, so I would get that. If you plan to focus on video editing, the 9950X is the best, but probably not worth the cost compared to cheaper 9000 or 7000 chips.

If you go with a Ryzen 7000 or 9000 CPU, get DDR5-6000 CL30 memory.

If you’re getting an air cooler for your CPU, don’t pay more than $50. There are a ton of great, cheap options these days.

Get either the new Antec Flux Pro case (when it’s available, probably this month) or the Fractal Torrent if you care about best thermals and quiet operation. Everything else is a compromise.

If you need HDMI 2.1, you’ll need a DP -> HDMI adapter on an AMD GPU because of a licensing squabble.

Those are things I could think of off the top of my head. I don’t think I missed anything big.

Do it

ebay, ebay, ebay (and also pcpartpicker).

Unless you want to frag people at 4k@140Hz in the latest AAA game, you probably don’t need the latest generation components (and I’d say your requirement are quite low here, consider how the only thing you complain about is storage space).

Unless you really want to assemble everything by yourself, consider buying one of the second-hand, previous-gen gaming rigs on ebay (but watch out for scams!). Even if you do want to assemble the PC yourself, consider buying used parts on ebay (or buying a full PC to cannibalize reselling the excess).

What are the specs of your current rig? Except for storage, are you satisfied with how it runs? How much storage do you need for the projects you are working on? How much to archive things? Do you want to do anything about backups? Is a full size tower ok? How good a video do you want? What is your budget?

If you’re using davinci resolve then you’ll need an Nvidia GPU for nvenc to work. Otherwise, I’d say go all AMD like I did with my current and first PC, too. Fuck Nvidia even though a lot of people say it’s better now, but I have Nvidia PTSD and will never buy their shit. I have a Ryzen 7 5700G that comes with a built in GPU and a friend of mine gave me an old ass RX580 GPU that has been doing just fine for two 4k monitors. If you can give up davinci resolve or work with it halfassed, then all AMD is amazing. It’s basically plug N play.

I built my current PC using one of those PCPartPicker guides, and I’m very happy with it.

The only issue I had was the video driver. I use the Linux Mint Long Term Support version, and the kernel didn’t have a recent enough driver for my card. I just needed to switch to the latest kernel and it was good to go. I actually had no idea how to troubleshoot it, and went to the LM forum to ask for help. I was reading through the guide on what info to supply with help requests and realised that the example fault and solution were the exact ones I was facing!