Gaming

All five builds are AMD for a reason you can check and not out of preference: its graphics driver, amdgpu, is open, lives INSIDE the Linux kernel and AMD writes it. There is nothing to install and nothing that breaks on the next update without somebody being responsible for it.

Who backs it: The amdgpu module is in the kernel tree and AMD is the one who maintains it; Phoronix has measured every release for years. Tom's Hardware documented the next step in 2026: the kernel retired the old `radeon` driver and moved GCN 1.0 and 1.1 to amdgpu, with 30% more performance on cards over a decade old.

AM5 motherboards with VRM heatsinks of enough mass for an eight-core Ryzen. As with MSI, it is worth saying in full: the two exact models on this site — B850 Eagle WiFi and X870E AORUS Pro Ice — have no independent review of their own; what has been measured is other boards from those same two series.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp publishes board-by-board VRM analysis of the AORUS line on B850 and X870E, and Tom's Hardware reviewed several from those two series: of the B850 AORUS Elite WiFi 7 it says its VRM heatsinks have plenty of mass and keep power delivery within specification.

Power supplies for a machine that is on all day, every day. The RM series is the one that turns up in any serious build guide.

Who backs it: 80 PLUS Gold certification on the product itself and a long manufacturer warranty; sustained coverage in the community's build guides.

On mini PCs, boards and graphics cards it delivers. On laptops it does not get into this site: it certifies zero models with Ubuntu, and it is also the maker where the same model changes wifi chip between revisions, so you cannot even check what is going to arrive.

Who backs it: Counted on ubuntu.com/certified/laptops on 25 Aug 2026: zero results for ASUS, for Zenbook and for Vivobook. Notebookcheck documents the wifi variants by region; linux-hardware.org records both chips under the same commercial name. On graphics cards the bar is different and it clears it: TechPowerUp measured the TUF RX 9070 XT's cooler as «the most powerful cooler of all the cards tested so far», with very good noise in its quiet BIOS.

With a caveat: If you already have one and it works, do not throw it out: uncertified does not mean it does not work. It means that if something in Linux breaks with the next update, no manufacturer is obliged to fix it.

The same card, and the easiest of the five to fit: 200 mm and ONE single 8-pin connector, with a 500 W system requirement. If the case is small or the power supply old, this one goes where the other does not.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured its 9070 XT as the quietest it had reviewed up to that point, with its own page of temperatures and noise.

Its Black line NVMe SSDs. It is separate from «Western Digital Red Plus», which is the spinning-disk NAS line: a maker approved for one family does not vouch for another, and until 29 Aug 2026 the page showed the NAS drives' caveat underneath an SSD.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured the 2 TB SN7100 as «the fastest Gen 4 SSD we have ever tested», with Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC memory. Tom's Hardware agrees on what matters and qualifies the rest: record low power draw and surprising random reads, but only modest sustained performance against other PCIe 4.0 drives.

With a caveat: It has no DRAM: it uses WD's own four-channel Polaris 3 controller, designed to work without it. That matters here because the drive it replaced was ruled out for being «QLC and DRAM-less», and this one fixes the first thing, not the second. What saves it is that it is TLC and that its cache covers almost the whole drive.

It is here because the SN7100 is currently on backorder. It is TLC, which is what this site requires, and it is also DRAM-less — it uses system memory — so you are not changing the trade-off, only the availability.

Who backs it: Linux kernel support with no proprietary driver; full SMART tools over standard NVMe.

Mid-range power supplies with 80 Plus Gold certification. And what is NOT known has to be said: the exact unit this site recommends, the MAG A650GN II, has no independent lab evaluation published. What has been measured is its siblings from the same line.

Who backs it: Cybenetics certified the MAG A650GLS as Platinum for efficiency and A for noise. Tom's Hardware measured the MPG A650GF — Gold on 80 Plus, Platinum on Cybenetics — and described it as quiet. Hardware Busters, which is a power supply lab, agrees on the line. None of the three is the exact model here.

With a caveat: In graphics cards it gets in ONLY as a comparison, the same as Zotac: its cards in this table are NVIDIA, whose driver is closed and lives OUTSIDE the kernel, so a kernel update can break it and no manufacturer is obliged to fix it. It is the opposite of the argument the AMD ones on this site get in on.

The cheap case that comes with the fans already in it. The X3 Mesh ships with six from the factory, which is what a case at this price usually lacks.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp reviewed it: three 140 mm at the front, two 120 on top and one 120 at the back, very good airflow and mid-table noise, at a $70 list price.

Dual-tower air coolers at the price of a single. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE is the part that makes spending on liquid cooling unnecessary in almost any build.

Who backs it: Tom's Hardware measured it as the best air cooler in its test and «whisper silent»: 61 °C over ambient with a 200 W limit, seven degrees below the DeepCool AK500. GamersNexus titled its review «The Champ».

All five builds are AMD for a reason you can check and not out of preference: its graphics driver, amdgpu, is open, lives INSIDE the Linux kernel and AMD writes it. There is nothing to install and nothing that breaks on the next update without somebody being responsible for it.

Who backs it: The amdgpu module is in the kernel tree and AMD is the one who maintains it; Phoronix has measured every release for years. Tom's Hardware documented the next step in 2026: the kernel retired the old `radeon` driver and moved GCN 1.0 and 1.1 to amdgpu, with 30% more performance on cards over a decade old.

AM5 motherboards with VRM heatsinks of enough mass for an eight-core Ryzen. As with MSI, it is worth saying in full: the two exact models on this site — B850 Eagle WiFi and X870E AORUS Pro Ice — have no independent review of their own; what has been measured is other boards from those same two series.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp publishes board-by-board VRM analysis of the AORUS line on B850 and X870E, and Tom's Hardware reviewed several from those two series: of the B850 AORUS Elite WiFi 7 it says its VRM heatsinks have plenty of mass and keep power delivery within specification.

Power supplies for a machine that is on all day, every day. The RM series is the one that turns up in any serious build guide.

Who backs it: 80 PLUS Gold certification on the product itself and a long manufacturer warranty; sustained coverage in the community's build guides.

AMD's oldest board partner, and the only one that makes AMD only. Its Pulse version of the RX 9070 XT is the quietest that card has been measured at.

Who backs it: GamersNexus took it apart and measured it: 25.5 dBA at full load —«the quietest RX 9070 XT tested so far»—, 56 °C core and 81 hotspot. TechPowerUp reviewed it separately with circuit analysis.

Same chip and same frames as the Sapphire, a little cheaper. It drags the same caveat: 12 GB of video memory, which is this build's weak point and changing brand does not fix it.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured its 9070 XT as the quietest it had reviewed up to that point, with its own page of temperatures and noise.

Its Black line NVMe SSDs. It is separate from «Western Digital Red Plus», which is the spinning-disk NAS line: a maker approved for one family does not vouch for another, and until 29 Aug 2026 the page showed the NAS drives' caveat underneath an SSD.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured the 2 TB SN7100 as «the fastest Gen 4 SSD we have ever tested», with Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC memory. Tom's Hardware agrees on what matters and qualifies the rest: record low power draw and surprising random reads, but only modest sustained performance against other PCIe 4.0 drives.

With a caveat: It has no DRAM: it uses WD's own four-channel Polaris 3 controller, designed to work without it. That matters here because the drive it replaced was ruled out for being «QLC and DRAM-less», and this one fixes the first thing, not the second. What saves it is that it is TLC and that its cache covers almost the whole drive.

It is here because the SN7100 is currently on backorder. It is TLC, which is what this site requires, and it is also DRAM-less — it uses system memory — so you are not changing the trade-off, only the availability.

Who backs it: Linux kernel support with no proprietary driver; full SMART tools over standard NVMe.

Mid-range power supplies with 80 Plus Gold certification. And what is NOT known has to be said: the exact unit this site recommends, the MAG A650GN II, has no independent lab evaluation published. What has been measured is its siblings from the same line.

Who backs it: Cybenetics certified the MAG A650GLS as Platinum for efficiency and A for noise. Tom's Hardware measured the MPG A650GF — Gold on 80 Plus, Platinum on Cybenetics — and described it as quiet. Hardware Busters, which is a power supply lab, agrees on the line. None of the three is the exact model here.

With a caveat: In graphics cards it gets in ONLY as a comparison, the same as Zotac: its cards in this table are NVIDIA, whose driver is closed and lives OUTSIDE the kernel, so a kernel update can break it and no manufacturer is obliged to fix it. It is the opposite of the argument the AMD ones on this site get in on.

The cheap case that comes with the fans already in it. The X3 Mesh ships with six from the factory, which is what a case at this price usually lacks.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp reviewed it: three 140 mm at the front, two 120 on top and one 120 at the back, very good airflow and mid-table noise, at a $70 list price.

Dual-tower air coolers at the price of a single. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE is the part that makes spending on liquid cooling unnecessary in almost any build.

Who backs it: Tom's Hardware measured it as the best air cooler in its test and «whisper silent»: 61 °C over ambient with a 200 W limit, seven degrees below the DeepCool AK500. GamersNexus titled its review «The Champ».

All five builds are AMD for a reason you can check and not out of preference: its graphics driver, amdgpu, is open, lives INSIDE the Linux kernel and AMD writes it. There is nothing to install and nothing that breaks on the next update without somebody being responsible for it.

Who backs it: The amdgpu module is in the kernel tree and AMD is the one who maintains it; Phoronix has measured every release for years. Tom's Hardware documented the next step in 2026: the kernel retired the old `radeon` driver and moved GCN 1.0 and 1.1 to amdgpu, with 30% more performance on cards over a decade old.

On mini PCs, boards and graphics cards it delivers. On laptops it does not get into this site: it certifies zero models with Ubuntu, and it is also the maker where the same model changes wifi chip between revisions, so you cannot even check what is going to arrive.

Who backs it: Counted on ubuntu.com/certified/laptops on 25 Aug 2026: zero results for ASUS, for Zenbook and for Vivobook. Notebookcheck documents the wifi variants by region; linux-hardware.org records both chips under the same commercial name. On graphics cards the bar is different and it clears it: TechPowerUp measured the TUF RX 9070 XT's cooler as «the most powerful cooler of all the cards tested so far», with very good noise in its quiet BIOS.

With a caveat: If you already have one and it works, do not throw it out: uncertified does not mean it does not work. It means that if something in Linux breaks with the next update, no manufacturer is obliged to fix it.

Power supplies for a machine that is on all day, every day. The RM series is the one that turns up in any serious build guide.

Who backs it: 80 PLUS Gold certification on the product itself and a long manufacturer warranty; sustained coverage in the community's build guides.

Also AMD only, and for twenty years. Its Hellhound line is built around noise: a large three-fan cooler, dual BIOS and a physical switch to turn the RGB off.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured its 9070 XT as the quietest it had reviewed up to that point, with its own page of temperatures and noise.

Same chip and same frames, from the maker whose cooler TechPowerUp measured as the most powerful of this generation. Mind one measured detail: it is 304 mm and this case takes 305, so it fits by ONE millimetre. It fits, but any variant of the same model with a different backplate may not.

Who backs it: Counted on ubuntu.com/certified/laptops on 25 Aug 2026: zero results for ASUS, for Zenbook and for Vivobook. Notebookcheck documents the wifi variants by region; linux-hardware.org records both chips under the same commercial name. On graphics cards the bar is different and it clears it: TechPowerUp measured the TUF RX 9070 XT's cooler as «the most powerful cooler of all the cards tested so far», with very good noise in its quiet BIOS.

Its Black line NVMe SSDs. It is separate from «Western Digital Red Plus», which is the spinning-disk NAS line: a maker approved for one family does not vouch for another, and until 29 Aug 2026 the page showed the NAS drives' caveat underneath an SSD.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured the 2 TB SN7100 as «the fastest Gen 4 SSD we have ever tested», with Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC memory. Tom's Hardware agrees on what matters and qualifies the rest: record low power draw and surprising random reads, but only modest sustained performance against other PCIe 4.0 drives.

With a caveat: It has no DRAM: it uses WD's own four-channel Polaris 3 controller, designed to work without it. That matters here because the drive it replaced was ruled out for being «QLC and DRAM-less», and this one fixes the first thing, not the second. What saves it is that it is TLC and that its cache covers almost the whole drive.

Power supplies to the ATX 3.1 standard, which is the one that accounts for modern graphics cards' spikes. It is the only one of the three power supplies on this site with an independent lab evaluation published.

Who backs it: Cybenetics — the independent lab that certifies efficiency (ETA), noise (LAMBDA) and protections (SAFE) — evaluated the Elite Gold 850: ETA Gold at 88.43% average on 115 V and 90.45% on 230 V, LAMBDA Gold at 32.68 dB(A), and it passed SAFE with all protections.

The cheap case that comes with the fans already in it. The X3 Mesh ships with six from the factory, which is what a case at this price usually lacks.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp reviewed it: three 140 mm at the front, two 120 on top and one 120 at the back, very good airflow and mid-table noise, at a $70 list price.

Dual-tower air coolers at the price of a single. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE is the part that makes spending on liquid cooling unnecessary in almost any build.

Who backs it: Tom's Hardware measured it as the best air cooler in its test and «whisper silent»: 61 °C over ambient with a 200 W limit, seven degrees below the DeepCool AK500. GamersNexus titled its review «The Champ».

All five builds are AMD for a reason you can check and not out of preference: its graphics driver, amdgpu, is open, lives INSIDE the Linux kernel and AMD writes it. There is nothing to install and nothing that breaks on the next update without somebody being responsible for it.

Who backs it: The amdgpu module is in the kernel tree and AMD is the one who maintains it; Phoronix has measured every release for years. Tom's Hardware documented the next step in 2026: the kernel retired the old `radeon` driver and moved GCN 1.0 and 1.1 to amdgpu, with 30% more performance on cards over a decade old.

On mini PCs, boards and graphics cards it delivers. On laptops it does not get into this site: it certifies zero models with Ubuntu, and it is also the maker where the same model changes wifi chip between revisions, so you cannot even check what is going to arrive.

Who backs it: Counted on ubuntu.com/certified/laptops on 25 Aug 2026: zero results for ASUS, for Zenbook and for Vivobook. Notebookcheck documents the wifi variants by region; linux-hardware.org records both chips under the same commercial name. On graphics cards the bar is different and it clears it: TechPowerUp measured the TUF RX 9070 XT's cooler as «the most powerful cooler of all the cards tested so far», with very good noise in its quiet BIOS.

With a caveat: If you already have one and it works, do not throw it out: uncertified does not mean it does not work. It means that if something in Linux breaks with the next update, no manufacturer is obliged to fix it.

Power supplies for a machine that is on all day, every day. The RM series is the one that turns up in any serious build guide.

Who backs it: 80 PLUS Gold certification on the product itself and a long manufacturer warranty; sustained coverage in the community's build guides.

AMD's oldest board partner, and the only one that makes AMD only. Its Pulse version of the RX 9070 XT is the quietest that card has been measured at.

Who backs it: GamersNexus took it apart and measured it: 25.5 dBA at full load —«the quietest RX 9070 XT tested so far»—, 56 °C core and 81 hotspot. TechPowerUp reviewed it separately with circuit analysis.

Same chip and same frames as the Sapphire, a little cheaper and 31 mm shorter. Its cooler is PowerColor's mid-range one, not the Hellhound: it does the job, it does not stand out.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured its 9070 XT as the quietest it had reviewed up to that point, with its own page of temperatures and noise.

Its Black line NVMe SSDs. It is separate from «Western Digital Red Plus», which is the spinning-disk NAS line: a maker approved for one family does not vouch for another, and until 29 Aug 2026 the page showed the NAS drives' caveat underneath an SSD.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp measured the 2 TB SN7100 as «the fastest Gen 4 SSD we have ever tested», with Kioxia 218-layer BiCS8 TLC memory. Tom's Hardware agrees on what matters and qualifies the rest: record low power draw and surprising random reads, but only modest sustained performance against other PCIe 4.0 drives.

With a caveat: It has no DRAM: it uses WD's own four-channel Polaris 3 controller, designed to work without it. That matters here because the drive it replaced was ruled out for being «QLC and DRAM-less», and this one fixes the first thing, not the second. What saves it is that it is TLC and that its cache covers almost the whole drive.

Power supplies to the ATX 3.1 standard, which is the one that accounts for modern graphics cards' spikes. It is the only one of the three power supplies on this site with an independent lab evaluation published.

Who backs it: Cybenetics — the independent lab that certifies efficiency (ETA), noise (LAMBDA) and protections (SAFE) — evaluated the Elite Gold 850: ETA Gold at 88.43% average on 115 V and 90.45% on 230 V, LAMBDA Gold at 32.68 dB(A), and it passed SAFE with all protections.

Metal cases with the airflow thought through before the looks. The Lancool 216 moves as much air as boxes at twice the price.

Who backs it: GamersNexus measured it setting a record on its thermal table, «effectively tied with the all-time great Fractal Torrent», and explains why: its two front fans have 160 mm blades in a 170 mm frame, so they sit flush and leave no leaks around the edges. Tom's Hardware titled its review «The Best for Less».

Dual-tower air coolers at the price of a single. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE is the part that makes spending on liquid cooling unnecessary in almost any build.

Who backs it: Tom's Hardware measured it as the best air cooler in its test and «whisper silent»: 61 °C over ambient with a 200 W limit, seven degrees below the DeepCool AK500. GamersNexus titled its review «The Champ».

All five builds are AMD for a reason you can check and not out of preference: its graphics driver, amdgpu, is open, lives INSIDE the Linux kernel and AMD writes it. There is nothing to install and nothing that breaks on the next update without somebody being responsible for it.

Who backs it: The amdgpu module is in the kernel tree and AMD is the one who maintains it; Phoronix has measured every release for years. Tom's Hardware documented the next step in 2026: the kernel retired the old `radeon` driver and moved GCN 1.0 and 1.1 to amdgpu, with 30% more performance on cards over a decade old.

AM5 motherboards with VRM heatsinks of enough mass for an eight-core Ryzen. As with MSI, it is worth saying in full: the two exact models on this site — B850 Eagle WiFi and X870E AORUS Pro Ice — have no independent review of their own; what has been measured is other boards from those same two series.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp publishes board-by-board VRM analysis of the AORUS line on B850 and X870E, and Tom's Hardware reviewed several from those two series: of the B850 AORUS Elite WiFi 7 it says its VRM heatsinks have plenty of mass and keep power delivery within specification.

The same board as the Ice, without the white: same chipset, same socket, same four M.2 slots and the same Wi-Fi 7. It is here because the Ice is currently on backorder — it can be ordered, it does not arrive soon — and this build's total should read as though everything were in the warehouse.

Who backs it: TechPowerUp publishes board-by-board VRM analysis of the AORUS line on B850 and X870E, and Tom's Hardware reviewed several from those two series: of the B850 AORUS Elite WiFi 7 it says its VRM heatsinks have plenty of mass and keep power delivery within specification.

Power supplies for a machine that is on all day, every day. The RM series is the one that turns up in any serious build guide.

Who backs it: 80 PLUS Gold certification on the product itself and a long manufacturer warranty; sustained coverage in the community's build guides.

On mini PCs, boards and graphics cards it delivers. On laptops it does not get into this site: it certifies zero models with Ubuntu, and it is also the maker where the same model changes wifi chip between revisions, so you cannot even check what is going to arrive.

Who backs it: Counted on ubuntu.com/certified/laptops on 25 Aug 2026: zero results for ASUS, for Zenbook and for Vivobook. Notebookcheck documents the wifi variants by region; linux-hardware.org records both chips under the same commercial name. On graphics cards the bar is different and it clears it: TechPowerUp measured the TUF RX 9070 XT's cooler as «the most powerful cooler of all the cards tested so far», with very good noise in its quiet BIOS.

With a caveat: If you already have one and it works, do not throw it out: uncertified does not mean it does not work. It means that if something in Linux breaks with the next update, no manufacturer is obliged to fix it.

The same card for considerably less, for when the TUF is out of stock or you would rather not pay for it: same chip, same frames. What changes is the cooler — The FPS Review scored it 9.5 out of 10 and measured it quiet, but it is not the flagship TechPowerUp measured — and that it is fed by TWO 8-pin connectors instead of three, so it also fits more modest power supplies. Its three-year warranty requires registering the card with XFX.

Who backs it: The FPS Review scored it 9.5/10: «the cooling is excellent and quiet» and «the card feels sturdy with an excellent fit and finish». The xfxforce.com spec sheet holds up what is measurable: 32.5 x 15 x 6.5 cm, 2x 8-pin PCI-E, 800 W minimum and a three-year warranty.

SSDs and NVMe. The 970/980/990 are the reference the others get measured against.

Who backs it: Linux kernel support with no proprietary driver; full SMART tools over standard NVMe.

Power supplies to the ATX 3.1 standard, which is the one that accounts for modern graphics cards' spikes. It is the only one of the three power supplies on this site with an independent lab evaluation published.

Who backs it: Cybenetics — the independent lab that certifies efficiency (ETA), noise (LAMBDA) and protections (SAFE) — evaluated the Elite Gold 850: ETA Gold at 88.43% average on 115 V and 90.45% on 230 V, LAMBDA Gold at 32.68 dB(A), and it passed SAFE with all protections.

Metal cases with the airflow thought through before the looks. The Lancool 216 moves as much air as boxes at twice the price.

Who backs it: GamersNexus measured it setting a record on its thermal table, «effectively tied with the all-time great Fractal Torrent», and explains why: its two front fans have 160 mm blades in a 170 mm frame, so they sit flush and leave no leaks around the edges. Tom's Hardware titled its review «The Best for Less».

Dual-tower air coolers at the price of a single. The Peerless Assassin 120 SE is the part that makes spending on liquid cooling unnecessary in almost any build.

Who backs it: Tom's Hardware measured it as the best air cooler in its test and «whisper silent»: 61 °C over ambient with a 200 W limit, seven degrees below the DeepCool AK500. GamersNexus titled its review «The Champ».