Linux作者分享LinusTorvald最新开发机细节

Linux 作者 的主力开发计算机 CPU 最近英特尔切换到了 AMD，林納斯·托瓦茲 (Linus Torvalds)详细介绍了机器的细节，称他以前在换新电脑时通常会重复利用部分组件，如硬盘或机箱，但这一次新电脑都是全新组件。因新冠疫情，这一次都是从亚马逊上购买了零部件进行组装。
他上一台机器用的是 i9-9900k，新电脑替换为 32 核 64 线的 AMD 线程撕裂者 3970x，主板为技嘉 Aorus TRX40 Master，风扇是猫头鹰 NF-A14 PWM Premium Quiet Fan（Torvald 有点担忧水冷的可靠性，宁愿用空气冷却系统），机箱是德国黑豹的 Dark Base 700，额外的风扇 Silent Wings 3，电源是海韵 Focus GX-850，固态硬盘三星 1 TB EVO 970，临时用的内存是 4x16GB DDR4-2666（在寻找支持 ECC 的内存），显卡是 Sapphire RX580，操作系统为 Fedora 32。
以下是一些访谈中的原话：
First, he's already impressed by its performance:
"My 'allmodconfig' test builds are now three times faster than they used to be, which doesn't matter so much right now during the calming down period, but I will most definitely notice the upgrade during the next merge window," said Torvalds.
The AMD Threadripper 3970x comes with 32 cores. It's built using AMD's 7-nanometer "Zen 2" core architecture, and it boasts 88 PCIe 4.0. AMD claims it's up to 90% faster than its competition. Phoronix's independent tests found the "Threadripper 3970X absolutely dominates in performance and "outpaces the Core i9 10980XE."
Torvalds is a build-your-own box type of guy.
"I typically build all my own machines. Usually they are frankenboxes -- I'll re-use the case or the SSD from the previous machine or something like that. This time it was an all-new build," he said.
Why do it yourself?
"I don't like having others build my machine, partly because I have my own specs I care most about, but partly I get self-conscious about getting donations that I no longer really need," Torvalds said.
Before this latest build, his box was an i9-9900k. Normally, Torvalds would just pop into the local Fry's to pick up some of the more basic stuff directly, but with the virus, this time it was all from Amazon. The pieces came in over a few weeks (no more two-day shipping of computer parts these days); the last two pieces came last Friday.
So, here's Torvald's annotated hardware list:
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CPU
See it now:Ryzen Threadripper 3970X
"Initially, my plan was actually to do an AM4 board and just a Ryzen 3950X, which is the more mainstream upgrade," Torvalds said, but the "Ryzen 3950X would have been an upgrade over the Intel i9-9900K, but it would only have been an incremental one."
"Normally, I go for the regular consumer CPU's, since they tend to be the best bang for the buck, and in the case of Intel CPU's I actually like that they just have integrated graphics. I don't care about the GPU very much, so an integrated one is fine, and it avoids the worry about picking the right GPU and possible noise-levels from one with bad fans."
Torvalds went "back-and-forth about that for a while," because, as he said:
"The Threadripper power use made me worry about noise. But I decided to do a big upgrade because unlike the traditional Intel Xeon high-core-count platform, AMD's Threadripper series still falls in the 'good bang for the buck.' So I bit the bullet, and am so far quite pleased."
Motherboard
See it now: Gigabyte Aorus TRX40 Master
Here, Torvald's main concern was:
"A board that had what looked like good power delivery and fan control. In the builds I do, I really want the basics to be solid, and there's little more basic than power delivery. Long long ago I had a couple of systems that were unreliable due to power brown-out, and I've gotten religious about this now. So I look for something that is good for overclocking, and then I do _not_ overclock things."
In short, he wants a PC that can handle a heavy load, but he's not going to push the machine to its limits. That said, Torvalds absolutely detests:
"The default fan settings of this motherboard (very whiny small high-RPM fan for VRM [Voltage Regulator Module] cooling), but you can tweak the BIOS settings to something much better. Also note to anybody else: This is an E-ATX board, so it can be inconvenient in the wrong case."
Fan
See it now: Noctua NF-A14 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan
As you can tell, noise is a big issue for Torvalds. He cares deeply about it:
"So I want good fans and coolers, and I've had good experiences with Noctua before," Torvalds said. "The extra fan is because I like that push-pull setup, and with a big 140mm Noctua fan running at low speed, I'm not worried about noise levels. Even when it ramps up under load, I don't find the noise of those fans annoying. It's more of a soothing 'whoosh" white noise sound, none of the annoying whining or rattling that you get with bad fans."
CPU Cooler:
See it now: Noctua NH-U14S and Noctua NF-A15
Torvalds uses two CPU cooler fans. The NH-U14S is the main one, while the extra NF-A15 fan is for the push-pull configuration of that cooler.
With all his concern about noise, why not water-cooling, you ask?
"I'm not a fan of water-cooling. Reliability worries me, and I'm not convinced the AIO systems are any better than a good air cooling system. And the custom ones are way too much effort, and I worry about the pump and gurgling noises," Torvalds said.
Case
See it now:Be Quiet Dark Base 700
For the case, it's once again all about noise reduction.
"I like Noctua fans better than the Be Quiet ones for some reason. But Be Quiet would have been my second choice, and Noctua doesn't make cases," he said.
Extra fan
See it now:Silent Wings 3
Why an extra fan? Torvalds explained:
"The extra fan (the case comes with two already) is because I initially ordered the case, and then when looking at it I decided that it looks like the front intake looks more restricted than the back output (because of the front panel), and since I was waiting for other parts to be delivered anyway, I decided that an extra intake fan would be better for airflow, and hopefully cause positive case pressure and less worry about dust."
In the end, all the effort to make a quiet powerful PC was worth it.
"With the right fan control setup in the BIOS (and assuming you picked the right fan headers: The motherboard paper manual had horrible pictures and I got the CPU and system fan header the wrong way round for the first build), you have a machine that is basically silent when idling, and without any annoying whine (but not silent) under full load."
Power Supply Unit
See it now:Seasonic Focus GX-850
The GX-850 wasn't Torvald's first choice, but availability during the time of the coronavirus made it what it is, but "it should be solid," Torvalds said. He cares deeply about power delivery basics:
"I basically go 'what's the top power use of the machine?,' and then pick a power supply with a rating 2x that, and then look for reviews and reputable brands."
Storage
See it now: 1TB Samsung EVO 970
When it comes to storage, Torvalds is solid-state drives (SSD) all the way:
"I've refused to touch spinning media for over a decade by now, and for the last several generations I've tried to avoid the hassle with cabling, etc., by just going with an m.2 form factor. I've had several of the Samsung SSD's, they've been fine. A few generations ago there were lots of bad SSD's, these days it's much less of an issue, but I've stuck with what works for me."
Memory
See it now: 4x16GB DDR4-2666
RAM proved to be a sore spot for Torvalds:
"This is actually the least favorite part of the build for me -- it's fine memory, but I really wanted ECC [Error-correcting code} memory. I had a hard time finding anything [priced sanely] on Amazon, so this I feel is a temporary 'good enough for now' thing that works fine in practice."
Besides, he continued:
"I don't actually even need 64GB of RAM, since the stuff I do doesn't tend to be all that memory-intensive, but I wanted to populate all four memory channels, and RAM is cheap."
While games and artificial intelligence and machine learning developers care deeply about graphics, video and image processing doesn't interest Torvalds much. He used:
"Some random Sapphire RX580 graphics card. It's overkill for what I do (desktop use, no games)."
Linux
See it now:Fedora 32
That's it.
"Slap it all together, make sure you get all the fan settings right, and (in my case) install Fedora 32 on it, and you've got a fairly pleasant workstation," Torvalds said.
While for his main workstation, Torvalds builds his own, he also has cutting edge OEM PCs for "access to new technology that I might not otherwise have bought myself."
For his laptop, he uses a Dell XPS 13.
"Normally, Torvalds said, "I wouldn't name names, but I'm making an exception for the XPS 13 just because I liked it so much that I also ended up buying one for my daughter when she went off to college.