logicalincrements.com "Good" build and running XUbuntu

Earlier this month, I bought the parts to the "Good" build from logicalincrements.com.

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/beta0x64/saved/tFj9TW

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H

APU: Athlon X4 860K 64 bit 3.7 GHz FM2+ chipset

Gfx: Asus Radeon R9 270X 2 GB GDDR5

RAM: Crucial Ballistic Tactical 4 GB DDR3-1866

SSD: Samsung 120 GB SSD

All in all the total came out to about $650 since I wasn't willing to sign up for multiple random websites with my payment info..

The computer was pretty simple to put together. Took me a few hours. I was up and running within the same day.

The AMD Athlon processor comes with heat sink paste already applied, so you don't need a tube of arctic silver. The Corsair 200R case came with all the necessary screws. There's one stand-off toward the "top right" of the board (if it was standing up and facing the I/O shield like it would be installed).

Curiously this case has the power supply on the bottom of the machine. The BIOS/UEFI on the GA-F2A88X-D3H is very nice. It has lots of features. The "help" messages in the BIOS itself are a little mangled for English speakers, but it's mostly self-explanatory.

This computer is pretty nice, but there is definitely room for improvement.

I installed Ubuntu 15.04 on this, then I went back and installed XUbuntu 14.04.

Everything seems to work out of the box. I played some Elder Scrolls Oblivion and CS: GO.

Oblivion worked well in Ubuntu 15.04 and XUbuntu 14.04 on high settings with high resolution.

In Ubuntu 15.04, I could get ~100 FPS in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive without VSync, 1600x1200 resolution, mostly high settings, low quality shaders. The FPS would rubber band when the scoreboard was displayed ("tab key" in game).

In XUbuntu 14.04, I needed to lower my resolution. This might be due to some kind of driver issues. I seem to get around ~60 FPS.

This computer seems to have no problem emulating virtual machines as well.

One issue with this motherboard is that the lm-sensors package won't really detect the sensors properly for some reason.

The stock fans on this computer are quite loud. Also, the ballistix RAM lights up, which is an interesting feature that makes a nice backlight under my desk when the computer is running.