For a heavy duty gaming PC that you want to last many years without having to touch hardware again, I’d recommend 32GB RAM and most definitely go nvme SSD drives (not SATA). No spinning rust drives unless you have a specific use case for media or archive storage.

As far as the cpu and video card, unless you plan to heavily get into ray tracing in games or play with (gag) “AI”, AMD will be great for both.

I’d recommend Mint or PopOS for a starter distribution. I do not recommend Bazzite to newbies because an immutable distro adds another level of learning concepts you don’t need at the beginning.

Meta: Deleted and blocked on my network for 10 years running!

Acting on your principles isn’t always easy.

I am addicted to brake fluid being in the brake lines of my vehicles.

I’ve heard it can cause problems in some models, so people need to do their research. With my truck it’s dead easy and are no drawbacks.

Remove the cellular modem.

Posting in solidarity. I don’t have an answer but I share all your concerns and would love to know if there are options for this as well. Until such a time as a relatively trustworthy option exists I’ll be avoiding it the same as you.

They sell your data.

Hate to say it but I agree with bilb, you might need to stick with windows. I tried Linux on a hybrid graphics laptop a few years ago and it was a disaster. I did get a handful of games to work but nothing that would actually push the graphics card. It was more trouble than it was worth.

I know it doesn’t help you, but on desktop with AMD it’s been smooth sailing .

I’ve got that Friday feeling.

I get it every day.

If you cared about privacy you wouldn’t be using any Google products.

I can’t delete something I never installed.

Wtf? I weep for humanity.