I was hyped for the gabecube but the delays and uncertainty around the pricing have left me wanting to build something that fits a similar niche instead. A Linux box (bazzite or steam OS, haven't made my mind up about that yet) that will keep up for the foreseeable future while being repairable, upgradeable, and (preferably) a small-smallish form factor to sit on top of my media center. That's the big picture for me. However, I've never built a PC before and I'm not sure what that looks like in practice.
I'm looking for advice and hardware suggestions on how to achieve this, I haven't set a budget because I'm not sure what's realistic, and having a reliable system is imore mportant to me, but I'm also pragmatic and don't want to overdo things just because. Below is relevant information and performance goals/questions in no particular order
I'm currently using my steam deck on a dock to fill this niche and it does ok, but it struggles with some titles and the graphics aren't always great when blown up on my TV. I have a 4k TV with a 60hz refresh rate. I want to build a system that can hold a stable 60fps on high settings for most games. Not sure about resolution, either 1080p or 1440p. I struggle with small text in a lot of modern titles (especially sitting ~8 ft away on the couch) and I've read that 1440p can help with that. I also do couch co-op fairly regularly and want support for 4 controllers that are a combination of Bluetooth and 2.4g. Since it'll be a Linux machine I know AMD is the way to go, but that's about as far as my hardware knowledge extends. I'm ok with buying second hand, and I'm fine with using framegen and upscaling to smooth things out.
Does 1440p make much of a difference, and is the higher hardware demand worth it? If so, what's the best bang for your buck CPU/GPU that could reliably achieve 1080/1440 @ 60fps, and do so for the next few years?
How much/what kind of RAM do I realistically need?
How on earth do I pick a motherboard? Lol
Thanks for reading!