u/Dry-Sundae3807

So I just ordered a Framework Laptop 16 with a 7840HS and 16 GB of Crucial RAM from eBay.

I have used many, many different Linux distros, and each one had there up's and downs. I'm looking for the real "best distro" for me. My use case will be gaming with Steam, Minecraft, Blender, QuixelMixer, if possible, and maybe Substance 3D Painter in the future, as well as using VS Code to mod BeamNG.Drive, and I would love to have a lossless scaling option with a graphical interface instead of Steam launch commands.

I have heard that CachyOS is great for gaming, Ubuntu is good for beginners, Kali Linux is great for cybersecurity, Linux Mint is a good all-rounder, and Kubuntu/KDE is for Windows users.

If it is not possible to do all of these things together, and have little to no issues, then I am fine with using Windows.

I was initially looking at the framework 13, but for my uses, it just wouldn't suffice, so that's when I settled on spending the extra money on the framework 16. I plan to get the basic framework 16 with the 7840hs, and later add a GPU. Is the F16 really worth the money, or should I just settle for a Lenovo P16 G2? My use cases for the laptop are Blender, Quixel Mixer, Substance 3d Painter, BeamNG.Drive, KiCad, Solidworks, as well as some light gaming like DS3 or Assetto Corsa

• Total budget (in local currency) and country of purchase. Please do not use USD unless purchasing in the US:
• 1100 USD MAX and 700 USD Minimum
• Are you open to refurbs/used?
• Yes, preferably no eBay used/refurbs unless it is a big seller
• How would you prioritize form factor (ultrabook, 2-in-1, etc.), build quality, performance, and battery life?
• No 2-in-1, and decent battery life.
• How important is weight and thinness to you?
• Not important, I prioritize cooling
• Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A.
• 15" and up
• Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run.
• Blender, Freecad, Quixel Mixer, Maybe Substance 3D Painter, BeamNG.Drive, Farming Simulator, And VSCode.
• If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want?
• Settings don't matter, at least 20 fps
• Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)?
• It needs to be of very good build quality. I would also prefer physical buttons on the touchpad instead of a normal touchpad, but this is not a 100% must. Some sort of dedicated GPU is a must, as well as 16 GB of RAM.
• Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion.
• I don't care about looks, I care about how long it will last, the repairability, and the cooling under sustained loads. I prioritize everything over performance. I was looking at a Dell Precision 7760, but I have heard they can run very hot and may need thermal pads to do sustained loads.

So I'm currently looking at an excellent refurbished Dell Precision 5570 for 900. It has an A2000 8 GB, a 12800h CPU, and a 4k touchscreen, as well as a 1 TB NVMe SSD, and 32 GB of DDR5. Will it have bad overheating issues? i plan on playing BeamNG, Blender/Quixel Mixer, VSCode, as well as Farming Simulator.

So I was really planning on getting a Framework 13 with the 7640u, and getting some DDR5 off of eBay, and using my own SSD. However, after running the numbers, it would come out to around 1000 for a pretty basic laptop. After looking on Amazon for a while, I found quite a few laptops that were way better than the Framework 13. For only $800, you could get a 4050, a 13420h CPU, and 16 GB of RAM, compared to the framework at almost $1,000 with the same amount of RAM, no SSD, a slightly better CPU, and no dedicated GPU. I love the fact that I can upgrade in the future, but I feel like it would be more cost-effective to just buy a new laptop. Any ideas or recommendations on why I should go with the Framework 13, or is the simple answer that I should just buy the laptop off Amazon?