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windows because of the drivers I need(ed) i could switch to linux and am going to since I have heard custom builds like mine will be subject to reduced performance in gaming in Windows 11.

Windows is going to fuck our hard drives up long story short, so may as well get out before the storm.

I have my eyes on a few distros and have flashed a couple before but I want to make a super clean flash, does the quality of the flash drive matter? was debating getting a brand new USB 3.1 to make use of the fastest speed my motherboard has when installing linux.

I'm computer illiterate, I had somebody walk me through installing it on my box.
I don't know much about it.
I do like linux mint, works as well as I need it to.

Sometimes my hard drive goes crazy and I haven't figured out what is happening.

Mint was recommended to me too, I am curious more so myself about the distros that come with Steam pre-installed for gaming as well as both AMD and Nvidia drivers so either brand of gpu would be plug and play.