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Given the state of GPU drivers on Linux someone may end up capturing a bit of this market by launching a great AMD CPU+GPU laptop with a good Zen 2 APU or CPU+G

Given the state of GPU drivers on Linux someone may end up capturing a bit of this market by launching a great AMD CPU+GPU laptop with a good Zen 2 APU or CPU+GPU pairing. These days you end up having to choose good drivers but poor performance (Intel) or good performance but poor drivers (Nvidia)[1]. The open-source AMD drivers are supposedly finally good and Zen 2 a great CPU on the desktop. So I'd love a Lenovo X1 Carbon with AMD for my next laptop[2]. [1] Before anyone comes in to defend Nvidia, the closed-source drivers may be great for you but the closed-source nature of them means you have to jump through some hoops to install them and some things will simply not work properly (e.g., actual Wayland support) [2] Bonus points for 1) ECC RAM 2) 32GB+ total RAM 3) 2 or more full-speed SSD slots

soperj 7y ago
Just wondering, why the carbon? The X395 is equally light, and you can actually replace things.
- pedrocr 7y ago
  What can you actually replace on the X395 that you can't on the X1? RAM is now soldered and that used to be the only difference from what I remember. I currently have the T460s and like the size. The T495s would be the equivalent but looking at it they are all about the same size now. I thought the X395 would be smaller. Either way the X395 and T495 both have a maximum of 1080p screen. I have a 1440p and will never go back. In fact I want the X1 for the 4K screen and the beefier chassis. I'm on my third panel and they all develop white spots from the cover not being protective enough.
  - soperj 7y ago
    > RAM is now soldered Wow, really. Hadn't heard that. Complete bullshit.
  - ajacksified 7y ago
    Just bought an X1 Extreme gen 2, and immediately upgraded (aftermarket) to 64GB of RAM and 2x 1TB M.2 drives. Feels pretty good. Ubuntu install was very smooth. The only thing I hate is the super cheap-feeling keyboard.
    - pedrocr 7y ago
      The Extreme looks great on paper but I'm not sure I want to go up to that size of laptop. I'd have to handle it to figure out. Nvidia graphics make it a non-starter for me right now though.
  - angus-g 7y ago
    > I'm on my third panel and they all develop white spots from the cover not being protective enough. Is that what it's from!? My T450s screen is full of those spots...
twobat 7y ago
Before non-Linux people jump to conclusions from your reply: Intel GPUs work just as good (if not better) as in Windows. They are the best solution for a non-gaming laptop.
- pedrocr 7y ago
  The drivers are great as I mentioned, probably better than the Windows ones indeed. But the hardware is slow. Non-starter for gaming and for normal graphics they're also slow. Browsers are now becoming GPU accelerated and screen sizes larger. Driving the modern web at 4K is non-trivial.
  - KingMachiavelli 7y ago
    Modern Intel iGPUs are more than enough for browser acceleration. I mean the bigger issue is that that acceleration is most often disabled on Linux at least for chromium based browsers.
    - pedrocr 7y ago
      It's even worse for Firefox, although hopefully improving soon. You can definitely get away with an Intel GPU for general usage. We're talking about developer laptops though and there's definitely space for more GPU performance even if you're not doing gaming or ML. I've switched to a tiling WM in large part to reduce the GPU workload for example.
      - FeistySkink 7y ago
        I have a Thinkpad with an Intel GPU and it works just fine in Firefox on Linux with Gnome driving a 4K screen. This is my main development setup. Intel GPUs have been more than enough for non-gaming needs for years. I've no idea what these complaints are about. I don't do web development though. I would like my next setup to be AMD based though.
        pedrocr 7y ago
frozenport 7y ago
ECC ram on a laptop makes less sense as users are unlikely to run the kind of long jobs that get disrupted by memory errors. If you get a memory error, worst case your word processor will crash rather than loose weeks of molecular dynamics simulation.
neogodless 7y ago
EDIT: OP corrected comment - read below only out of idle curiosity! Minor fact-checking / naming correction. The CPU core architecture progression has been Zen, Zen+, Zen 2. The retail consumer desktop and laptop CPUs have been designated Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 with model numbers to help guide you on performance, but starting with a 3 (e.g. 3800X) in desktop CPU indicates Zen 2, while a 3 in mobile or desktop APU indicates Zen+. Current laptops are based on Zen+, including examples of Ryzen 5 3500U (low power/15W) and 3550H (medium power/35W) and Ryzen 7 3750H (high end). Many of us are excited for the release of Zen 2 based laptop chips, though!
- CoolGuySteve 7y ago
  The generation gap within mobile and desktop Ryzens of the same leading digit model number is really atrocious marketing. Almost like AMD is trying to take advantage of people by pretending mobile is a generation ahead. What purpose does it serve?
  - chao- 7y ago
    The purpose is to position products in a way that avoids a negative impression, in a manner that might impact sales. I would not be surprised to hear that OEMs view this quirk product positioning in a positive light. It doesn't take much to imagine a customer thinking to themselves "Why are the laptop CPUs only in the 2000's when the desktop CPUs are in the 3000's? I'll wait and buy later." So AMD wants to position the current-best available products in each market segment as the current generation numerically, branding-wise, without respect to manufacturing process details. Most consumers don't know what a "process" or "architecture" is anyway. Then the nerds who track these things, such as ourselves, will complain, but we won't be fooled by it. If that seems to you like taking advantage of people, then yes, that is exactly what they are doing. Intel dodges this problem (at least for the last 4-5 years) by shipping their mobile SKUs on a new march or process first, and the nerds waiting on DIY Desktop parts their "8th Gen" or "9th Gen" or whatever later.
- pedrocr 7y ago
  I know this and used the naming explicitly. I'm hoping for a Zen 2 X1 Carbon. The current Zen mobile CPUs are not yet competitive from what I've seen.
chao- 7y ago
I could not agree more. Among some of my professional contacts I am the person they go to for Linux advice (a role I am not sure that I deserve, to be frank). I try to help nonetheless, and over the last few years my attitude of "Well [this] could work or [that] could work" approach to GPUs has hardened into two hard-and-fast recommendations: 1. For laptops: Don't bother with a separate/discrete GPU. Or if you must because you dual-boot Windows to play games or what-not, just keep the dGPU disabled under Linux. 2. For desktops: Unless you need CUDA, get an AMD GPU for the drivers (a phrase that, once upon a time, I never thought I would say). I cannot speak from experience on AMD drivers for mobile APUs. However, their desktop GPU Linux drivers have impressed me the last few years, which gives me hope they can achieve the same level of stability for APUs, even if it has a time lag (e.g. Linux drivers get features 3-months after Windows-based Laptop SKUs are released). I'm still hanging on to an old Broadwell-based X1 Carbon. If Lenovo releases an X-series or T-series Thinkpad with the upcoming Renoir APU (Zen2-based) I'm am very likely to finally upgrade. Add an option for 32GB of RAM and it enters "Shut up and take my money" territory.
- bythckr 7y ago
  Sorry, but I have to ask as I dont know. Pls ELI5, what is special about Broadwell-based X1 Carbon? What is X1 offering now? How is XPS? Also how is the spec quality of system76 & purism?
  - chao- 7y ago
    Nothing is particularly special about the Broadwell X1, in that it isn't better than the subsequent models (thajt . It was, however, point where the X1 line hit its sweet spot and stabilized, while also having the first Intel iGPUs to have the oomph to drive multiple HiDPI displays for non-gaming workloads (technically Haswell did as well, but the Haswell X1 had an "experimental" keyboard design that utterly sucked, including a touch bar four years before Apple!). If you look at the X1 line since then, it hasn't changed much except incremental CPU upgrades (and that's a good thing, the design works!) and fixing an occasional generation that had lackluster speakers or a lackluster maximum screen brightness. In an era before Dell's "XPS Developer Edition" line hit its stride, one reason you would get a Thinkpad was that so many developers of Linux had one. As a Linux user (versus someone actively contributing to DEs, WMs, drivers, etc.) you benefited from their hard work put into fixing their personal annoyances with drivers. Remember this is coming out an era where the very idea of a Laptop's WiFi working in Linux was a dice roll. Issues still exist, for sure, but things really have improved since the 2000-2010 era. In every case, there is always a chance of warts. Picking a specific distro or DE or version thereof may still bring more pain than others. Nonetheless, my personal and direct experiences with Dell XPS (13-inch, no dGPU), Thinkpad X-series and T-series, and System 76, have all been positive since about 2015. Total number of systems configured and supported (loosely, for friends over time) with each is over 5 in each category. At work we have many System 76 Galago Pros in use. They do good work, and as others have noted you can get nice things like 32GB of RAM. The physical fit-and-finish is still a half-step lower than Dell and Lenovo (imo), but the overall value is good, and we still use them partly to support such an awesome, Linux-focused company. Again, there will be occasional warts [0], but far less than getting an MSI "gaming laptop" that has better hardware specs for cheaper, and trying to run Linux on it. It seems like a good deal, but then and after fighting Nvidia drivers for hours, you finally get into a working environment, only to find that keyboard function keys may never truly work (just one example among many, from many tier 2 brands, that I have personally helped troubleshoot), or some other deal-breaker in the experience. I have no direct experience with Purism, unfortunately. [0] An example of a random wart: even though I have helped set up four Thinkpads with Ubuntu-derived Distros (Mint, Elementary, Ubuntu itself, PopOS) in the last 2 years, a friend recently had issues with stock Debian on the latest X1 Carbon (I was not involved, but he is a Linux guy who knows what he is doing). Mint just works on that model, but he prefers the free-as-in-freedom of Debian and ran into some snags.
paulcarroty 7y ago
> defend Nvidia the closed-source drivers My NVidia experience was like: 1) System upgrade 2) NVidia driver falls 3) Revert old kernel/gcc/etc 4) GOTO 1 After doing this 5-10 times I had very strong feelings to break my NVidia GPU upon the wall, but sold it and never buy it again.
- sliken 7y ago
  Seriously, get a better linux distro. I support 100s of linux users, use laptops, desktops, and servers at home, work, family, etc. Some distros get this right (and very rarely have a problem) and others just don't get it at all.
Jnr 7y ago
I use Ryzen 5 2400G APU for my media box (Archlinux with Kodi) and it has been quite bad. I am disappointed that I spent money on it but I'm living with it and waiting for the software to improve. With 2400g a year ago I had frequent GPU driver crashes (daily). Now it crashes once a month or so. Running Steam and some light games was not possible at all (haven't tried recently) because it had terrible frame rates, shader and geometry glitches. Meanwhile on Windows it worked just fine. At the same time my experience with Nvidia on Archlinux has been very good. It has good performance and overall it works as it should. I had similar experience with AMD GPU drivers 10 years ago when I started using Linux so I stick to Nvidia. I would like to use AMD cards but the software seems to be absolute garbage. A have also had very good experience with Intel GPUs on Linux in laptops but they are not meant for gaming.
soulnothing 7y ago
Linux for laptop is intel or amd on gpu drivers. ECC is the stickler to my recollection. AMD apus don't support ECC. Xeons are usually bundled with NVIDIA cards, due to generally lacking on board video. The AMD RX5500M may change this https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-5500m https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-5500m But that won't fix ECC. Xeon is usually bundled with quadro or radeon pro. I've not heard of a radeon pro option. Barring ECC. I've got a first gen A485 2700u. Two NVMe drives, 32GB ram. With an option to go 64GB. Great Linux support. The trade off is weight. Since ryzen is not as power efficient at idle I need bigger batteries. Performance is next to an i5 8th gen u series. Ice lake is just shy of AMD apu performance last I looked. But more power efficient. I've moved on from a high performance laptop. I have an ITX build that fits into a camera case. For being a digital nomad. Then when at a coffee shop. I have a git lab instance in my home lab with CI/CD. Changes are committed automatically on save pushed and deployed to my home server. For testing code while I'm at the coffee shop. AMD and intel both haven been phenomenal for linux. I have a low profile AMD wx2100 for my portable ITX build. Perfect for non gaming. I miss Nvidia s performance edge. But not the driver mess.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  > I have an ITX build that fits into a camera case. For being a digital nomad. Then when at a coffee shop. So you bring a spare monitor with you to the coffee shop too?
dijit 7y ago
So, I bought a Dell Precision 5520 back in 2017 and I'm so impressed with the machine (despite the price tag) that I feel like I really have to chime in. 32GiB of ECC, 2TiB NVMe SSD (and an optional 2.5" SATA bay, but I opted for larger battery), 4k screen (although I took the 1080p), and an nvidia m1000 - but the Xeon inside has an iGPU. oh and it came with linux pre-installed. I have used the GPU as a renderer and I'm pleased to say that it also worked well under optirun/bumblebee. (although, I'm not a gamer, and this gfx card would not be as good as a GTX 1050 which was contemporary in the XPS line). Although when ramping the system at full tilt (CPU+GPU) the thermal solution is unable to keep up. iGPU means that my X11/Wayland doesn't break, and since I don't use the power of a discrete graphics card most of the time it works absolutely wonderfully. My only greivance with this hardware is that the black rubber-soft surface picks up hand grease super quickly-
- vlowther 7y ago
  Almost the same, except mine was a Precision 7520 -- no Xeon processor, no ECC, but an AMD Polaris 11 based dGPU. My general advice for Dells is to spring extra for the Precision laptops -- sure, they are heavier, but the build quality and ease of upgrades make it worth it. You can even claw some of that cash back by purchasing them via the outlet.dell.com -- it will be a return, but it will have the exact same warranty as a new one.

soperj 7y ago

Just wondering, why the carbon? The X395 is equally light, and you can actually replace things.

pedrocr 7y ago
What can you actually replace on the X395 that you can't on the X1? RAM is now soldered and that used to be the only difference from what I remember. I currently have the T460s and like the size. The T495s would be the equivalent but looking at it they are all about the same size now. I thought the X395 would be smaller. Either way the X395 and T495 both have a maximum of 1080p screen. I have a 1440p and will never go back. In fact I want the X1 for the 4K screen and the beefier chassis. I'm on my third panel and they all develop white spots from the cover not being protective enough.
- soperj 7y ago
  > RAM is now soldered Wow, really. Hadn't heard that. Complete bullshit.
- ajacksified 7y ago
  Just bought an X1 Extreme gen 2, and immediately upgraded (aftermarket) to 64GB of RAM and 2x 1TB M.2 drives. Feels pretty good. Ubuntu install was very smooth. The only thing I hate is the super cheap-feeling keyboard.
  - pedrocr 7y ago
    The Extreme looks great on paper but I'm not sure I want to go up to that size of laptop. I'd have to handle it to figure out. Nvidia graphics make it a non-starter for me right now though.
- angus-g 7y ago
  > I'm on my third panel and they all develop white spots from the cover not being protective enough. Is that what it's from!? My T450s screen is full of those spots...

twobat 7y ago

Before non-Linux people jump to conclusions from your reply: Intel GPUs work just as good (if not better) as in Windows. They are the best solution for a non-gaming laptop.

pedrocr 7y ago
The drivers are great as I mentioned, probably better than the Windows ones indeed. But the hardware is slow. Non-starter for gaming and for normal graphics they're also slow. Browsers are now becoming GPU accelerated and screen sizes larger. Driving the modern web at 4K is non-trivial.
- KingMachiavelli 7y ago
  Modern Intel iGPUs are more than enough for browser acceleration. I mean the bigger issue is that that acceleration is most often disabled on Linux at least for chromium based browsers.
  - pedrocr 7y ago
    It's even worse for Firefox, although hopefully improving soon. You can definitely get away with an Intel GPU for general usage. We're talking about developer laptops though and there's definitely space for more GPU performance even if you're not doing gaming or ML. I've switched to a tiling WM in large part to reduce the GPU workload for example.
    - FeistySkink 7y ago
      I have a Thinkpad with an Intel GPU and it works just fine in Firefox on Linux with Gnome driving a 4K screen. This is my main development setup. Intel GPUs have been more than enough for non-gaming needs for years. I've no idea what these complaints are about. I don't do web development though. I would like my next setup to be AMD based though.
      - pedrocr 7y ago

frozenport 7y ago

ECC ram on a laptop makes less sense as users are unlikely to run the kind of long jobs that get disrupted by memory errors. If you get a memory error, worst case your word processor will crash rather than loose weeks of molecular dynamics simulation.

neogodless 7y ago

EDIT: OP corrected comment - read below only out of idle curiosity! Minor fact-checking / naming correction. The CPU core architecture progression has been Zen, Zen+, Zen 2. The retail consumer desktop and laptop CPUs have been designated Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7 with model numbers to help guide you on performance, but starting with a 3 (e.g. 3800X) in desktop CPU indicates Zen 2, while a 3 in mobile or desktop APU indicates Zen+. Current laptops are based on Zen+, including examples of Ryzen 5 3500U (low power/15W) and 3550H (medium power/35W) and Ryzen 7 3750H (high end). Many of us are excited for the release of Zen 2 based laptop chips, though!

CoolGuySteve 7y ago
The generation gap within mobile and desktop Ryzens of the same leading digit model number is really atrocious marketing. Almost like AMD is trying to take advantage of people by pretending mobile is a generation ahead. What purpose does it serve?
- chao- 7y ago
  The purpose is to position products in a way that avoids a negative impression, in a manner that might impact sales. I would not be surprised to hear that OEMs view this quirk product positioning in a positive light. It doesn't take much to imagine a customer thinking to themselves "Why are the laptop CPUs only in the 2000's when the desktop CPUs are in the 3000's? I'll wait and buy later." So AMD wants to position the current-best available products in each market segment as the current generation numerically, branding-wise, without respect to manufacturing process details. Most consumers don't know what a "process" or "architecture" is anyway. Then the nerds who track these things, such as ourselves, will complain, but we won't be fooled by it. If that seems to you like taking advantage of people, then yes, that is exactly what they are doing. Intel dodges this problem (at least for the last 4-5 years) by shipping their mobile SKUs on a new march or process first, and the nerds waiting on DIY Desktop parts their "8th Gen" or "9th Gen" or whatever later.
pedrocr 7y ago
I know this and used the naming explicitly. I'm hoping for a Zen 2 X1 Carbon. The current Zen mobile CPUs are not yet competitive from what I've seen.

chao- 7y ago

I could not agree more. Among some of my professional contacts I am the person they go to for Linux advice (a role I am not sure that I deserve, to be frank). I try to help nonetheless, and over the last few years my attitude of "Well [this] could work or [that] could work" approach to GPUs has hardened into two hard-and-fast recommendations: 1. For laptops: Don't bother with a separate/discrete GPU. Or if you must because you dual-boot Windows to play games or what-not, just keep the dGPU disabled under Linux. 2. For desktops: Unless you need CUDA, get an AMD GPU for the drivers (a phrase that, once upon a time, I never thought I would say). I cannot speak from experience on AMD drivers for mobile APUs. However, their desktop GPU Linux drivers have impressed me the last few years, which gives me hope they can achieve the same level of stability for APUs, even if it has a time lag (e.g. Linux drivers get features 3-months after Windows-based Laptop SKUs are released). I'm still hanging on to an old Broadwell-based X1 Carbon. If Lenovo releases an X-series or T-series Thinkpad with the upcoming Renoir APU (Zen2-based) I'm am very likely to finally upgrade. Add an option for 32GB of RAM and it enters "Shut up and take my money" territory.

bythckr 7y ago
Sorry, but I have to ask as I dont know. Pls ELI5, what is special about Broadwell-based X1 Carbon? What is X1 offering now? How is XPS? Also how is the spec quality of system76 & purism?
- chao- 7y ago
  Nothing is particularly special about the Broadwell X1, in that it isn't better than the subsequent models (thajt . It was, however, point where the X1 line hit its sweet spot and stabilized, while also having the first Intel iGPUs to have the oomph to drive multiple HiDPI displays for non-gaming workloads (technically Haswell did as well, but the Haswell X1 had an "experimental" keyboard design that utterly sucked, including a touch bar four years before Apple!). If you look at the X1 line since then, it hasn't changed much except incremental CPU upgrades (and that's a good thing, the design works!) and fixing an occasional generation that had lackluster speakers or a lackluster maximum screen brightness. In an era before Dell's "XPS Developer Edition" line hit its stride, one reason you would get a Thinkpad was that so many developers of Linux had one. As a Linux user (versus someone actively contributing to DEs, WMs, drivers, etc.) you benefited from their hard work put into fixing their personal annoyances with drivers. Remember this is coming out an era where the very idea of a Laptop's WiFi working in Linux was a dice roll. Issues still exist, for sure, but things really have improved since the 2000-2010 era. In every case, there is always a chance of warts. Picking a specific distro or DE or version thereof may still bring more pain than others. Nonetheless, my personal and direct experiences with Dell XPS (13-inch, no dGPU), Thinkpad X-series and T-series, and System 76, have all been positive since about 2015. Total number of systems configured and supported (loosely, for friends over time) with each is over 5 in each category. At work we have many System 76 Galago Pros in use. They do good work, and as others have noted you can get nice things like 32GB of RAM. The physical fit-and-finish is still a half-step lower than Dell and Lenovo (imo), but the overall value is good, and we still use them partly to support such an awesome, Linux-focused company. Again, there will be occasional warts [0], but far less than getting an MSI "gaming laptop" that has better hardware specs for cheaper, and trying to run Linux on it. It seems like a good deal, but then and after fighting Nvidia drivers for hours, you finally get into a working environment, only to find that keyboard function keys may never truly work (just one example among many, from many tier 2 brands, that I have personally helped troubleshoot), or some other deal-breaker in the experience. I have no direct experience with Purism, unfortunately. [0] An example of a random wart: even though I have helped set up four Thinkpads with Ubuntu-derived Distros (Mint, Elementary, Ubuntu itself, PopOS) in the last 2 years, a friend recently had issues with stock Debian on the latest X1 Carbon (I was not involved, but he is a Linux guy who knows what he is doing). Mint just works on that model, but he prefers the free-as-in-freedom of Debian and ran into some snags.

paulcarroty 7y ago

> defend Nvidia the closed-source drivers My NVidia experience was like: 1) System upgrade 2) NVidia driver falls 3) Revert old kernel/gcc/etc 4) GOTO 1 After doing this 5-10 times I had very strong feelings to break my NVidia GPU upon the wall, but sold it and never buy it again.

sliken 7y ago
Seriously, get a better linux distro. I support 100s of linux users, use laptops, desktops, and servers at home, work, family, etc. Some distros get this right (and very rarely have a problem) and others just don't get it at all.

Jnr 7y ago

I use Ryzen 5 2400G APU for my media box (Archlinux with Kodi) and it has been quite bad. I am disappointed that I spent money on it but I'm living with it and waiting for the software to improve. With 2400g a year ago I had frequent GPU driver crashes (daily). Now it crashes once a month or so. Running Steam and some light games was not possible at all (haven't tried recently) because it had terrible frame rates, shader and geometry glitches. Meanwhile on Windows it worked just fine. At the same time my experience with Nvidia on Archlinux has been very good. It has good performance and overall it works as it should. I had similar experience with AMD GPU drivers 10 years ago when I started using Linux so I stick to Nvidia. I would like to use AMD cards but the software seems to be absolute garbage. A have also had very good experience with Intel GPUs on Linux in laptops but they are not meant for gaming.

soulnothing 7y ago

Linux for laptop is intel or amd on gpu drivers. ECC is the stickler to my recollection. AMD apus don't support ECC. Xeons are usually bundled with NVIDIA cards, due to generally lacking on board video. The AMD RX5500M may change this https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-5500m https://www.amd.com/en/products/graphics/amd-radeon-rx-5500m But that won't fix ECC. Xeon is usually bundled with quadro or radeon pro. I've not heard of a radeon pro option. Barring ECC. I've got a first gen A485 2700u. Two NVMe drives, 32GB ram. With an option to go 64GB. Great Linux support. The trade off is weight. Since ryzen is not as power efficient at idle I need bigger batteries. Performance is next to an i5 8th gen u series. Ice lake is just shy of AMD apu performance last I looked. But more power efficient. I've moved on from a high performance laptop. I have an ITX build that fits into a camera case. For being a digital nomad. Then when at a coffee shop. I have a git lab instance in my home lab with CI/CD. Changes are committed automatically on save pushed and deployed to my home server. For testing code while I'm at the coffee shop. AMD and intel both haven been phenomenal for linux. I have a low profile AMD wx2100 for my portable ITX build. Perfect for non gaming. I miss Nvidia s performance edge. But not the driver mess.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
> I have an ITX build that fits into a camera case. For being a digital nomad. Then when at a coffee shop. So you bring a spare monitor with you to the coffee shop too?

dijit 7y ago

So, I bought a Dell Precision 5520 back in 2017 and I'm so impressed with the machine (despite the price tag) that I feel like I really have to chime in. 32GiB of ECC, 2TiB NVMe SSD (and an optional 2.5" SATA bay, but I opted for larger battery), 4k screen (although I took the 1080p), and an nvidia m1000 - but the Xeon inside has an iGPU. oh and it came with linux pre-installed. I have used the GPU as a renderer and I'm pleased to say that it also worked well under optirun/bumblebee. (although, I'm not a gamer, and this gfx card would not be as good as a GTX 1050 which was contemporary in the XPS line). Although when ramping the system at full tilt (CPU+GPU) the thermal solution is unable to keep up. iGPU means that my X11/Wayland doesn't break, and since I don't use the power of a discrete graphics card most of the time it works absolutely wonderfully. My only greivance with this hardware is that the black rubber-soft surface picks up hand grease super quickly-

vlowther 7y ago
Almost the same, except mine was a Precision 7520 -- no Xeon processor, no ECC, but an AMD Polaris 11 based dGPU. My general advice for Dells is to spring extra for the Precision laptops -- sure, they are heavier, but the build quality and ease of upgrades make it worth it. You can even claw some of that cash back by purchasing them via the outlet.dell.com -- it will be a return, but it will have the exact same warranty as a new one.