10 ms·

Even with a $199 Laptop, Clear Linux Can Offer Superior Performance

172 points by bsg75 7y ago

drewg123 7y ago
This is their second recent article about linux laptops, and I have seen no mention of battery life. While its nice to have a 15% faster OS, I would also like to know how the battery life differs between various distros (and Windows).
- cgh 7y ago
  It looks like the Clear Linux Github has some code related to power management: https://github.com/clearlinux/clr-power-tweaks https://github.com/clearlinux/clr-power-tweaks const char doc[] = "Power Tweaks -- adjusts runtime kernel options for optimal power and performance";
- dyingkneepad 7y ago
  I should note that power and performance are not opposites. Good power management ensures you don't waste power, which helps you draw all you need when you need it by the component that needs it. Good power management often helps overall performance. One thing that it often works against is latency, because it takes time to wake up things that are sleeping. But that is really not something you should care about if you're using a laptop. Your laptop is not servicing Google search results.
  - papermachete 7y ago
    Performance is a solved problem nowadays, latency isn't. Especially with cloud-based software being pushed. The benefits of a tweaked linux kernel, such as liquorix are easy to spot. Yes, slightly reduced brute performance but large leaps in smoothness.
  - drewg123 7y ago
    Yes, it often does in a broad sense. But there is a lot more to power management. Things like putting busses and devices into low power states when idle, and batching up I/O so that devices can spend most of their time in low-power states. Scheduler tweaks to idle most of the cores, etc.
- lllr_finger 7y ago
  My anecdotal evidence after searching for the "perfect" laptop OS across 2 laptops and various BSDs, a dozen Linux distros, etc.: the best power tuning you can do will still only get you around 85-90% of what you can in Windows (with no tweaks).
  - tedunangst 7y ago
    I think this is generally true until you discover Windows Defender or the Logitech Updater or whatever has lost its mind and been spinning on CPU for the past three hours and now your battery is dead. I have a surface with pretty great battery life, but it's also rather fickle and you can lose hours of runtime because it slept on a pea.
  - tluyben2 7y ago
    Anecdotal as well; on my X220 and GPD Pocket 1, I get over 40% more battery life under Linux than under Windows. Especially on the Pocket the difference is extreme. I do not use virus scanners (including win defender) on either platform and I check task manager/top etc regularly to optimise. On my Surface Go battery life on Linux is also better than under Win, not as extreme as on the other 2 devices, but significant.
- nickjj 7y ago
  I've been running native Linux on a $299 2015 Chromebook[0] for years and I get about 5 hours of casual programming, Youtube, browsing, etc.. In practice it works really nicely for what I use it for. A temporary portable computing device that isn't my main workstation but still gets a lot of use. [0]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromebook-cb35-into-a-linux-development-environment-with-galliumos https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...
- xioxox 7y ago
  I get excellent 8-10 hr lifetime on a Lenovo X1 Carbon and a Dell Inspiron 7590 with Ubuntu.
  - DanCarvajal 7y ago
    Too me the X1 Carbon is a 16:10 aspect ratio screen away from being the perfect laptop.
    - ngcc_hk 7y ago
      Want to get a linux notebook for running Ubuntu 18 Lts for my projects on fpga. Wonder carbon is ok as I like their keyboard but keyboard only. Need thunderbolt for my AI part as well.
bxparks 7y ago
Is 4GB enough with the current web browsers and web pages? It feels like 8GB is the minimum for normal users, and 16GB is the minimum for software developers. I have a 4GB Chromebook and a 4GB MacBookAir, and they are both somewhat painful to use these days, even with ad blockers.
- lberk 7y ago
  Which browser? I've had zero problems with 4GB laptops when avoiding Chrome
  - themodelplumber 7y ago
    Which Chrome-avoidant browser?
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
      Firefox, IE, Safari, or Edge (but not Edge Beta) to name a few. IIRC, there's Pale Moon or something else based off Firefox as well.
  - bxparks 7y ago
    Can't avoid Chrome on a Chromebook. On the MBA, I use Chrome as well. I've migrated to Firefox on my Windows and Linux laptops, but I thought Firefox had battery issues on MacOS. I usually keep about 5-7 pinned tabs open (Gmail, Contact, Calendar, Keep, Drive, HackerNews, etc) and cycle through ~3-7 transient tabs, and I find that the browsing experience is not enjoyable on 4GB machines anymore.
    - lberk 7y ago
      I don't have any distinct cpu/memory/battery profiling datasets to provide anything but a personal anecdote. I dropped Chrome due to general laptop responsiveness in favour of a combo of Firefox with AdNausem and Privacy Badger. Which, has worked fine for my use (not noticed any adverse battery effects but I've also not been actively monitoring), though I don't use nearly the number of google services you've listed. Your results may differ, I've heard mixed reviews (again, anecdotally, so take with a grain of salt) of google services in firefox and safari.
bitL 7y ago
Intel really hit the jackpot with Clear Linux, it's the best performing distro for Machine Learning/Deep Learning now, often being 30% faster than regular distros like Ubuntu. Not sure how they did it, but I am enjoying it very much! Thanks!
- mixmastamyk 7y ago
  Consensus above is performance governor and compiler flags.
zaat 7y ago
I have no idea why phoronix isn't highlighting the reason for Clear Linux superior performance, it isn't magic: Clear Linux OS sets the CPU governor to performance which calls for the CPU to operate at maximum clock frequency. In other words, P-state P0. While this may sound wasteful at first, it is important to remember that power utilization does not increase significantly simply because of a locked clock frequency without a workload. from: https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu-performance.html https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu... The only reference in the article for this is in the compiler details box, where you can see that all the distributions run the ondemand governor, and Clear runs with performance.
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  So, what's the catch? Why doesn't everybody do that?
  - themodelplumber 7y ago
    Had to guess: Perhaps Linux users are more comfortable keeping an eye on the CPU meter, and generally knowing what their apps are requiring of the computer. If you can be bothered with that there's no reason to mind the CPU maximums automatically, and maybe CPU capacity is even more important to you than battery life.
  - zaat 7y ago
    Most people doesn't care for maxing the performance of their CPU most of the time, and they care more about power consumption. This is why that's the default on Windows too. Also, if everybody would do it it will have impact on global power consumption. Anyone can change the governor if they want, it isn't complicated. Phoronix also could have change the governor and benchmark using the same governor, but for some reason he choose not to. This isn't the first time he does it, the comparison is a repeated theme in a series of articles he made. Unless I miss something, which very well could be, this doesn't reflect well on the site professional credibility.
    - deleted 7y ago
Neil44 7y ago
I'm really surprised that the OS makes so much difference to CPU bound tasks.
- axaxs 7y ago
  Not to discredit Clear's work at all, but it's not so much the 'OS' in standard parlance, it's still just another Linux distro. It's down to compiler flags and optimizations, which generally anyone can do given they have the time and patience.
dlbucci 7y ago
I was just thinking about this this morning. I feel like any time I update the OS on a device it gets slower, and was wondering if there was some OS focused on being fast (and hopefully battery-efficient). Maybe I'll have to try throwing Clear Linux on my old 2011 notebook and seeing how it does!
- OrangeMango 7y ago
  What processor does it have? I have Clear Linux running on a Haswell Core i7 and it's great, but it doesn't run on a Core2Duo I've got laying around. Also, it needs EFI booting - not sure yours is new enough for that.
  - cgh 7y ago
    Interesting, good to know re the Core2Duo. I have an ancient Thinkpad T61p that I was going to try this out on as speed differences on hardware that old become obvious. But I guess I'll stick with Fedora.
    - soylentcola 7y ago
      That's what I was also wondering. I've got an old Lenovo SL500 with a C2D/3GB RAM sitting behind my TV for streaming/web browsing. Currently got Mint/MATE running on it (I know it's not the fastest thing around, it was just a quick setup for something basic and not too visually "offputting" for others in the house). The hardware is old, sure, but I don't need it badly enough to justify building/buying something else and I had it laying around from the mid-2000's when I was testing WiMAX rollout in my city. Figured it would get a bit more use instead of living on the "old hardware" shelf (shelves) in the basement.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > I feel like any time I update the OS on a device it gets slower Never had this problem on Debian Linux, FWIW - even when upgrading to a new release. Of course sometimes stuff gets marginally slower due to new security mitigations or whatever, but not in a way that's even perceptible, let alone catastrophic.
gen3 7y ago
What makes Clear Linux so much faster then other distributions?
- dyingkneepad 7y ago
  I may be wrong here, but as far as I understand one of the major advantages is simply that they have many versions of certain important libraries in your system and are able to select the one that better matches your hardware. Most distros are super generic and none of the system libraries are making use of instructions that are not present in all of the x86-64 machines ever released. It makes me really sad that other distros are not following Clear's lead here.
  - gtirloni 7y ago
    Well, Stampede Linux had this more than a decade ago and it wasn't a big enough differentiator.
  - bitwize 7y ago
    Other (binary) distros are solving for a different problem: providing a good-enough generic base that runs on most systems. If you want everything micro-optimized to your particular system's hardware configuration, you know where to find Gentoo.
    - zlynx 7y ago
      Although Clear does it with prebuilt binary libraries. No need to compile your own.
  - pavon 7y ago
    I'm pretty sure Clear only has a single build target. For example, their RPM repository[1], only has a single arch (x86_64) and a single RPM for each package. I think it is mostly that they (1) invested effort in maxing out the optimization flags for all the libraries (2) have a higher minimum CPU requirements (must support SSE 4.2, which was first released ~10 years ago). But yes, I agree it would be nice if other distros had two amd64 releases; one that targeted newer hardware, and another for lowest-common denominator. [1] https://cdn.download.clearlinux.org/releases/32250/clear/x86_64/os/Packages/ https://cdn.download.clearlinux.org/releases/32250/clear/x86...
metalliqaz 7y ago
It would be interesting to see how it fares against Peppermint, which is known for working really well on low-end hardware. Also, I'm curious if Clear Linux is also fast on hardware that is slow not because it is cheap but because it is old. Would it speed up my Core2Duo laptop?
zh3 7y ago
It's more aout getting rid of what slows you down (bloatware/fat distros) than it is about linux (the kernel) itself. Who else finds that animations/smooth scrolling just breaks the flow/gets in the way?
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Smooth animation can be critically important when dragging, swiping or performing "fine" scrolling motions, either with a mouse/touchpad or on a touchscreen. Because then lags and freezes are what "gets in the way" and breaks the flow. Otherwise, yes, most animations just add latency for no good reason.
  - hazeii 7y ago
    Interesting point to discuss, because I find animations etc slow things down and for me that breaks flow (if I'm using sharp tools, I want instant response).
- simlevesque 7y ago
  I do. I disable animations on my Android phone and my desktop OS is animation-free.
- papermachete 7y ago
  Does bloat even apply nowadays to Linux? On arch you can compile and optimise your software well and ryzens have upwards of 256KB instruction cache.
- fctorial 7y ago
  > Who else finds that animations/smooth scrolling just breaks the flow/gets in the way? It improves ux by hiding the latency behind visual transformations.
- gburdell3 7y ago
  I am entirely the opposite. I find that a lack of animations breaks the flow. I also tend to prefer a "nicer" UX over pure speed and efficiency.
haunter 7y ago
This might sound stupid but does that also affect gaming performance, or simply Wine and/or Proton?
stiray 7y ago
Intel probably just compiled it with their own compiler, purpose built for their cpus. But with distros I dont care about speed (unless something insane is going on like thermald on thinkpads) but rather how much hardware works well (giving a sharp stare to lenovo and their fingerprint readers in thinkpad series).
- Tomte 7y ago
  That laptop has an AMD processor.
ebg13 7y ago
And it does that largely by disabling all thermal management. Thanks, but...
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AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
It's worth noting that the $199 price tag for this laptop may be inaccurate or temporary. I looked it up on Wal-Mart's website just a moment ago and it shows $279, marked down from $500: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-Rose-FHD-4GB-display-AMD-128GB-Tuned-Camera-Radeon-14-Ryzen-Gold-720P-THX-Graphics-IR-SSD-Laptop-3-MOTILE-Spatial-Performance-Aud/708573214 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-Rose-FHD-4GB-... Not saying it wasn't $200 at the time he bought it, just saying that he might've bought it on sale (there was probably a bunch of Linux enthusiasts clamoring, "There's a laptop on sale for $200 at Wal-Mart that can run Linux!"); it doesn't appear to be its retail price anymore.
RachelF 7y ago
It will be interesting to see how these benchmarks look with more memory. Could it be that Windows just eats more base memory than Linux, and the benchmark apps do not have enough memory to run under Windows?
Paraesthetic 7y ago
Yeah that's great and all until you want to play any decent game then its not supported or chews 1 million gigawatts of power. Yay for performance mode!

172 points by bsg75 7y ago

This is their second recent article about linux laptops, and I have seen no mention of battery life. While its nice to have a 15% faster OS, I would also like to know how the battery life differs between various distros (and Windows).

cgh 7y ago
It looks like the Clear Linux Github has some code related to power management: https://github.com/clearlinux/clr-power-tweaks https://github.com/clearlinux/clr-power-tweaks const char doc[] = "Power Tweaks -- adjusts runtime kernel options for optimal power and performance";
dyingkneepad 7y ago
I should note that power and performance are not opposites. Good power management ensures you don't waste power, which helps you draw all you need when you need it by the component that needs it. Good power management often helps overall performance. One thing that it often works against is latency, because it takes time to wake up things that are sleeping. But that is really not something you should care about if you're using a laptop. Your laptop is not servicing Google search results.
- papermachete 7y ago
  Performance is a solved problem nowadays, latency isn't. Especially with cloud-based software being pushed. The benefits of a tweaked linux kernel, such as liquorix are easy to spot. Yes, slightly reduced brute performance but large leaps in smoothness.
- drewg123 7y ago
  Yes, it often does in a broad sense. But there is a lot more to power management. Things like putting busses and devices into low power states when idle, and batching up I/O so that devices can spend most of their time in low-power states. Scheduler tweaks to idle most of the cores, etc.
lllr_finger 7y ago
My anecdotal evidence after searching for the "perfect" laptop OS across 2 laptops and various BSDs, a dozen Linux distros, etc.: the best power tuning you can do will still only get you around 85-90% of what you can in Windows (with no tweaks).
- tedunangst 7y ago
  I think this is generally true until you discover Windows Defender or the Logitech Updater or whatever has lost its mind and been spinning on CPU for the past three hours and now your battery is dead. I have a surface with pretty great battery life, but it's also rather fickle and you can lose hours of runtime because it slept on a pea.
- tluyben2 7y ago
  Anecdotal as well; on my X220 and GPD Pocket 1, I get over 40% more battery life under Linux than under Windows. Especially on the Pocket the difference is extreme. I do not use virus scanners (including win defender) on either platform and I check task manager/top etc regularly to optimise. On my Surface Go battery life on Linux is also better than under Win, not as extreme as on the other 2 devices, but significant.
nickjj 7y ago
I've been running native Linux on a $299 2015 Chromebook[0] for years and I get about 5 hours of casual programming, Youtube, browsing, etc.. In practice it works really nicely for what I use it for. A temporary portable computing device that isn't my main workstation but still gets a lot of use. [0]: https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromebook-cb35-into-a-linux-development-environment-with-galliumos https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/transform-a-toshiba-chromeboo...
xioxox 7y ago
I get excellent 8-10 hr lifetime on a Lenovo X1 Carbon and a Dell Inspiron 7590 with Ubuntu.
- DanCarvajal 7y ago
  Too me the X1 Carbon is a 16:10 aspect ratio screen away from being the perfect laptop.
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    Want to get a linux notebook for running Ubuntu 18 Lts for my projects on fpga. Wonder carbon is ok as I like their keyboard but keyboard only. Need thunderbolt for my AI part as well.

bxparks 7y ago

Is 4GB enough with the current web browsers and web pages? It feels like 8GB is the minimum for normal users, and 16GB is the minimum for software developers. I have a 4GB Chromebook and a 4GB MacBookAir, and they are both somewhat painful to use these days, even with ad blockers.

lberk 7y ago
Which browser? I've had zero problems with 4GB laptops when avoiding Chrome
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  Which Chrome-avoidant browser?
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    Firefox, IE, Safari, or Edge (but not Edge Beta) to name a few. IIRC, there's Pale Moon or something else based off Firefox as well.
- bxparks 7y ago
  Can't avoid Chrome on a Chromebook. On the MBA, I use Chrome as well. I've migrated to Firefox on my Windows and Linux laptops, but I thought Firefox had battery issues on MacOS. I usually keep about 5-7 pinned tabs open (Gmail, Contact, Calendar, Keep, Drive, HackerNews, etc) and cycle through ~3-7 transient tabs, and I find that the browsing experience is not enjoyable on 4GB machines anymore.
  - lberk 7y ago
    I don't have any distinct cpu/memory/battery profiling datasets to provide anything but a personal anecdote. I dropped Chrome due to general laptop responsiveness in favour of a combo of Firefox with AdNausem and Privacy Badger. Which, has worked fine for my use (not noticed any adverse battery effects but I've also not been actively monitoring), though I don't use nearly the number of google services you've listed. Your results may differ, I've heard mixed reviews (again, anecdotally, so take with a grain of salt) of google services in firefox and safari.

bitL 7y ago

Intel really hit the jackpot with Clear Linux, it's the best performing distro for Machine Learning/Deep Learning now, often being 30% faster than regular distros like Ubuntu. Not sure how they did it, but I am enjoying it very much! Thanks!

mixmastamyk 7y ago
Consensus above is performance governor and compiler flags.

zaat 7y ago

I have no idea why phoronix isn't highlighting the reason for Clear Linux superior performance, it isn't magic: Clear Linux OS sets the CPU governor to performance which calls for the CPU to operate at maximum clock frequency. In other words, P-state P0. While this may sound wasteful at first, it is important to remember that power utilization does not increase significantly simply because of a locked clock frequency without a workload. from: https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu-performance.html https://docs.01.org/clearlinux/latest/guides/maintenance/cpu... The only reference in the article for this is in the compiler details box, where you can see that all the distributions run the ondemand governor, and Clear runs with performance.

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
So, what's the catch? Why doesn't everybody do that?
- themodelplumber 7y ago
  Had to guess: Perhaps Linux users are more comfortable keeping an eye on the CPU meter, and generally knowing what their apps are requiring of the computer. If you can be bothered with that there's no reason to mind the CPU maximums automatically, and maybe CPU capacity is even more important to you than battery life.
- zaat 7y ago
  Most people doesn't care for maxing the performance of their CPU most of the time, and they care more about power consumption. This is why that's the default on Windows too. Also, if everybody would do it it will have impact on global power consumption. Anyone can change the governor if they want, it isn't complicated. Phoronix also could have change the governor and benchmark using the same governor, but for some reason he choose not to. This isn't the first time he does it, the comparison is a repeated theme in a series of articles he made. Unless I miss something, which very well could be, this doesn't reflect well on the site professional credibility.
  - deleted 7y ago

Neil44 7y ago

I'm really surprised that the OS makes so much difference to CPU bound tasks.

axaxs 7y ago
Not to discredit Clear's work at all, but it's not so much the 'OS' in standard parlance, it's still just another Linux distro. It's down to compiler flags and optimizations, which generally anyone can do given they have the time and patience.

dlbucci 7y ago

I was just thinking about this this morning. I feel like any time I update the OS on a device it gets slower, and was wondering if there was some OS focused on being fast (and hopefully battery-efficient). Maybe I'll have to try throwing Clear Linux on my old 2011 notebook and seeing how it does!

OrangeMango 7y ago
What processor does it have? I have Clear Linux running on a Haswell Core i7 and it's great, but it doesn't run on a Core2Duo I've got laying around. Also, it needs EFI booting - not sure yours is new enough for that.
- cgh 7y ago
  Interesting, good to know re the Core2Duo. I have an ancient Thinkpad T61p that I was going to try this out on as speed differences on hardware that old become obvious. But I guess I'll stick with Fedora.
  - soylentcola 7y ago
    That's what I was also wondering. I've got an old Lenovo SL500 with a C2D/3GB RAM sitting behind my TV for streaming/web browsing. Currently got Mint/MATE running on it (I know it's not the fastest thing around, it was just a quick setup for something basic and not too visually "offputting" for others in the house). The hardware is old, sure, but I don't need it badly enough to justify building/buying something else and I had it laying around from the mid-2000's when I was testing WiMAX rollout in my city. Figured it would get a bit more use instead of living on the "old hardware" shelf (shelves) in the basement.
zozbot234 7y ago
> I feel like any time I update the OS on a device it gets slower Never had this problem on Debian Linux, FWIW - even when upgrading to a new release. Of course sometimes stuff gets marginally slower due to new security mitigations or whatever, but not in a way that's even perceptible, let alone catastrophic.

gen3 7y ago

What makes Clear Linux so much faster then other distributions?

dyingkneepad 7y ago
I may be wrong here, but as far as I understand one of the major advantages is simply that they have many versions of certain important libraries in your system and are able to select the one that better matches your hardware. Most distros are super generic and none of the system libraries are making use of instructions that are not present in all of the x86-64 machines ever released. It makes me really sad that other distros are not following Clear's lead here.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  Well, Stampede Linux had this more than a decade ago and it wasn't a big enough differentiator.
- bitwize 7y ago
  Other (binary) distros are solving for a different problem: providing a good-enough generic base that runs on most systems. If you want everything micro-optimized to your particular system's hardware configuration, you know where to find Gentoo.
  - zlynx 7y ago
    Although Clear does it with prebuilt binary libraries. No need to compile your own.
- pavon 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure Clear only has a single build target. For example, their RPM repository[1], only has a single arch (x86_64) and a single RPM for each package. I think it is mostly that they (1) invested effort in maxing out the optimization flags for all the libraries (2) have a higher minimum CPU requirements (must support SSE 4.2, which was first released ~10 years ago). But yes, I agree it would be nice if other distros had two amd64 releases; one that targeted newer hardware, and another for lowest-common denominator. [1] https://cdn.download.clearlinux.org/releases/32250/clear/x86_64/os/Packages/ https://cdn.download.clearlinux.org/releases/32250/clear/x86...

metalliqaz 7y ago

It would be interesting to see how it fares against Peppermint, which is known for working really well on low-end hardware. Also, I'm curious if Clear Linux is also fast on hardware that is slow not because it is cheap but because it is old. Would it speed up my Core2Duo laptop?

zh3 7y ago

It's more aout getting rid of what slows you down (bloatware/fat distros) than it is about linux (the kernel) itself. Who else finds that animations/smooth scrolling just breaks the flow/gets in the way?

zozbot234 7y ago
Smooth animation can be critically important when dragging, swiping or performing "fine" scrolling motions, either with a mouse/touchpad or on a touchscreen. Because then lags and freezes are what "gets in the way" and breaks the flow. Otherwise, yes, most animations just add latency for no good reason.
- hazeii 7y ago
  Interesting point to discuss, because I find animations etc slow things down and for me that breaks flow (if I'm using sharp tools, I want instant response).
simlevesque 7y ago
I do. I disable animations on my Android phone and my desktop OS is animation-free.
papermachete 7y ago
Does bloat even apply nowadays to Linux? On arch you can compile and optimise your software well and ryzens have upwards of 256KB instruction cache.
fctorial 7y ago
> Who else finds that animations/smooth scrolling just breaks the flow/gets in the way? It improves ux by hiding the latency behind visual transformations.
gburdell3 7y ago
I am entirely the opposite. I find that a lack of animations breaks the flow. I also tend to prefer a "nicer" UX over pure speed and efficiency.

haunter 7y ago

This might sound stupid but does that also affect gaming performance, or simply Wine and/or Proton?

stiray 7y ago

Intel probably just compiled it with their own compiler, purpose built for their cpus. But with distros I dont care about speed (unless something insane is going on like thermald on thinkpads) but rather how much hardware works well (giving a sharp stare to lenovo and their fingerprint readers in thinkpad series).

Tomte 7y ago
That laptop has an AMD processor.

ebg13 7y ago

And it does that largely by disabling all thermal management. Thanks, but...

deleted 7y ago

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AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

It's worth noting that the $199 price tag for this laptop may be inaccurate or temporary. I looked it up on Wal-Mart's website just a moment ago and it shows $279, marked down from $500: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-Rose-FHD-4GB-display-AMD-128GB-Tuned-Camera-Radeon-14-Ryzen-Gold-720P-THX-Graphics-IR-SSD-Laptop-3-MOTILE-Spatial-Performance-Aud/708573214 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Vega-HDMI-Front-RAM-Rose-FHD-4GB-... Not saying it wasn't $200 at the time he bought it, just saying that he might've bought it on sale (there was probably a bunch of Linux enthusiasts clamoring, "There's a laptop on sale for $200 at Wal-Mart that can run Linux!"); it doesn't appear to be its retail price anymore.

RachelF 7y ago

It will be interesting to see how these benchmarks look with more memory. Could it be that Windows just eats more base memory than Linux, and the benchmark apps do not have enough memory to run under Windows?

Paraesthetic 7y ago

Yeah that's great and all until you want to play any decent game then its not supported or chews 1 million gigawatts of power. Yay for performance mode!