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I built a new PC with AMD Zen 4 CPU end of last year, after using Intel for more than 10 years before that (last AMD I used before was an Athlon in the early 20
by Aardwolf 3y ago
I built a new PC with AMD Zen 4 CPU end of last year, after using Intel for more than 10 years before that (last AMD I used before was an Athlon in the early 2000s! Intel Core 2 made me switch back to Intel then)
I also use Linux exclusively, and play games on Steam using Proton (which works great for modern games. I do single player games though)
However, no idea why there would be a correlation between Linux Gaming and AMD: I didn't switch to AMD because of Linux but because of AVX-512.
I had no problems using Steam with the Intel CPU before that. But I find it wrong of Intel to not support AVX-512 in consumer CPUs (and having efficiency cores in my desktop PC is not something that excites me, and it's because of those that they dropped AVX-512), while AMD embraced it. If new Intel CPUs would have been simply like the i9-11900 but better (in a different way than the efficiency cores, more like faster, more performance cores, more SIMD etc...), I'd probably just have kept getting Intel ones out of habit.
- shocks 3y agoI picked all AMD for my box specifically because of their open source Linux contributions. I have friends who have done the same.
- formerly_proven 3y agoIf you're strictly going by FOSS contributions you'd end up with an Intel CPU and an Arc GPU though.
- xslvrxslwt 3y agoAbsolutely lol, those people are amazing just spitting bs everywhere
- shocks 3y agoArc wasn’t an option when I built mine.
- hospitalJail 3y agoI decided to go full Nvidia evil since it was best for AI art. I do my part not to give Apple money, but as Ford Prefect said about foie gras: “You can’t care about every damn thing.” EDIT: Ohh CPU not GPU. Oh well enjoy the joke
- throwaway2037 3y agoHi. When you say "all AMD for my box", does this mean CPU + GPU? Or more?
- shocks 3y agoCPU and GPU; 5800X and 5700XT.
- xethos 3y agoMakes sense - article mentions Windows is the opposite (with Intel's share increasing, and AMD's sitting at ~32%), and Windows users are much less likely to care about open source drivers and contributions.
- michaelmrose 3y agoThe intersection of technically apt people and value conscious gamers looking to squeeze more fps out of limited dollars picks the value brand with a rep for friendliness with open source.
- throwaway2037 3y agoI didn't switch to AMD because of Linux but because of AVX-512. Woah. While wou don't specifically say it was a "gaming PC", you did say that you game on it. What is your use case that AVX-512 became a deal-breaker?
- anonbanker 3y agolikely RPCS3 and other emulators.
- pohuing 3y agoOn the topic of efficiency cores: As someone with a 5900x I wish I had picked a more efficient cpu. Do consider idle and low usage power draw. My room turns into an oven even just watching YouTube.
- agentgumshoe 3y agoHave you enabled Eco mode? You can do so manually in the BIOS if you can't use the AMD software (e.g. https://www.pcworld.com/article/1352253/how-to-enable-eco-mode-with-ryzen-7000.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/1352253/how-to-enable-eco-mo...)
- jrockway 3y agoIt seems like AMD's power savings just doesn't compete with Intel. I'm a few generations out of date, but my computer setup idles at ~200W, whereas a few-generations-older Intel HEDT that it replaced idled near 50W. Not turning my computer off at night costs $14 a month! (BTW, monitors will get you. With my monitors on reading HN, I'm burning 400W!)
- xuki 3y agoHoly cow, that’s a lot of power just for idling. For comparison, a Mac Studio idle at 9-10W: https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT213100 https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT213100
- pohuing 3y agoI've played with it before yeah. But I think ultimately it comes down to the io die never really clocking down, the wattage per core is insignificant as far as I can tell thanks to parking and entire ccd. Same story with my gpu which for some reason thinks running vram at 2ghz at idle is necessary. At least this heat prepared me for summer :D
- formerly_proven 3y agoTry physically disconnecting all but one monitor, AMD's broken power management with more than one monitor has been a meme for about 15 years now.
- samhuk 3y agoMinor correction: AMD CPUs do have something similar to efficiency cores, it's just that AMD doesn't clearly market it that way. They bin CCDs for performance (max attainable frequency, thermal efficiency, etc) and include a good one and a not-so-good one on a CPU. I got a 5950x a couple years ago and it's quite well known in the AMD space. Intel's "efficiency cores" are almost the exact same thing - cheaper lamer cores to keep core count higher.