Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@×××××.com>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-user] Time to switch back to AMD?
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 2020 03:44:39
Message-Id: rhi76r$d5n$1@ciao.gmane.io
1 For several decades, I was a loyal AMD customer. But the last time I
2 upgraded my home desktop (2013), AMD just didn't seem to have anything
3 that could complete with the Core-i3/5 CPUs with integrated graphics.
4 The Intel HD-2500 GPU was plenty fast enough for everything I did back
5 then, so I went with an i3-3220T (2 cores, 4 threads), and have been
6 very happy with it (except for the security vulnerabilties). It even
7 handled it fine when I started working from home and added a second
8 monitor.
9
10 But, after the last update to the Heli-X flight simulator, I did
11 notice that I'm bouncing off the rev-limiter on the GPU. In order to
12 get a reasonable frame rate and sort-of-smooth background panning I
13 had to dial-down or turn off all the configurable graphics features
14 (anti-aliasing, smoke, reflections, etc.). Even with all of the fancy
15 stuff turned off, it still sometimes struggles and the frame rate
16 drops to below 20.
17
18 I thought about buying a video card. A $40-50 Radeon or NVidia card
19 would be more than enough GPU. In the past I've been burned by ATI
20 cards being abandoned within a year or two of purcase. Is AMD any
21 better about support? Of course, dealing with closed-source NVidia
22 drivers is also annoying.
23
24 Also, the motherboard/CPU are almost 8 years old. Maybe it's time for
25 a new AMD Ryzen with an integrated GPU. Even the low-end sub-$100
26 Ryzen 3 with Vega 8 GPU would be a big jump in performance from the
27 current Intel HD 2500. For another $40, a Ryzen 5 with Vega 11 GPU
28 would completely outclass what I have now.
29
30 How are the AMD "Wraith Stealth" fans? I've been using the fan that
31 came with the old Core-i3, and it gets a little annoying when it's
32 time to compile chromium (or when flying planes/helicopters).
33
34 Any issues with Gentoo and Xorg on AMD integrated Vega 8/11 GPUs?
35
36 AFAICT, the drivers are all open source, and it ought to "just work"
37 with recent kernels.
38
39 Unfortunately, the capaciters on the existing motherboard are all
40 solid and probably aren't going to pop any time soon.

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] Time to switch back to AMD? antlists <antlists@××××××××××××.uk>
Re: [gentoo-user] Time to switch back to AMD? Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com>
Re: [gentoo-user] Time to switch back to AMD? Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o>