AMD Ryzen testit koodareille (linux)

[FlyingAntero]

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• XDA Takes on Ryzen: In-Depth Look of AMD's AM4 Processors On Linux

Final Thoughts

There’s a few ways to think about Ryzen and how it fits into the new ecosystem. The first, which many have discussed, is how it fares against Intel in a core/thread matchup. There is a definite improvement from the FX-8350 to the Ryzen 5 1500X. If looking at performance alone we don’t see it always keeping up with the Intel Core i7-6700K. But AMD’s strategy has never been about raw performance alone. Instead, AMD’s business strategy has largely been to offer the best value at the price point at which it offers its products. They have continually followed this overall strategy in both its processor and graphics technology. This becomes even more important at the moment when considering the overall costs of the PC.

When wanting to overclock an Intel motherboard currently the choice is generally limited to the Z series of their lineup, though some have found ways around this barrier. AMD has taken an alternate approach, offering 3 motherboard chip sets that enable overclocking and then enabling multiplier overclocking on every AM4 processor. This offers tremendous selection at lower price points. The challenge that I found with offering all of the processors is that once XFR is no longer a factor, the processor models all behave similarly.

From there it gets down to how well you can overclock that particular processor. You may hear of this from time to time as the “silicon lottery” because not every processor will overclock as well as others. For example, I was able to either increase the multiplier or run the RAM at its XMP profile speed on all 3 motherboards. Recent BIOS updates have helped improve the matter, but it doesn’t resolve it. Take for example the Ryzen 7 1700. Higher clock speeds would boot, such as 3.9 GHz, but would end up failing for reasons other than overheating.

The choices are very clear when we look at stock speeds. AMD now offers an alternative to Intel’s extreme consumer lineup at half the cost of its competitor. As we move into overclocking the same goals can be achieved with even a Ryzen 7 1700, so long as the processor will allow. The cost savings of 66% less than Intel’s i7-5960X or i7-6900X are enough to even buy a very high end graphics card or additional SSD storage. The same case can be made for the Ryzen 1600. It is priced very competitively against the Core i5 and it offer an experience beyond many consumer uses of the Core i7. Consumers who are looking at getting the most value out of Ryzen should not immediately dismiss these “non-X” options. That cannot be emphasized enough if they intend to overclock their PCs.

There are cases though, at the moment, where Intel can still justify its price point. One of those cases comes in PCI Express lanes, which Broadwell-E and the upcoming Skylake-E offer additional PCI-E lanes beyond what AMD does. This means in some high-end usage there isn’t an alternative – yet. AMD is expected to announce an X390 motherboard and Naples, the enterprise lineup for Ryzen. I fully expect here to see a challenge against X99 and not only the additional PCI Express lanes but also memory capacity.

AMD’s own challenges in this market meant taking a very big gamble on its return to form by sacrificing many short-term sales. Sometimes this pays off even bigger – the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Cavaliers are testaments to that in the sports world. If AMD’s goal was to achieve this competitive stance, I believe they have achieved their goals. But this isn’t the end of the story; change and innovation need to continue. Intel has hinted at such a change by retiring the Core branding in 2019. Could this hurt AMD’s promise to stay on the AM4 platform until 2020? Only time will tell. In the meantime pass the popcorn; a competitive AMD is back to their old form and that means an exciting competition for your hard earned dollars. Who wins in this case? We, the consumers, do. And it’s about darned time.

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[FlyingAntero]

Tässä vielä juttua tuosta Gigabyten ja Linuxin epäyhteensopivuudesta AM4 emoissa:

Gigabyte AM4 Motherboards and Linux

This unfortunately caused issues with both of the pictured Gigabyte motherboards. Both refused to boot into any version of Ubuntu without using the noacpi flag. Since that takes away many of the enhancements of Ryzen – including simultaneous multi-threading – we started digging for answers. Through a collaboration of other reviewers, Phoronix founder Michael Larabel and a few XDA readers who had run out and purchased Ryzen on day one, we were able to confirm that this is an issue specific to Gigabyte. MSI boards and ASUS boards that have been released do not appear to have these issues. So after reaching back out to AMD we received the MSI X370 XPower Gaming Titanium and ended up using this to test everything as it arrived.

Since we didn’t get to test the Gigabyte boards out in Linux we did put them to brief use in Windows. If you’re not worried about Linux, seemed to offer the highest stable overclocks of the three boards, achieving 3.9 GHz with the Geil RAM reaching its full clock speed of 3200 MHz – and staying cool thanks to the Wraith Spire cooler, one of the two new LED fan cooled solutions released by AMD with Ryzen. Gigabyte’s X370 board also offered Sound Blaster MB5 support for a better surround experience. Both also featured some great LED lighting features with additional headers to connect peripherals to match the lighting pattern of the motherboard.

Our thanks go to the collaborative efforts of many who helped troubleshoot the issue in a quick manner. AMD also deserves some thanks for its quick response once the issue was confirmed. If anything this reinforces the fact that more reviews of PC hardware are sorely needed on day one for Linux users. We also plan to review and inform users should the situation improve with Gigabyte and Linux.

Update 4/25 12:30 am CDT: Redditors have been quick to post that the issue is already in Ubuntu’s Launchpad as a bug. The issue appears to be due to CONFIG_PINCTRL_AMD enabled and while an official solution is in the works, a workaround kernel (stated working by user feedback) was built and posted in the thread. Ubuntu and OpenSuSE are confirmed to have this issue, other distributions that do not enable this in their kernel may work without issue. Our thanks for the folks in the Linux community working hard to address these issues. We’ll continue to monitor and update as more information is available.