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Comment by boyadjian | Hacker News Reader

My next CPU will be an AMD.

I bought a Ryzen 7 1700X and have been running Ubuntu on it for over a month now. It's insanely fast. (32 GB Ram, 1 TB Samsung EVO 970 nvme, Radeon 580)... I've even been able to overclock it some (3.4Ghz base speed -> 3.77 Ghz). Although I added some additional cooling and I think I could reasonably get 4Ghz out of it.

I miss several of my core daily-driving Mac apps (Querious, MailMate, and Messages) but for ~$1,300... it's hard to beat!

I'm on a 1700 and I completely agree that it's fantastic. Around the time I bought it, Unreal Engine was released for Linux, so naturally I built that for Linux and the cores made it to a lot quicker.

Over the last 6 months or so, I've had lockup issues, and I thought I'd have to buy a new chip or RMA it, but it seems to have been fixed in a recent kernel as I haven't seen the problem in the last few months.

I'm looking around for decent AMD laptops and they're definitely making their way to the market. Lenovo's A and E series laptops look pretty good (though I've heard of throttling on the A series), and I'm waiting for more reviews on the new T series line. I need a laptop soon, but I may be able to wait until Zen 2 chips are available, depending on launch date.

AMD is making a strong comeback, and I'm excited to see what they release over the next few years and that Intel's response will be.

There are many reports about problems with 1700s running Linux

* https://github.com/suaefar/ryzen-test

* https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/79z43a/ryzen_1700_rma_...

* https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Ryzen-Se...

* https://www.extremetech.com/computing/254750-amd-replaces-ry...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/apw8im/ryzen_freezes_i...

Mine (bought a bit more than a year ago) got one random SEGV in maybe 5,000,000 processes when all threads are busy. That's a lot if you are doing full Yocto builds starting 3,000,000 processes each. And maybe one lock-up per month even without heavy load. Not sure whether there is only 1 problem or several of them. A year of kernel updates and one AGESA update promising to fix random freeze has never made any change. I returned my CPU for replacement this week, not sure whether I'll get a new one.

I’ve used a laptop as a desktop for years but honestly I think having my laptop as a primary machine gave me /too much/ freedom.

Having a desktop makes me finish what I’m doing or makes me otherwise check out. I still take a laptop when I travel but now I’m just SSHing into my machine...

You can run Mac under AMD (compatibility's not too bad now)

This requires a custom kernel though. I wouldn’t reccomend that route for a Hackintosh system.

You could do it via KVM-based virtualization without a ton of trouble.

This is interesting. Any recommended project links so I can read more?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20222492

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17763855

Also, check out Proxmox, a "distro" of KVM with extra utilities such as a web GUI.

Been there, done that, would recommend.

I put a 2700X in my most recent desktop and a 2400G in my HTPC. For the price they can't be beat.

Are you gaming with the 2700X by chance? How is it?

I game with my 2700X/RTx2080 and it’s phenomenal, Battlefield 5 is gorgeous in 4K (though I have to drop to 1440 if I enable RT and ultra settings, that’s the GPU though not the cpu).

It’s so good I’m probably going to defer my upgrade for Zen 2 til Zen 2+ or whatever it’s called.

I game with a 2600x / 2080ti @ 1440p/165hz, on average I see 150 FPS in Apex Legends. Not an optimal setup, but not too shabby either. Planning on upgrading to the 3900x once it's released.

Not GP, but gaming on 2700x+1070ti w/ 144hz 1440p monitor. It's suboptimal, but usually I can play games on high/ultra settings ~60fps or full 144 on low-medium. Not having any problems with VR either.

> 1070ti

LOL, cries in RX580 at 60hz on 1080p.

I am doing that. I can play most games very well, including Battlefield, even though it isn't optimized for more than 6 overall threads. Never had a real issue so far.

It works great. With a 1070 as my video card I'm fairly certain the processor is not a bottleneck.

I'm been thinking of building a low-end AMD APU system solely for Windows gaming (all of my computers except an old Panasonic CF-19 are running Kubuntu). Even the Ryzen 3 2200G can handle almost any game I'm likely to throw at it.

I picked up a Ryzen 5 laptop last month (great sale at Costco, needed a new cheap machine) and I'm shocked at how well it performs, in both compute and GPU. It's not my desktop's GTX1080, but it can play anything I've thrown at it without needing an additional discrete chip like my older Intel/Nvidia machine.

Is the socket really zero insertion force?

I've always been planning on buying an AMD CPU after dealing with an Intel processor.

Yes. Typically you lift the lever on the side of the socket, drop the CPU in, and then lower the lever. The lever causes the holes in the socket to tighten, clamping down on the pins in the chip, holding it in place. ZIF sockets have been a part of PC builds and a feature of motherboards since at least the early-mid 90s.

Yes. I remember my 1800X making a "thunk" sound[0] when it dropped into the socket. It requires as much insertion force as water into a cup.

[0] https://youtu.be/QdNISYm0w-U?t=756

If AMD advertised that their CPUs can be installed gingerly as opposed to Intel which felt like thirty pounds of pressure was required, then I would have opted for the older, but AMD chip.

Had a false impression from all the PC part guides that somehow each were equal difficulty.

Most AMD heatsinks use a clip retention mechanism, which definitely require significant force.

Aside: at least new CPUs have heatspreaders. The first heatsink I installed was on an Athlon XP 2500+. Those things had the bare die exposed! Do it wrong the first time, and you had an expensive tiny brick.

Retro tip - copper shim.

I've installed a couple of the Intel LGA CPUs, and I don't remember there being that much force required to put the lever down; although it's a bit less comfortable than the traditional ZIF. Speculation is that ZIF sockets are harder to ruin in manufacturing and shipping than all the pins in LGA sockets, allowing AMD to have more confidence in the supply chain.

For higher end chips, like ThreadRipper and Epyc, AMD uses LGA like Intel -- the pin count is too high not to.

Yes, as long as the pins are properly aligned it should literally drop in.

Can’t recall a CPU socket that isn’t lever locked ZIF since Coppermine...

Do the Ryzen CPUs actually have pins?

Yes.

Mine too. I'm giving my current rig another two years.

My next CPU will hopefully be RISC-V.

i5-9400F looks amazing though. Powerful and cheap.

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