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AMD Unveils Ryzen Mobile Processors Combining Zen Cores and Vega Graphics (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: AMD is officially launching a processor family today known by the code name Raven Ridge, but now referred to as Ryzen Mobile. The architecture combines AMD's new Zen CPU core architecture, along with its RX Vega GPU integrated into a single chip for laptops. There are two initial chips in the mobile processor family that AMD is announcing today: the Ryzen 5 2500U and the Ryzen 7 2700U. Both processors feature four cores capable of executing 8 threads with SMT. However, there are differences with respect to processor clocks and GPU specs. AMD's Ryzen 5 2500U has a base clock of 2GHz and a boost clock of 3.6GHz, while Ryzen 7 2700U cranks up another 200MHz on both of those figures. Ryzen 5 2500U features 8 Radeon Vega graphics CUs (Compute Units) and a GPU clock of 1.1GHz, compared to 10 Radeon Vega CUs and a GPU clock of 1.3GHz for the higher-end Ryzen 7 2700U. AMD is making rather ambitious claims for the new processors, and promises some impressive gains over its 7th generation Bristol Ridge predecessors. According to AMD, CPU and GPU performance will see 200 percent and 128 percent uplifts, respectively. AMD is also showcasing benchmark numbers that have the new CPUs outgunning Intel's new quad-core Kaby Lake R chips in spots, along with significant performance advantages in gaming and graphics, on par with discrete, entry-level laptop GPUs like NVIDIA's GeForce 950M. Thin and light laptops from HP, Lenovo and Acer powered by Ryzen Mobile are expected to ship in Q4 this year.
For laptops like this where battery life is a major factor, I wonder how the AMD side of the house compares to Intel's offerings. Having the GPUs on the same chip might help things.
Now all we ask for are some quality ThinkPad's with AMD Ryzen, not some cheap ass, low cost, entry level plastic crap that starts to fall apart after half a year or two.
Just bought an Intel NUC with a Kaby Lake i3 inside, which can do 4K via its HDMI 2.0. I'd love to bring it back and get an AMD system. But nowhere in The Fine Article it says something about HDMI 2.0, is this in the cards?
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The biggest question for me when deciding on any hardware purchase is how well the manufacturer supports the development of Free, open-source drivers for their hardware, either through the availability of specifications or actually contributing to driver development. Intel has become phenomenal at this, to the point where Intel graphics are the only thing I'll consider using at this point. I used to be a big fan of AMD, but it feels like they have not kept up, particularly since they purchased ATI. I would love to see that trend reversed. I'm also extremely concerned about the presence of binary black-box code running on the CPUs in the form of management engines and such. What are the specifics on these CPUs? Can all that garbage be easily disabled? Intel (and Qualcomm) really need some good competition, so I really hope AMD can be a contender, but I don't have my hopes up.
AMD acquired ATI in 2006.
AMD releases open source AMDGPU driver in 2015.
There is aslo a FOSS radeon driver
According to wikipedia: The free and open-source "Radeon" graphics device drivers are not reverse engineered, but based on documentation released by AMD without the requirement to sign any non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Documentation has been released gradually beginning in 2007
It appears to me that if anything AMD/ATI has been getting better about supporting open source drivers since the acquisition of ATI by AMD.
I am running Fedora 26 which includes an open-sourced amdgpu driver in the kernel.
Running a proprietary video driver is a Holy pain in the rear. Every time the system gets update/upgraded, though a (somewhat) atheist, always need a lot of prayer lest things become cooked.
Running the amdgpu in Fedora desktops has been smooth as silk. My system is AMD FX 8350 + Radeon RX 480; it beats all the myriad of Intel I7 machines that we have (at least on Linux desktops).
Really look forward to the Ryzen mobile. Plan to replace all the Intel machines with the Ryzen Mobile!
The biggest question for me when deciding on any hardware purchase is how well the manufacturer supports the development of Free, open-source drivers for their hardware, either through the availability of specifications or actually contributing to driver development. (...) I used to be a big fan of AMD, but it feels like they have not kept up, particularly since they purchased ATI.
Huh? ATI was totally closed source, as bad as nVidia or worse. AMD is releasing tons of open documentation, here for example is a 239 page guide describing the Vega ISA and as for the drivers Phoronix said:
It's phenomenal seeing the open-source driver support one day-one and that for Linux OpenGL games the performance even surpasses AMDGPU-PRO. This Vega launch is easily the most successful discrete GPU launch ever where it's backed by fully-open drivers.
That said, the problem for open source graphics on Linux is that the gaming market share is falling despite /. posting about how many indie games there are. The latest Steam survey says 0.60% and a whooping 96.6% for Windows, it used to be about 1%. It's hard to get AMD to spend more of their very limited cash on a near non-existent market.
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