David89

Do NOT get the MSI B350 boards! They have absolutely crappy power delivery! 4 Phases is NOT enough. It will run hot and in the long run, the MOSFETs will die. (Looking at some Tests, even with the 1400, apparently they are running at 70-80°C) Get the R5 and an ASROCK or an ASUS Board - maybe Gigabyte, but i've had some pretty bad experience with them and i personally do not like the I/O on the back on the Boards they have for AM4 right now. And for Streaming, you probably should get the R7. Some games are already using 4-Cores on my R5 pretty good.

What are your specs? First initialization of my Ryzen took about 15 Seconds on my Asrock Board. After that, i've got a typical Bios Time of 2-3 Seconds (not running FastBoot, because Asrock messed up the compatibility with Linux and Dual-Boot)

6-Core Laptops will probably happen. My R5 1600 does use about 60 Watt at 1,1 VCore and 3,3 GHz... And i'm super stocked...maybe we finally get (decent!) AMD Thinkpads

You can't compare them. First of all, their systems are different. Bit-Tech.net doesn't even state, what other components they where using, also Mainboards can make a substantial difference under full load. One of the reasons, most MSI Boards use more power, is their pretty bad design in terms of power delivery. Although i don't know if that's the case for Intel MSI Boards... I actually don't - 50 Watts can be the difference between GPUs, a few HDD's and bad power phases - at least under full load. Mine doesn't. My R5 at 4.1 GHz with 1,48 VCore uses about 170 Watts (i can Push it up to 210 Watts, if i use AVX AND small FTTs - but that isn't realistic) , while Idle the System sits around 60 - so about 90 Watts for the CPU. At 3,5 GHz with 1,2 Volts, the System pulls 130 Watts out of the Wall. I've OCed with PStates, so Idle Control is the same, as is Idle Power Consumption. (4 HDD's, 3 SSD's, plus Numerous USB-Devices...so maybe 40 Watts "standalone" Idle)

Overclocking on a Workstation is a no-no. Considering what Intel has announced for their i9 Series and what Base-Clocks they are going to run: Intel has not a single chance. Especially considering how extremely power efficient Ryzen can be. I can run my 1600 at 1,2V@3,5 GHz. Wanna know what the whole PC with a RX480 pulls from the wall? 21 Watts at Idle. That's just insanely good and Intel has nothing, that can rival that. Intel's 6-Core is so far beyond "worse" in this case - it's like trying to compare the FX9590 against a i7-7700K at 5 GHz. Oh - wait...at 5 GHz the 7700K does use pretty much the same amount of power than the FX...

As far as i understood the whole thing, the only thing intel will be doing, is manufacturing them - everything else will be done by AMD

One thing missing for me: A2A. Haven't found anything comparable...

Thing is though: Why whould anyone buy an 2-Core-HT Intel with an AMD-GPU, when you probably will get the AMD APU for quite a bit less and more CPU Cores? Ryzen R9 will most likely shake up intel even more and as far as the leaks look right now, Intel has nothing to put against Ryzen. Except More Clock - but that will end in the same disaster as Pentium 4's and Bulldozer. (although i personally still think, the P4 was WAY worse)

This happend to me on Ubuntu many, many times and was one of the reason i even switched the PC of my parents to Arch (which had an Nvidia Card back then), because i always thought Ubuntu is easier to maintain. I don't do updates daily on none of my Arch Systems, but in the last 2 years, i did not have any issues, that prevented me from just using the PC. There are some hiccups with controling the Fan speed, some minor GDM/Gnome issues and so on. Before that, Catalyst was a bit shaky from time to time, but never had a really broken Xorg on AMD Cards. After two 8800 GTX and a GTX 480 literally going up in smoke on me, i've never really used NV-Cards in my personal rigs since then. I had been using ATI Cards before that and even back then, there where no immediate issues - you just couldn't update Xorg for a while, until Catalyst did catch up. But that is one of the reasons Nvidia has lost the Linux game - at least for me. Yes, they are faster, but both closed source and the Nouveau have issues, that - at least for me - are not acceptable. I'd rather have a bit less FPS, than having to constantly check for compatibility or having to tinker around for hours (i've done that enough with Catalyst back in the day and don't really have any patience for that any more...)

It's still only the Kernel

Yeah, and that's only the base pack. Anyone got Tileproxy to run right? Somehow i can't deactivate that damn driver signature check...

It wont - but breaking proprietary drivers isn't an issue anymore - at least for me - apart from the fact being, that Arch has no LTS Branch. There is no benefit for gamers in using AMDGPUPro. It is in fact the opposite: Mesa is faster. http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=rx580-pro-open&num=2 (That is btw one of the reasons i use Arch Linux, and actually really dislike Ubuntu and it's derivates) Except when you are using Vulkan, then AMDGPUPro is a little bit faster, but RADV Vulkan is still Alpha and - as mentioned - you can install those binarys standalone on Arch - which effectively gives you the best of both worlds at the moment. In what reagards do you want confirmation? http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/HOW-TO-ENABLE-AMD-FREESYNC-IN-LINUX.aspx This enough?^^

I disagree with you on the dormancy of a DE. Gnome and KDE use a lot of CPU Power just to "show" you clock, maybe some Temperatures or even the Windows. And even then, Xorgs CPU Usage is dependent on what DE you use, since KDE and Gnome use draw calls to update the Screen, while Openbox and others do not, they most of the time use the frame buffer - as they do not have any animations or anything, that needs to be kind of pre rendered, so that it reacts fast enough. Surfing with an Atom CPU was a PITA back when they where "new". I'd recommend using uBlock and NoScript and turning on, what you really need to look at selectively.

Yep, HEVC doesn't work HW-Accelerated right now. But keep in mind: I'm on Arch Linux, so that list may not apply to Ubuntu or other Distributions, that do not use the newest MESA packages...

Most of the time i use VLC and set de-interlacing to CPU - so i can't say in noticed anything out of the ordinary. But vdpau works. HVEC decoding doesn't, but i'll try it anyway. That Video in the attached screenshot has ~ 95 Mbit Bitrate (imagine, Streaming something like that :D), 4k res, 30 FPS and is h264. I believe it's also 10 Bit Colour, but im not sure about that.

Go dumpster diving - even a Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo!) runs a hell of a lot better, than one of those. Lubuntu is to bloated to begin with, so if you want it to run "good enough to use it as a type writer", you should look in to Pixel, Arch Linux or even Gentoo. But that's a lot of work... And even if you can't go dumpster diving - go on ebay, you'll find older Business Laptops (Dell Latitude D820, Thinkpads, HP Elitebooks) for around $30 (or depending on where you live even less, i've just sold an old D620 with a Core Duo for 20 €) dirt cheap and pretty much EVERYTHING is faster, than that. You can even use a Centrio Single-Core with 1,7 GHz with Lubuntu pretty nice, if you don't plan on watching any youtube videos...

RX480 running absolutely fine here on Arch Linux with Ryzen. I'm actually pretty impressed about OpenGL Performance, since switching to Ryzen. Hitman is - give or take 2-3 FPS - on par with DX11 on Windows - which is awesome, but goes to show, how much of a CPU Bottleneck OpenGL can be. Wine with the Gallium Nine patches has some issues, but i can't really pinpoint them to a specific reason right now (have to dig deeper in to the logs). Sometimes Shadows on DX9 Games are horrible and sometimes it just crashes with some memory access violation (Mafia 2) Overclocking is a bit of a PITA, but it's possible. However, i'm not able to get AMDGPUPro running, because it needs Xorg1.18 and Arch Linux as a rolling release is near Xorg1.20 - so i had to downgrade. That said though, you don't need AMDGPUPro, as @Wild Penquin said. However, it doesn't include Cuda - it's OpenCL and at least on ArchLinux the OpenCL stuff has been put in to place as a standalone package, which works actually very well. Even Fan Control works pretty well - at least on my MSI RX 480 i can't turn off the Fan completely though. But i can't here it at 600 RPM, so i don't really care. The only thing, that really is missing, is FreeSync - at least for me. My Monitor doesn't officially support FreeSync, but under Windows i can force it active and it works - that isn't possible under Linux, as it sets it according to the EDID, and my monitor doesn't have that specific information, so it defaults to "not available". And as always, right now there is no GUI to set it, so you need to use the console. Apart from that: It's beautiful how good it works. TBH, i haven't been considering an NVidia Card for ages, and as it stands now, i never will again. AMD is doing so much for Linux at the moment, the green team has just plain and simple lost the game. Considering what i had to endure with NV the last time i tried them, it's pretty much "Gameover" in my book for the greens. I'm a Linux User for about 8 years now and yes, AMD Cards sometimes needed a bit of manual tuning (especially back in the day with the 1950 Pro), but most of the time, they where at least usable. NV though broke compatibility so often, i lost count after a while.

I've just had quick jaunt around on ebay.uk and ebay.com... tbh, for me it's an absolute no brainer, to build a system in that price range. Those prebuild HP/ASUS/Lenovo Systems are as basic as it gets, but the build quality isn't bad, and they are dirt cheap. You can get one of those for £170 or $200...

There are no AM3 APUs. You can get AM4 with the A12 Bristol-Ridge, with DDR4 and other stuff for around 350 bucks. Depending on what your dad does: Get a used A10-7850K. Should be more than enough for the next 3-4 Years if he does some very light strategy gaming (at least my dad does from time to time). In this config you can just switch next year for the newer ones - if at all needed. And you can get m.2 SSDs. They run cool, they are power-efficient enough and have more than enough power. Should be able to get one for about 200. And FM2+ is not as dated as AM3, it has a lot of features, it's stable and does the job.

Which isn't possible, since AMD Disabled those CUs Physically. Source: Various Reddit Threads, that have flashed a 470 to a 480 (which works, mind you), but did not unlock any CUs - Ergo: probably disabled by a fine tuned laser. Apparently some 470s had problems, getting over 1290 MHz, which they don't when flashed to an 480 Bios. Still: No CUs and still less power than the 480. Since the 570/580's are the same Chips, i highly doubt, that there is any difference. Flashable? Probably, but only advisable if you've got a BIOS switch on that 570.

What good will that do? It still has less compute units, less ALUs and less texture units. Most of the 470s/570s also do have different memory, so it probably wont run at the speeds the 580 runs it

None. Except selling it on ebay for a loss, learning your lesson and doing a bit of research before the next buy. Sounds harsh, but the reality is pretty much like that. Since the UK has comparable customer acts as the rest of europe (AFAIK that's one of the things they abided...), the seller has the right to repair it three times, before changing it. Complain about that stuff, get it to repair and so on, and after three times you can (normally) say, you want a new one.

As a Linux Gamer, the biggest thing of this is: I can finally have my Card running under Linux with 1400 MHz, without any hassle...overclocking is possible on Linux, but Voltage Control is a bit sketchy, so hurray for that! And 200 MHz do actually make a difference with OpenGL...

I'm with you, Laptop marked needs more Red. I have to say: I love the HP Elitebook 725 series. 12,5" FHD IPS Panels, AMD APUs, pretty good build quality...but i'd love a proper Thinkpad with an AMD APU...or a Zenbook (there was a Trinity Zenbook - i had one, but the Fans were an abomination...i always get the feeling, AMD Laptops are "half-assed" and slammed together...)

Depends on the API and the resolution you are running DX12? No. DX11? Maybe. OpenGL? Yes. 720p? Yes. 1080p? Maybe. 1440p? Absolutely not. You should be able to hit 4.5 GHz with a decent Cooler without any problem - i've been running my 860K (which is the same Richland Chip, just disabled GPU) at 4,4 GHz totally fine. I've been playing at 1440p with an RX 480, clocked to 1400 MHz - the only Game i've seen nearly 100% CPU Load is Elite Dangerous, but only because it uses all 4 "Cores" (or all 2 Modules) pretty efficient. Hitman was at around 80% on DX12 and was running fine-ish (some parts are really choppy), OpenGL is nearly impossible to play