105
Best chipset for Linux laptop, Intel or AMD?
(lemmy.ca)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
105 points (98.2% liked)
Linux
48173 readers
658 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
AMD has better hardware support because they are more active in contributing than intel. Also, they have overtaken intel in terms of efficiency (price per watt, price per Hz)
But AMD doesn't update the microcode of their CPUs
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/log/?qt=grep&q=AMD+microcode
Yes, very rare and very few cpu up to date, almost none of them
show that "very few cpu up to date"
see for instance the microcode for family 19, the Zen3, Zen4 family, the microcode update is:
Microcode patches in microcode_amd_fam19h.bin:
There is only update for 7 CPUs, before this August update, there was only 3 microcode!!! compare this to the number of CPU they have in this family:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMD_Ryzen_processors
I have a 5600H, family 0x19 and model 0x50, no update, as well as dozens of others AMD cpu.
The last update for Zen 3, Zen 3+, Zen 4 was 08/08/2023 and the last update for Zen, Zen+, Zen 2 was 19/07/2023.
For reference, Intel also last updated theirs 08/08/2023.
Yes you can argue that we don't explicitly know what CPUs in those families were updated, but I don't really care.
We know, here's the list, it's pretty poor, AMD don't release often its microcode, and when they do it's only for a few select CPUs
https://salsa.debian.org/hmh/amd64-microcode/-/blob/main/amd-ucode/README
If you are lucky, someone will extract its microcode from his BIOS and put it there:
https://github.com/platomav/CPUMicrocodes/tree/master/AMD
That first link is still whole generations of CPUs I believe, all the way back to K10 from 2007. Wikichip has a table to convert the hex to generation.
And the microcode usually gets patched by Linux, so why does the BIOS matter? (I'm aware it can be disabled, but why would you)
Take an example at the Cezanne CPU from your link, https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/amd/cores/cezanne AMD CPU Family 19h, Model 50h. There is 26 CPUs from 2021. Check the microcode update at https://salsa.debian.org/hmh/amd64-microcode/-/blob/main/amd-ucode/README there is no model 0x50.
AMD can release microcode to integrator/OEM who put it in their BIOS. But giving it to linux community? super rare. People have to know that AMD do not release microcode, I don't know why people think that the hundreds of AMD CPUs get new microcode every time there's an update?!?
Fair enough