Intel or Ryzen 7

I continue to hear praises about Ryzen 7

I do not play games

I do a plenty of web development / smartphone application development

I run virtual computers

Yes, and no.

http://phoronix.com/ may help you decide.

At one time Intel (Xeon's usually) was really the best way to go for a server processor and server motherboard since they went to extra length to provide as much integration as possible with the most advanced VM programs.

I'd concentrate on how well the entire system supports your distro and your selected programs as well as Virtual support.

If you don't play games, Ryzen will probably offer you significantly better performance for the $$, at a lower TDP. Ryzen 3000 series offers significantly better IPC and more cores/threads at the same price than anything prior to the 10th gen Intel. 10th gen, IF YOU CAN FIND IT, usually offers superior frequency with the same core/threads as Ryzen, but at a price premium and requires significantly higher power to achieve it.

As of right now, AMD's latest Zen-based CPUs (the Ryzen and Epyc models) perform markedly better (and their mobile chips draw less power) then Intel's offerings. AMD CPUs are also cheaper.

Linux distributions don't have to "support" AMD or Intel (or VIA) CPUs; that's the job of the Linux kernel. And unless you boot a really old kernel, a Ryzen chip will work just fine. (BTW, an old kernel may have issues with newer Intel CPUs as well.)

I really can't see any good reason to choose Intel over AMD right now, unless that little blue oval encircling the words "Intel Inside" is really important to you.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller If you don't play games, Ryzen will probably offer you significantly better performance for the $$

And if you do play games, they will run as fast or faster with a Ryzen according to the latest benchmarks from independent sources. That is, unless you buy one of the latest so-called "pre-overclocked" (what does that even mean?) Intel top-range models that require very efficient cooling due to high power consumption.

Originally Posted by Ser Olmy I really can't see any good reason to choose Intel over AMD right now, unless that little blue oval encircling the words "Intel Inside" is really important to you.

I fully agree.

Get the latest AMD. Check Tom's Hardware for benchmarks. If you want an overclocked heater go with Intel. It will be in the middle of the decade before Intel may catch up with AMD. I hate to say it but they are losing the fab wars. 7 nm is a few years away for Intel and you can get 7 nm now with AMD.

I've been running a first-gen Ryzen 7 and it has performed very well using Linux and the occasional VM. And when I built a new computer for my son using a Ryzen 5 APU (that's with integrated GPU) I found it runs even more buttery smooth.

You could buy an AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G APU, this should run very well and you don't need a separate graphics card. I read some reviews of users using it and they were very satisfied.

In the case of newer processors and APU's compatibility is sometimes an issue. However the AMD product page shows RHEL (Red Hat Linux and its derivatives) and Ubuntu ARE supported.

When building an AMD system please take into account:

1. Buy speedy memory, a lot. Because you want to run virtual systems you should buy even more.
2. Make sure the motherboard has support for the Ryzen processor and APU support, so you can connnect your monitor to it.
3. Make sure you buy memory in even numbers so your CPU can make use of dual channel.

Have fun

I use a lot of Free Pascal. A number of years ago, I discovered FP didn't compile to the AMD instruction sets and to run my programs AMD had to interpret it.
This really busted the performance, I am curious if this is still true with the Ryzen chip? I do not have access to Ryzen chip to find out.

Terry

Originally Posted by dmchess I use a lot of Free Pascal. A number of years ago, I discovered FP didn't compile to the AMD instruction sets and to run my programs AMD had to interpret it. This really busted the performance, I am curious if this is still true with the Ryzen chip? I do not have access to Ryzen chip to find out.

I was unable to find any information regarding instruction set issues on the Free Pascal web site, but I was pleasently surprised to see that the latest version of FP was released only 6 weeks ago. AMD64 is explicitly supported, as are a host of other architectures.

Technically, there's really no such thing as an "AMD instruction set" when it comes to 32-bit x86, as AMD is using Intel technology under license. As for 64-bit x86, there's only the "AMD instruction set", as AMD invented x86-64 (known as "EMT64" in Intel documentation, but as "AMD64" in Microsoft documents) and licensed it to Intel.

Your experience may have been related to compiler support for certain FPU/SIMD instructions in older (pre-AMD64) CPUs. At times, both Intel and AMD have created extensions to the x86 instruction set to improve performance for certain FPU workloads. For instance, Intel created the "MultiMedia eXtensions" (MMX) instruction set back in the Pentium days and later improved on this with SSE/SSE2/SSE3, while AMD had a similar technology called "3DNow!"

Object code created by a compiler supporting, say, MMX instructions, will not run on a non-MMX CPU at all unless the compiler also injects some sort of emulation code into the binary. And as it turns out, emulating MMX/SSE/3DNow! in software (rather than reworking the code to run natively without these instructions) carries a hefty performance penalty.

However, this is all basically ancient history. The latest SIMD (Single Instruction-Multiple Data) instruction set extensions were Intel's SSE3, which is supported by all current CPUs. And the latest AMD CPUs to have any sort of FPU performance issues compared to Intel were those based on the "Bulldozer" architecture, where multicore CPUs effectively had half as many FPU units as CPU cores.

Originally Posted by Ser Olmy However, this is all basically ancient history. The latest SIMD (Single Instruction-Multiple Data) instruction set extensions were Intel's SSE3, which is supported by all current CPUs. And the latest AMD CPUs to have any sort of FPU performance issues compared to Intel were those based on the "Bulldozer" architecture, where multicore CPUs effectively had half as many FPU units as CPU cores.

The "Bulldozer" architecture was not great, I suppose. You really can't compare AMD previous Bulldozer to the current Zen design. I found an interesting article about the difference between de older Bulldozer/FX and the current Zen/Ryzen CPU design.

Originally Posted by Hermani The "Bulldozer" architecture was not great, I suppose. You really can't compare AMD previous Bulldozer to the current Zen design. I found an interesting article about the difference between de older Bulldozer/FX and the current Zen/Ryzen CPU design.

Saying Bulldozer wasn't great is an understatement the likes of calling the surface of the sun "a bit warm". It nearly bankrupted the company it was so bad.

If you go for Ryzen then look out for memory configuration more than anything, I don't know about the super new ones, but 2700 and co have a rather weak integrated memory manager that can, if you use too many ram sticks at too high frequency, even if the frequency are at the advertised limit of the CPU, completely destabilize the system.

I had lots of trouble with that because I (on my desktop computer, mind ) filled all the four RAM slots with sticks and ran them at the highest frequency Ryzen said it would support, but...
Nope, that wrecked things so hard that it looked like a general CPU voltage problem, so I spent days fiddling with that, until I finally had enough and tried looking how it goes if I only put on two sticks.
Which ran perfectly.

Then I tried four sticks again, but at a much more relaxed (but still fast, all things considered) pace.
No more stability issues.

Been even slightly undervolting it, and perma running it on 4ghz clock speed since, and it's not even the 2700x, but only the 2700.
So, yeah, watch for memory configuration if you go with Ryzen. It was very insidious since it really did mimick voltage misconfiguration symptoms.

Geist,

Others have experienced similar problems with 4 RAM modules on the 2700:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comment..._a_ryzen_2700/

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller Saying Bulldozer wasn't great is an understatement the likes of calling the surface of the sun "a bit warm".

LOL I never had the pleasure of running anything with a Bulldozer based chip inside so I was a litte cautious . I usually buy the latest and greatest.