Windows 10 vs. Ubuntu Linux Performance On A $199 AMD Ryzen Laptop

[zerothruster]

Looks like an interesting machine. It even has wired ethernet by the look of it.

[tuxd3v]

You guys trying to rock on a old horse( x86 )
hehehe
I will go powerpc this time:

https://www.powerpc-notebook.org/campaigns/donation-campaign-for-pcb-design-of-the-powerpc-notebook-motherboard/

[cb88]

My DIMMs are coming tomorrow. On Reddit is where I had read someone upgraded theirs to dual channel thus wondering now who is right.

Well I hope I'm wrong and it has two slots... maybe one under the keyboard for $200 it can't hurt too much to tear it appart a bit ? In which case they'll get a stick of 4GB and 16GB which will at least let the graphics get dual channel.

[wizard69]

We'll he obviously hasn't tried to do so yet.. so hasn't found out that it's single channel... http://www.motilecustomerservice.com/m141.html The product pages says 1 slot and that is what I'd go buy... picked up a rose gold and black one for my bro an sis in college (also a sabrent rocket + two sticks of ram to upgrade with)... one of them is gonna get stuck with 2 128GB ssds lol...

Just verified the DIMM issue. Kinda sad but on the other hand SDD capability is excellent. The manual does suggest contacting tech support before upgrading to PCI-Express SSD's. Not sure what that is about (power maybe) but on the other hand the capability is there.

This article caught my attention because I'm really burnt out on laptops especially the high cost and low life I'm getting. A $200 laptop might be a better all around choice for me, especially when you consider that batteries can cost that much for some machines.

[wizard69]

My DIMMs are coming tomorrow. On Reddit is where I had read someone upgraded theirs to dual channel thus wondering now who is right.

Well the specs don't indicate that there are two slots. If yo find different it suddenly make this laptop even more appealing.

By the way what GPU drivers are in use here? Also please run for stability testing, as you know the roll out on these processors wasn't all that good I'd like to know that the laptop could run for a couple of days without hangs. Frankly reliability is more important than performance. Keyboard performance is also something to look at, as some simply don;t work that well.

[Michael]

Looks like an interesting machine. It even has wired ethernet by the look of it.

Yep has Gigabit Ethernet.

[ThoreauHD]

https://i.imgur.com/pYGBVJF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/c2JRIbX.jpg

[danmcgrew]

Here are the specs from WalMart's web-page, referenced by Michael Larabel's hyperlink in the article:

• MOTILE Performance Laptop
• 14'' FHD
• AMD Ryzen 3 with Radeon Vega 3 Graphics
• 4GB Memory
• 128GB Storage
• HDMI
• Front IR Camera
• THX® Spatial Audio
• Tuned by THXTM display
• 720p IR Webcam
• 1 x USB-C
• 2 x USB 3.0
• 1 x USB 2.0
• 1 x HDMI Port
• 1 x Ethernet Port
• 3.5mm Headphone jack
• Weight: 2.55 lbs

Seems like one heck of a machine for $199.00.

[Chugworth]

https://i.imgur.com/pYGBVJF.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/c2JRIbX.jpg

Ah, too bad it still needs a fan. I like my cheap laptops to be fanless. I wonder how often it runs.

[tg--]

How does this compare to a Pinebook pro?

Well, most of the specs are pretty similar.
The big difference is the SoC. The PineBook Pro uses a Rockchip RK3399 1,6 GHz (max) 6-core ARM part, the AMD 3200U is their lowest-end dual-core Ryzen (amd64), clocked at 2,6 GHz and boosting to 3,5 GHz.

Clock for clock, the AMD is _much_ faster than the Rockchip RK3399, and it is clocked _a lot_ higher, so single-threaded it will literally run circles around the Rockchip. I'd expect at least 5-10 times the single-thread performance.
Since the Rockchip has 6 cores, it can perform decently for multi-threaded tasks, but only 2 of the 6 cores are fast cores and generally the 3200U will outperform the RK3399 in almost any task, usually by quite a large margin.

The integrated graphics is harder to compare. It should be expected that the AMD Vega in the 3200U would perform slightly better; however, the Rockchip uses ARM Mali graphics, and their proprietary driver is android-only.
There now is a working open source driver, which is usable, but _very_ slow, so the AMD GPU with their open drivers will easily outperform it by a factor of 10-100, depending on the task.