I wouldn’t say most computers are sold with their products anymore. 20 or even 10 years ago maybe, but AMD has a pretty big chunk of market share now, and Ryzen chips are AFAIK generally considered much better than Intel alternatives anyway.
I just wish that Linux on affordable ARM laptops (like the Pinebook Pro) wasn’t still such a hassle. One of the reasons I’ve stuck with all-Intel CPUs and chipsets on laptops is that I know I can throw basically any Linux distro on it and it’ll almost certainly work out of the box. I’ve been Windows-free at home for almost 20 years, and I won’t go back.
I switched to ryzen laptops in 2018 and haven’t had an issue since the first one I got (had to use dkms/recompile my wifi driver with every update; not a huge deal but def annoying). The ryzen zenbook and now thinkpad laptops I’ve had since 2021 have had an identical linux experience to intel laptops for me. The thinkpad was like $300 used with 32G ram, easy to put a 2tb ssd into as well.
My priorities for mobile are portability and battery life so this may not fit your use case. But linux support for ryzen laptops is solid.
That’s good to know about Ryzen as portability and battery life are my priorities too. Thanks! I’m going to seriously consider them for the next laptop.
I’m sure intel battery life is still better optimized at this point, but my ryzen laptops do probably 8+hrs idle and 2+hrs intense (i.e. gaming, video calls, etc.). Which is good enough for me.
I forgot that back in 2018 there was a kernel bug where ryzen couldn’t sleep or wake from sleep, but that’s been fixed for so long I’d forgotten about it. Haven’t seen sleep/wake issues in probably 2-3 years at least.
That sort of battery life is fine for me. I don’t need to do much heavy work on the road, I just want something that will last a day of fairly frequent web-over-wifi use at a reasonable brightness. I don’t do much gaming while travelling, and if I think I will be, I just take my Switch.
I also pick my laptops based on being able to charge by USB-C, and I travel with a big PD-capable power bank. So I’m never really stuck for power.
For laptops, you can get AMD or Apple processors.
Apple is more powerful and efficient and AMD is more compatible. Loongson may be a decent alternative for desktops in a couple of years if they aren’t tariffed to hell. Qualcomm has released some ARM processors for laptops but the platform isn’t mature yet, especially if you don’t want to use Windows.
For desktops, there’s no reason not to do full AMD. Dell makes some ryzen laptops but they don’t have a GPU (so no solidworks). You won’t really find AMD gaming laptops, but gaming laptops kinda stuck anyways (as someone who only owns them). You can fairly easily find AMD workstations but good luck if you’re trying to find an AMD cadtop.
They’ve been losing marketshare to ARM for years. For cloud infrastructure servers (where the big bucks are) I know Amazon has been making a huge push towards ARM-based processors since the late 2010s — they offer them cheaper than servers with equivalent Intel chips, and in some cases they have better performance too, which is a major incentive for companies to switch. (Every company I’ve worked at has had a project to switch to the ARM-based servers.) Google just announced their own ARM-based processors for their cloud platform this year, and Microsoft has been offering them for a couple years too.
Part of it is that it’s easier for these companies to customize (and manufacture?) their own ARM-based chipsets, which means they can offer them for a lower price vs Intel
For anyone who isn’t aware, Intel is on the BDS list. Overall them losing money is a good thing. Let’s hope they lose all of it.
What is an alternative to Intel? Afaik most computers are sold with their products
I wouldn’t say most computers are sold with their products anymore. 20 or even 10 years ago maybe, but AMD has a pretty big chunk of market share now, and Ryzen chips are AFAIK generally considered much better than Intel alternatives anyway.
AMD is their main competitor. ARM stuff also exists.
Thanks
I just wish that Linux on affordable ARM laptops (like the Pinebook Pro) wasn’t still such a hassle. One of the reasons I’ve stuck with all-Intel CPUs and chipsets on laptops is that I know I can throw basically any Linux distro on it and it’ll almost certainly work out of the box. I’ve been Windows-free at home for almost 20 years, and I won’t go back.
I switched to ryzen laptops in 2018 and haven’t had an issue since the first one I got (had to use dkms/recompile my wifi driver with every update; not a huge deal but def annoying). The ryzen zenbook and now thinkpad laptops I’ve had since 2021 have had an identical linux experience to intel laptops for me. The thinkpad was like $300 used with 32G ram, easy to put a 2tb ssd into as well.
My priorities for mobile are portability and battery life so this may not fit your use case. But linux support for ryzen laptops is solid.
That’s good to know about Ryzen as portability and battery life are my priorities too. Thanks! I’m going to seriously consider them for the next laptop.
I’m sure intel battery life is still better optimized at this point, but my ryzen laptops do probably 8+hrs idle and 2+hrs intense (i.e. gaming, video calls, etc.). Which is good enough for me.
I forgot that back in 2018 there was a kernel bug where ryzen couldn’t sleep or wake from sleep, but that’s been fixed for so long I’d forgotten about it. Haven’t seen sleep/wake issues in probably 2-3 years at least.
That sort of battery life is fine for me. I don’t need to do much heavy work on the road, I just want something that will last a day of fairly frequent web-over-wifi use at a reasonable brightness. I don’t do much gaming while travelling, and if I think I will be, I just take my Switch.
I also pick my laptops based on being able to charge by USB-C, and I travel with a big PD-capable power bank. So I’m never really stuck for power.
amd. there are fewer mobile options but unlike 6+ years ago they’re actually a usable alternative in laptops.
For laptops, you can get AMD or Apple processors. Apple is more powerful and efficient and AMD is more compatible. Loongson may be a decent alternative for desktops in a couple of years if they aren’t tariffed to hell. Qualcomm has released some ARM processors for laptops but the platform isn’t mature yet, especially if you don’t want to use Windows.
For desktops, there’s no reason not to do full AMD. Dell makes some ryzen laptops but they don’t have a GPU (so no solidworks). You won’t really find AMD gaming laptops, but gaming laptops kinda stuck anyways (as someone who only owns them). You can fairly easily find AMD workstations but good luck if you’re trying to find an AMD cadtop.
Nvidia makes amd64 CPUs?
They’ve been losing marketshare to ARM for years. For cloud infrastructure servers (where the big bucks are) I know Amazon has been making a huge push towards ARM-based processors since the late 2010s — they offer them cheaper than servers with equivalent Intel chips, and in some cases they have better performance too, which is a major incentive for companies to switch. (Every company I’ve worked at has had a project to switch to the ARM-based servers.) Google just announced their own ARM-based processors for their cloud platform this year, and Microsoft has been offering them for a couple years too.
Part of it is that it’s easier for these companies to customize (and manufacture?) their own ARM-based chipsets, which means they can offer them for a lower price vs Intel