I think only AMD's mobile CPUs have integrated graphics. I know my Ryzen 7 desktop does NOT have integrated graphics. AMD has a new open source driver AMDGPU that performs quite well under Linux. I typically build my own systems, but bought a prebuilt one because it had good parts and I could not buy half the parts for the cost of a complete system. The Ryzen processors are an excellent value, perform quite well and the motherboards are reasonably priced. I can't say the same for Intel CPUs/motherboards. The most expensive part of the build will likely be RAM. DDR4 is still a bit pricey. I have 8GB and it has been sufficient for my use. I may add more in a couple of years when the prices come down a bit.
While shopping, you can use this for comparison on prices: This is what I bought for ~$550 after multiple discounts were applied ($780 before discounts), 6 months ago: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06W5J5XJJ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 If you are planning on buying from Amazon, I recommend using the website camelcamelcamel.com to see the price history for the items you are looking for. Here is the ccc for the system I bought, the price would swing from $1170 to $780 in a matter of days. https://camelcamelcamel.com/iBUYPOWER-AM3101EA-Desktop-Gaming-8-Core/product/B06W5J5XJJ On Thu, Feb 1, 2018 at 6:10 PM John Jason Jordan <joh...@gmx.com> wrote: > First, let me make it clear that when it comes to CPUs, motherboards > and RAMI am hopelessly out of date. I was out of date four years ago > when I bought my laptop - I just selected component options based on the > price. I had no idea what any of the features of the CPU actually did. > > So now I need to buy a CPU, motherboard and RAM for the new desktop > computer that I am going to build. From web sites I see that you can pay > up to a couple thousand dollars for a CPU, so for my first step in the > decision making process I drew a line at ~$300 for the CPU. Intel/AMD > are going to have to find someone else foolish enough to pay thousands > of dollars for a CPU. > > My current desktop has an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ on an ASUS > M2NPV-VM motherboard with nVidia video. It is pathetically slow. My > laptop has an Intel Core i7-4800 MQ CPU @ 2.7GHz. It is fast enough, > but I'd like the new desktop to have something faster, if only to stave > off obsolescence. > > I'm not averse to AMD, but don't their CPUs now come with video built > in, and haven't there been some driver issues with Linux? > > And speaking of video, my current monitor will do 1920x1080 and the > ancient nVIDIA on the ASUS motherboard drives it fine. But some day 4K > will no longer be cutting edge, so planning ahead for it might be a > good idea. > > Most of what the desktop does is stream internet radio all day long and > play over the air tv or movies at night. This is trivial work, but > sometimes I rip and encode a Blu-ray movie. On the faster laptop this > will take 2-4 hours. I tried it once on the current desktop and it took > a day and a half. I use Handbrake for this stuff and while it is > working it takes over 90% of the CPU. So I can justify a reasonably > fast processor. > > I asked DuckDuckGo what kind of CPU to get and was presented with a > bewildering array of choices. There's i3, 15 and i7, there are cores > and threads, there are different GHz ratings, not to mention Kaby Lake, > Skylake and even Coffee Lake. (Coffee Lake? So if I get one of these I > can just stick a spigot in the case and throw away my coffee maker?) > > I need a really, really dumbed down explanation, dumber than I have > found on the net. > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > PLUG@pdxlinux.org > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list PLUG@pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
