The AMD chips support AV1 hardware encoding as well as decoding. The Intel chips only support AV1 hardware decoding, and that’s only on the i7 and up If I recall correctly.
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What is the problem with the amd mesa drivers? So far the 5700xt in my egpu handled everything I tried pretty well. Even hotplug works after I figured out how to tell the driver.
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The last time I had an AMD card was a couple of years back and I remembered having to use the prop driver else it won’t work/recognised, I ended up going back to Nvidia. Swapping between driver installs (free and prop) was very annoying too.
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I’m waiting to see more details about the AMD variant. In particular, will it have the “AMD Advantage” label…looking for great battery life. Level1Techs released a System76 laptop experience / review video a week ago…and that’s looking very good for an AMD Linux laptop.
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I don’t think there is a proprietary driver (for newer GPUs) anymore since AMD opensourced it.
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Now that is something I usually hear the other way around on Linux XD
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If leaks are any indication - 7840U is gonna be great!
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Seems you’ll need ROCm for this, not sure it works with the Mesa drivers or the AMD OSS ones.
Hell if current gen is any indication 7040 is going to be great, though leaks are generally to be taken with a lot of salt.
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Tracking this thread. Nothing official to add.
I got this machine when they first came out and am delighted that they have been successful as a company. I
I am running the first Gen 11 I5 since I am using Cad/CAM and mostly bound by single thread speed. Some of the functions like toolpathing are multithread and GPU optimized but Fusion 360 is pretty gentle as far as cad programs go on the hardware. I have tried Fusion 360 on an Dell system 12th gen I9 with a gaming video card and not noticed that much of a speed increase. I’m also a hobby user so I am not on deadline. I’m not sure the performance and cost boost of the I7 is worth it.
My “Money Job” I do a lot of video calls, and office type work. So any machine would work. They actually issue us surface tablets which work fine. I use my own machine so that I have a real keyboard and macros for charting.
I don’t NEED to upgrade, and the advantage of the new desktop case means I can repurpose or regift/sell the board, memory, etc. to someone else. The 16 looks interesting but it seems really big to lug to and from where the CNC machine is, and most of the time it lives hooked to a 32 inch 4k monitor at my house.
I was thinking of upgrading but was not sure which model to get, either waiting for the AMD or the 14th gen Intel. Apparently the 11,12,13 are all similar in design and the next big thing is G14.
If I have to go to DDR5 memory for Intel Gen 14 I was thinking maybe getting the 13th gen when it gets discounted when gen 14 comes out. This way I can still use my old memory, and wifi card.
I’d like to get on the wait list sooner then later for the AMD if I am going that route. With the plan to buy the memory and wifi card around black Friday.
I used to be more into the hardware side of things, but I am really out of date.
Appreciate insights as CAD/CAM is sort of a niche use area vs office or gaming.
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Hello,
I’m considering a Framework 13 as my next laptop. I am wondering if there is much difference between the Intel and AMD models in terms of the general stability and completeness of the Linux support? I’m thinking about the thunderbolt ports, web camera, microphone, fingerprint reader, TPM, sleep, etc. Which would be recommended?
My query is really about the general state of the upstream Linux support for the hardware, and not for any one specific distro. ( I’ll likely run a distro that tracks new kernel and mesa packages quite closely. )
This will be a personal laptop for home/hobby projects. Essentially no gaming, but plenty of development, working with VMs, and some light 3D work. I mention this as the difference in iGPU performance is not going to matter to me.
Welcome.
Maybe the above will get you started. If not a search may be productive 
I did see this thread but: 1. It’s a year old now so things will have changed, and 2. A lot of the focus is on GPU capabilities which I’m not specifically interested in, I’m interested more in the wider general support. That’s why I posted a new thread.
Anyhoo, I see my post has been closed down. I’ll go ask elsewhere.
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Or wait till someone answers?
I have the framework 13 7840u. That thing is a powerhouse. I never even reach for my desktop (5800X).
Since kernel 6.8, everything works much better. There are however still some issues, but I haven’t had time to ask or figure them out…
Things I still deal with, all of them are graphics/Wayland related:
- 1px line of small artifacts on the side of the display. As if the window doesn’t fully reach the edge of the display, but it doesn’t bother me too much.
- very rare GPU freeze when moving a windows on a second screen (audio keeps playing).
Everything else works perfectly.
I speculate the intel variant may have better battery and more stable GPU drivers, but worse performance.
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Do you have this on all 4 sides or just one? I don’t see this on mine (FW13 7840u, Fedora 39 Sway, Kernel 6.8.7).
On the right side. It’s a Fedora 40 thing I think.
Didn’t have it before.
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Intel drivers are worse than radv imho. The problem in your case is Wayland, which is still not ready for primetime (granted - much closer than before). I’m still waiting for better screen capture and Barrier and the like support there before I switch. No problems here with 7840 and X11.
Edit: forgot to mention, yeah I agree that my problems are very likely Wayland related .
Not in my experience. My previous laptop (i5 8250u) was more stable. I’m on wayland for over 2 years now I think. Intel also in general spends much more resources on linux support (but AMD has been improving a lot in that regard)
Anyway, I’m happy.
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Are you interested in VMs with gpu hw acceleration? Setting gpu pass-through aside, some guys online have been able to use multiple PCIE Virtual Functions with intel linux driver to split the igpu and give one part of it to the VM. With amd driver/gpus is not possible. Might be useful for someone that wants to run some 3d-rendering/cad/encoding software inside a windows guest under a linux host.
It’s not something common/easy in the consumer space, but as you cited both VMs and 3D-work I think it was worth a mention.
Agreed: those old intel igpu had the best drivers in my experience too. That said I run and amd r5 fw13 now with ubuntu 24.04 and is not that much worse anymore. It’s not 100% stable but it has improved a lot.
There are still thing working worse than on intel, for example:
- TDP/power settings via RAPL not implemented
- EC tools need a patched kernel (should be fixed in 6.10+) or portio driver
- higher gpu hw decoding power consumption on linux when doing nothing but watching a video (some work is ongoing in compositor-land)
But I’d say those are minor things. Linux support is fine now and looks like still improving.
There are some topics about specific docks not working properly and also one about external usb ssd. Personally every usb-related problem I’ve previously experienced looks like is gone after last BIOS update, but someone still reports some issue.
I don’t know about last gen intel, but the amd version supports only S0i3/s2idle/“modern standby”, no suspend-to-ram. In my experience power consumption during sleep is around the 0.5%/hour (around 0.3W for last night doing some math FWIW).
Everything works fine.
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