Thoughts? A10 7850 on Linux?

[Fugu]

I'm doing this cheap and for the sake of learning!

The A10 7850 Kaveri chip is pretty awesome on it's own is is quite the marvel. I've been following this one for a few weeks to see how it benchmarks and pans out against other chips and the thing that strikes me as wanting to play with it is it's GPU power and unlocked clocks

Build is setup as follows and i'm going to probably pull the trigger on it.

AMD A10 7850

Product Name Qty Unit Price Price
Product Image
AMD A10-7850K APU, Black Edition 3.7GHz w/ 4MB Cache $199.99
Seagate 1TB Desktop HDD SATA III w/ 64MB Cache $64.99
Asus 24x DVD-RW Drive, SATA, OEM, Black $19.99
Logitech Desktop MK120, Retail
$19.99
Arctic Cooling MX-4 Premium Thermal Compound, 4g $7.99
Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz CL9 DIMM $49.99
Asus A88XM-A w/ Dual DDR3 2133, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, PCI-E, $89.99
Cougar SPIKE Micro-ATX Gaming Case, Black $39.99
Shipping: $-.--
Sub Total: $492.92
GST 5% $24.65
Total Shipping Weight: 20.1 lbs.

Total:
$517.57

(already have a powersupply and monitor set aside for it).

The idea is to keep it simple and functional , be able to load a crap ton of games on it and casually game. I don't think i'll keep it forever kinda thing but will most likely sell it to a friend or in a classified, the fun part is having the oppurtunity to overclock it, learn linux and get it running and functioning as a learning experience and have my Fiancee who is in webdesign play with it for fun as well as a supplement to her education.
Her and I already have PC's running AMD 8350's and Radeon 7970's on near identical M5a99x Evo boards. (mine on water , hers aircooled) so this little PC is a fun build and an experiment.

So my concerns are.... Linux... how feasible is it to use this processor for gaming on that operating system.. Anyone have experience using linux for gaming and getting drivers and usb devices to work with it? Are we nuts or awesome for trying this out?

 

[\dev\goat]

So my concerns are.... Linux... how feasible is it to use this processor for gaming on that operating system.. Anyone have experience using linux for gaming and getting drivers and usb devices to work with it? Are we nuts or awesome for trying this out?

You will need faster ram if you intend to get decent graphics performance out of this thing. Remember, it uses the system memory as graphics memory, and DDR3 graphics cards are much slower than their GDDR5 counterparts.

So compensate for this by getting blazing fast memory. Do you really need a DVD drive on a 2014 machine ? Consider using flash drives for OS installs and such, and put that $20 towards faster ram. Something 2133mhz+. There are some 2400mhz 8gb kits on newegg for $65 right now.

As far as linux and gaming, AMD linux drivers have gotten very good lately. And Steam just added AMD compatibility to SteamOS. Your usb devices should work out of the box or with minimal configuration if you pick a popular distro.

This should be lots of fun. Keep us posted

 

[Fugu]

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This should be lots of fun. Keep us posted

Thank you for the generous reply! I've also heard from another source that higher speed memory is required to make this thing hum along and since then I found 8 gigabytes of 2400mhz ram for 119.00 locally (G-skills Trident X 2x4gb) that should do the trick!

I'm very excited to get this thing benching and then overclocking. May actually have to be watercooled because of the Micro ATX case which doesn't bother me either!


So.. Should I look into doing a partition on the harddrive and run Steam OS and Linux OS?

 

[\dev\goat]

So.. Should I look into doing a partition on the harddrive and run Steam OS and Linux OS?

SteamOS actually is linux, it's just optimized for steam and large displays. It's stripped down to the bare necessities, so it might not be what you had in mind for this adventure.

I would suggest starting with an Ubuntu install to play with and learn at first. You can install Steam the normal way. Then you can enjoy the computer as a regular desktop.

 

[RGone]

Freeken azz ultra Linux newbe here and I have enjoyed the look and feel of Mint 13 LTS with Cinnamon. But I have tried Zorin and a couple of mints and Ubuntu and until I did some trials at the look and feel >> i was plain clueless. Running a test distro from Usb stick is uber nice to give on an idea before installing. I did my install on a 4 platform back Intel rig and everything worked just fine.
RGone...

 

[TeknoBug]

Linux LOVES AMD processors, since the x86 platform is coded in "amd64".

Yes you'll want at least 2133MHz DDR3 to make the most of the iGPU, 2400MHz are decently cheap right now (for some reason cheaper than some 1600MHz's).

I actually want to get my hands on an A10 7850K myself, or at least wait for a standalone Steamroller CPU like the Athlon X4 FM2 chips.

 

[Fugu]

Off to pull the trigger! Downloaded and burnt linux Mint 64 bit to a dvd already , i'm looking forward to building this mini best and playing with it.

 

[trents]

I hope you don't run into display issues with the AMD APUs and Linux. Linux and ATI/AMD have never gotten along as well on the graphics side as Linux and Nvidia have. Nvidia has been more cooperative with the open source community than ATI/AMD has and their proprietary drivers have always been better than those for the ATI/AMD gpu chipsets.

And concerning overclocking, it can be difficult to do in Linux because the reporting and stress testing tools aren't as available or as effective as those we use in Windows. If you are going to overclock it, I suggest you do that part in Windows and then install Linux to make sure your settings are safe and stable.

 

[Fugu]

I've got it assembled and running (went out for dinner too). I've got AMD's latest drivers installed including CCC. I can't get AMD overdrive in it and that was one of the things I was hoping for as a tool. In the review on the front page of this forum the user used AMD overdrive and noted that it was more accurate.

Linux has tools I just have to figure out which are best to tinker with and get them running and trustworthy. CPUID is a no go, found that out already.

As for gaming so far.. Steams selection on Linux is a little low but thats fine, I can deal with it. Minecraft on the other hand runs as fast as it does on my main computer with it's 8350!
Euro Truck Simulator 2 ran on High settings without a hitch and I have yet to try any other games.

 

[trents]

In the review on the front page of this forum the user used AMD overdrive and noted that it was more accurate.

More accurate than what?

 

[Fugu]

Definitely learning linux quick but struggling with a few things that should be simple.. I can't get something like Super_pi to run to get an actual benchmark going. It's an easy thing to do by allowing it to be executable and then running the proper command behind it but alas it won't run for me.

I am also struggling to get any sensor information out of the mobo so I can actually overclock this and see where it goes. LM sensors is fighting me hard!