Slimbook Kymera: Why Should You Buy An AMD Based PC?

slim book has two of its models, Ventus y Aqua, from the Kymera series in which you can select amd chips instead of Intel. This is appreciated, since the Spanish firm offers this possibility for all those AMD fans who want a free Windows computer or with a pre-installed GNU / Linux distro. In addition, from now on they have several configurations with CPUs based on the Zen 2 (3000 Series) microarchitecture.

AMD microprocessors are cheaper, which makes it possible to save good money when buying a computer, and the performance of these new chips is not that far from those of Intel, and even in some specific tests they surpass them. But I have to tell you that there is reasons beyond the economic ones to choose this type of chips. However, they currently only represent 1% of the Valencian firm's sales ...

Why should you choose AMD?

In the section graphics drivers, AMD it has done a good job and there is currently less difference between its proprietary and open drivers for the Linux kernel. In NVIDIA, those graphics that were the queens for Linux now have a greater difference between their closed and open drivers. But let's go to the CPU and the reasons why you should consider buying a Slimbook with them:

• For a fairly cheap price (about € 60 less) you have a AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, which is the top that Slimbook is mounting. Equivalent to an Intel Core i7-9700K. And its features are much more than decent: 8 cores, 16 threads, 3,6Ghz clock frequency or 4,4Ghz in Turbo mode, only a 65W TDP and the first to be manufactured in 7nm process. Remember that the Intel Core i7-9700K has a TDP of 95W and 14nm, in addition to not having HT, so it only develops 1 thread for each core (8 total).
• It is kept at very low temperatures, even with the default cooling solution. Which will extend its useful life and will not affect its performance during use.
• It is an unlocked processor, in case you are interested overclock.
• Very good processor in terms of gaming and streaming. With yields excellent for working with 2K and 4K.
• It has a good set of instructions to improve performance in multimedia and other tasks, such as the three new additions: WBNOINVD, CLWB, RDPID, and also MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, SSE4.A, x86-64, AMD- V, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3 and SHA.
• 24 lanes of PCI Express 4.0. For the 16 that the Intel 9700K has.
• More fullfilment of security requirements the Specter vulnerability being completely mitigated and invulnerable to others that do affect Intel.
• Spruce bandwidth to avoid bottlenecks thanks to the new Infinity Fabric 2 bus (25GT / s), by Intel's 8GT / s.
• More secure virtualization Thanks to AMD SEV and AMD SME technologies, something that should be of concern to you, especially if you have a business.

By the way, if you like compile the software packages, you can use the options -march = znver2 and -mtune = znver2 of the gcc compiler to optimize the binary for this microarchitecture ... It will be noticed when executing them.