# Using AMD Ryzen with 11.x-RELEASE



## PacketMan (Jan 3, 2018)

Well I canceled my Intel Core i5-7400 order.  Thread 63086 Thread 63955

Gonna wait a week or two to see what shakes out with the Intel CPU 'bug' story.  In the meantime I see there is a couple discussion threads in here about Ryzen.  I'm still gonna buy an ASUS motherboard, but I was wondering if a bunch of folks are now using the Ryzen CPUs with ASUS motherboards and can confirm no issues with 11.1-RELEASE. Or if there are any issues can you please share? If certain features are will not be supported until later releases of 11.x then I'd like to know that to.

I see a thread about powerd but I usually don't run that daemon.  Plus there was a few heavy threading usage issues (Thread 61799) but I understand that was '1st mill run' issues.

...and does it matter which flavour of Ryzen? 3 >> 5 >> 7 >> Threadripper.

Thanks again everyone,


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## shepper (Jan 3, 2018)

I've run AMD for years and any AMD cpu/system chips I've had have never failed - they just become obsolete.  Why pay the up-charge for Intel when they become obsolete just as fast?

I did have one radeon video card that overheated after the fan failed.  I now buy CPU/GPU processors or passively cooled video cards.  I do spend extra on hard drives, cooling fans and power supplies.


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## PacketMan (Jan 4, 2018)

What motherboards do you use?  Any of them have Realtek LAN and if so any issues?  I've been avoiding Realtek based on the opinions in here, but a motherboard with an Intel LAN is a decent dollar more.

I'm building a headless home server so not to worried about video cards.  It's overkill but I bought a new case with 500w power supply, and got a new UPS already running on the old 'version 1' home server.


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## shepper (Jan 4, 2018)

I use mine as a desktop but a quick NewEgg "drill down" found server motherboards with AMD CPU's and Intel NiC's
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...MD_server_motherboards-_-13-182-230-_-Product


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## rigoletto@ (Jan 4, 2018)

If you decide to go Threadripper you should consider a 7401P EPYC build. Should cost about the same, and it will be an EPYC build.

Supermicro already have some boards.

BTW, sysutils/powerdxx works better than powerd for most people.


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## PacketMan (Jan 4, 2018)

If I buy Ryzen it will be 3, 5, or 7. Likely 5 1600.


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## Sensucht94 (Jan 4, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> BTW, sysutils/powerdxx works better than powerd for most people.



+1 for powerdxx, even better after creating a custom service, or simply appending flags in rc.conf


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## PacketMan (Jan 24, 2018)

So I just learned that AMD processors do not include a video APU.  So I will need to install an external video card.  I am looking at a cheap one that uses an Nvidia chipset.  Anything I need to be aware of? Thanks again guys.

And I am not waiting for the smaller CPUs with the built in APU to come out this February.


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## SirDice (Jan 24, 2018)

PacketMan said:


> I am looking at a cheap one that uses an Nvidia chipset.


There are basically no limitations if you use the x11/nvidia-driver. Even the latest GTX1080 works just fine. The driver does have a "minimum" card though, but even those will work if you use one of the "legacy" NVidia-drivers (x11/nvidia-driver-340 for example).


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## rigoletto@ (Jan 24, 2018)

The problem of nvidia cards are: you do not get the nice KMS console and you (usually) can't switch from X to console using newscons (unusable), just syscons.

If you do not need anything powerful from graphics card, you can went with some supported radeon.


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## SirDice (Jan 24, 2018)

lebarondemerde said:


> The problem of nvidia cards are: you do not get the nice KMS console and you (usually) can't switch from X to console using newscons (unusable), just syscons.


Haven't had a problem with that yet. But I generally don't care about the console if the machine is booting straight to X any way.


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## PacketMan (Jan 24, 2018)

This is my NAS replacement; headless machine. Just need basic video to install OS, and single-user mode it from time to time.  I will not be doing any graphics locally. I do plan on trying some sort of virtual machine environment on it sooner or later.



SirDice said:


> There are basically no limitations if you use the x11/nvidia-driver. Even the latest GTX1080 works just fine. The driver does have a "minimum" card though, but even those will work if you use one of the "legacy" NVidia-drivers (x11/nvidia-driver-340 for example).



Hmmmm, but if I need to install a port to make the card work, how will I do this? ....unless I stick the drive in a temp Intel machine and add the port in then.  Or for my needs maybe an AMD chipset card would be better?  I just want to be sure I have video so I can install and super-user mode it from time to time.


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## CraigHB (Jan 24, 2018)

Without KMS you get a a VGA console which I actually prefer.  The only time I use the console is if I can't start up X.  At my monitor's native resolution text is really small and way off in the corner of the screen, actually kind of hard to see.


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## PacketMan (Jan 24, 2018)

Sorry I have never heard of KMS. (Sorry I'm a Cisco Juniper guy).  Do you mean this? graphics/gstreamer1-plugins-kms  But if so, then I still would need video working prior to be able to install KMS.

To be clearer when I say "video working" I mean console output. VGA I guess is what it is called. No need for graphics, X11, etc.


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## CraigHB (Jan 24, 2018)

It stands for kernel messaging system and it's a way for the video driver to interact with the kernel so it can select the native resolution for terminals instead of VGA.  The nVidia blob does not support it, but drivers like nouvaeu (open source nVidia driver) do support it.


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## rigoletto@ (Jan 24, 2018)

x11-drivers/xf86-video-ati also does support. Works great, unfortunately my old AMD card went bad and I am using a GT 630 I had sitting around since then.


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## SirDice (Jan 24, 2018)

PacketMan said:


> This is my NAS replacement; headless machine. Just need basic video to install OS, and single-user mode it from time to time. I will not be doing any graphics locally.


In that case, any card will do just fine. No need to install any drivers. You can even remove the card once you're done with the install.




CraigHB said:


> It stands for kernel messaging system and it's a way for the video driver to interact with the kernel so it can select the native resolution for terminals instead of VGA.


Close, in this case it's *K*ernel *M*ode *S*etting. But the confusion is understandable, there are several different technologies that use the abbreviation KMS.


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## rigoletto@ (Jan 24, 2018)

Just to notice, Ryzen2 is rumored to come out next month. So, should be a good idea to wait a bit to either buy currently model cheaper or buy the new ones already.

Btw, some of AM4 should have onboard graphics, I guess.


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## PacketMan (Jan 24, 2018)

Yeah I have thought of that, and might still do that...I'm like an old spin top whobbling around, can fall down any second.

As always, thanks again guys.


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