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Trinity at 4


raymac46

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In my time as a Linux user I have had two desktops that were built from day one as Linux machines. The first one was built for me by a local clone maker and featured the legendary AMD Athlon 64 X2. That desktop is still going as my workshop music box.

However in late 2013 I wanted to try out my skills as a desktop builder, and my old AMD box was getting a bit obsolete. So what to replace it with? I settled on another AMD - this one was a Trinity based APU - AMD's second generation Bulldozer architecture.

Now I went into this build knowing full well that on paper Bulldozer chips were a disappointment. They never were able to compete with Intel and their design had some basic limitations that always crippled their single core performance. However the APU gave some desirable features - a decent graphics solution without needing a separate graphics card, pretty good clock speeds, 4 cores. So I decided to take a chance.

I splurged a bit on the motherboard - Gigabyte with AMD's top of the line Hudson D4 chipset (solid USB 3 and SATA 3 support.) Also I put in 16 GB of DDR3 RAM. I got a middle of the road Cooler Master case that turned out to be quite nice to build in.

This was the first machine I ever put an SSD in. I eventually got a wifi mouse and keyboard, and after a few years replaced the APU graphics with a cheap R7 discrete card. I have a nice VA monitor and Logitec speakers.

The desktop booted from the get-go. All the negative hype about AMD Bulldozer turned out to be just that. The desktop has run Linux beautifully. I have Linux Mint 18.2 in it now and it's fast and powerful - runs as well as it did when it was new. The grandchildren love it for online video games, and I can watch videos or play music with no problems.

I suppose I could have spent a bit more and gone with an Intel i5 - probably knowing what I do today I might have gone that way. But if it comes to value for money I still don't think you can beat AMD.

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V.T. Eric Layton

I have never been an Intel processor fan. I've only had three systems with Intel cpus... two laptops (Core Duos) that were given to me and one desktop that my brother gave me back in 2000. It had an Intel Pentium I 90Mhz.

 

My all-time favorite AMD cpu is the AMD Thunderbird K7. I actually still have a working system out in my shop with this processor. I also have a spare K7 processor for it. :)

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Aside from the Motorola chips in my Commodore hardware I was pretty much Intel up until I got the Athlon 64 X2 - and I was sold on AMD after that. I guess I like the underdog.

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My all-time favorite AMD cpu is the AMD Thunderbird K7. I actually still have a working system out in my shop with this processor. I also have a spare K7 processor for it. :)

 

If you had lived closer to me I would have given you my Thunderbird pc. It was my first ever pc and I learnt a lot with it way back in 2004. Sadly no one wanted it and I gave it to the scrap man when I moved. Shame really as it still worked well but you can not keep everything and I am not creating a museum. :breakfast:

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