AMD Processor Use in Linux Gaming Surpasses 70% Market Share

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Steam Deck is probably responsible for this.

This article is kinda misleading. Nearly 40% of Linux devices is the Steam Deck which is AMD only. Subtracting the Steam Deck AMD usage on Linux more or less matches that on Windows.

See the Steam hardware survey for the numbers that this blog spam article is reporting on: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/?platform=linux

Yeah, there really isn't any reason to go with one processor brand over the other. Since drivers and such aren't a concern (like with GPUs) most people just pick whichever one has the most price-effective offering in the spec range they're looking for.

I think you are half right. For the most part it's price effectiveness in the spec range, but there are other considerations such as battery draw with laptops, or iGPU if you're not running or looking for a video card. For the same price, looking into the performance or efficiency related to the type of programs you are using is still worthwhile.

It's a good time to be a pc gamer all around.

Intel dropped the ball completely, and it will take years to catch up, if they ever do again. Could be a very long time.

If you believe they will become market leader again, buy stocks now. They are dirt cheap and could double or triple the money in maybe 3 to 5 years if they somehow come back from this.

I think it's weird how intel 'dropping the ball' still resulted in them just barely beating out AMD or hardly falling behind.

Part of me truly believes intel purposefully held back their product line so they could milk it for as long as possible; that they're just putting out enough to stay competitive with AMD but nothing more.

But they are not conpetetive with amd at all anymore. I don't think there is any reason to buy Intel.

For mid range desktop CPUs (around $300) it's very even between AMD and Intel. When I was upgrading a few months ago I was deciding between i5 13600K and Ryzen 7 7700X which are similarly priced. Intel has more cores and better multithreaded performance, while AMD draws less power and has better single thread performance.

Going up to $400 it looks like Intel has no similarly priced competitor to Ryzen 9 7900X.

At $550 it looks like the situation has turned around, and i9-13900K has better power usage and single thread performance, while Ryzen 9 7950X wins on multi threaded performance.

In addition, the AM5 platform still has a bit of problems. Supposedly the long boot times have been improved with newer BIOS for my motherboard, but I'm a little bit afraid to update since other users have reported they got instabilities and at least my computer is rock solid now.

13700k seems to be similarly priced now compared to 7900x.

AMD slashed prices due to poor sales of zen4, 7700x used to be more aligned to 13700k pricing than 13600k. Before that Intel was actually usually the better choice between the two.

That has me worried. Intel was what kept AMD honest. With AMD in the lead, there will be no real alternative to AMD if when AMD turns evil, since Intel does not take security seriously (the Intel Management Engine is insecure by design).

The Steam Deck and all the handhelds that came after helped this. Got to love competition and innovation.

Two reasons:

  • Nvidia is mostly closed source so no driver on Linux without reverse engineering
  • Steam deck and other handhelds device

Nvidia doesn't make CPUs, which is what this headline is referring to. The headline is still a bit surprising because Intel's Linux support is first-class, but yeah, there's more than a million Steam Decks out there in the wild now, I imagine that accounts for a large chunk of this stat

For me, choosing AMD in my newest laptop over Intel boiled down to iGPU. In previous years I had an Intel with their iGPU, which was underwhelming. For the next one, I chose Intel with a discrete Nvidia card, which was a mistake due to a power drain, proprietary drivers, and all-around hustle. For the first time in decades, I chose AMD CPU, finally lifting away the resentment of anything ATI-related from decades ago. I must say that I am immensely happy with the choice, speed, reliability, power consumption, thermal control, and the iGPU (Rembrandt).

Were I in the market for a new laptop I imagine I'd go through nearly the same thought process. AMD iGPUs are quite good.