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I plan to buy a laptop with a discrete graphics card for gaming and daily use in the near future. I found a laptop equipped with both AMD APU (R7 7840H) and AMD discrete graphics card (RX 7600M XT).

I’d like to ask the community what they think about this particular hardware configuration (regarding compatibility with Linux). I’ve found very little discussion on the web about dual AMD graphics configurations, and no official discussion on how to switch between APU and dGPU.

Should I choose an Intel + NVIDIA setup? I don’t like NVIDIA :frowning:

Product name: MetamechBook01
Product number: 100059187586
Product gross weight: 4.3kg
Product Origin: Mainland China
Screen color gamut: 100%sRGB
Type: High-end gaming notebook
Preferred services: door-to-door service, one-year warranty
Thickness: 20.0mm or more
Graphics card type: high-performance gaming independent graphics card
Graphics card chip supplier: AMD
Memory capacity: 16GB
Series: Xuanpai-Xuanjixing
Mechanical hard drive: No mechanical hard drive
Support IPv6: Support IPv6
Processor: AMD R7
Body material: metal
Energy efficiency level: Level 1 energy efficiency
Characteristics: PCI-E high-speed solid-state drive, hard drive expandability, ray tracing technology
Screen refresh rate: 165Hz
Standby time: 7-9 hours
Screen size: 16.0-16.9 inches
Graphics card model: RX 7600M XT
System: Windows 11 Home Chinese Edition
Solid state drive (SSD): 1TB

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@white-poplar Hi, I have a HP Pavilion laptop with Dual AMD GPUs running MicroOS Aeon, these are older GPU’s (GCN 3.0), they work fine on GNOME as it integrates switcherooctl (dbus) to launch applications via a right click. On other DE’s AFAIK you need to either customize the desktop files, or just launch from the command line…

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I find it kind of satirical that a majority of Linux users I’ve witnessed have a deep aversion for NVIDIA, who BTW, comfortably have an 80+% market share.
AMD and Intel simply battle between themselves to see who can win the 2nd place metal, both are currently leaning harder into the Linux platform to gain their silver and bronze place at the podium.
It’s never been about the hardware, it’s always the software which interface the platform(s), and as long as Linux doesn’t effect graphics card share of the market, they’ll continue to create ‘unconcern’ by NVIDIA…
Personally, if I know AMD and Intel effort more than NVIDIA for the Linux desktop sector and I had a choice, I’d obviously choice either of them…while earnestly supporting the Open-Source Linux GPU Drivers endeavor in hopes of a seamless solution for our (Linux) future. :wink: :wink: :wink:

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Some more info;

switcherooctl list

Device: 0
  Name:        Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD®/ATI] Wani [Radeon R5/R6/R7 Graphics]
  Default:     yes
  Environment: DRI_PRIME=pci-0000_00_01_0

Device: 1
  Name:        Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD®/ATI] Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445 / 530/535 / 620/625 Mobile]
  Default:     no
  Environment: DRI_PRIME=pci-0000_04_00_0

switcherooctl glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon R7 M340 (iceland, LLVM 17.0.3, DRM 3.54, 6.5.9-1-default)

glxinfo | grep "OpenGL renderer"

OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon R5 Graphics (carrizo, LLVM 17.0.3, DRM 3.54, 6.5.9-1-default)

Screenshot from 2023-11-10 10-25-10
Screenshot from 2023-11-10 10-25-101192×632 89.1 KB

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@argentwolf For a laptop, yes and no, desktop is fine…

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I discussed this briefly with some friends in the fedora community. They don’t know much about it because dual AMD graphics configurations are rare in laptop devices, even under windows.

So, I am worried if I buy this dual AMD laptop, will I encounter many problems that cannot be solved or no one has explored.

It seemed like a risky move.

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Or should I go for a popular solution (Intel CPU + NVIDIA 4060)?

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What are your needs? Do you need more than a current IGPU alone can provide? I stopped buying DGPUs many moons ago, 2012 or so last. Life is simple. :slight_smile:

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One of the reasons I bought a new laptop was to play games (many popular games cannot be run with integrated graphics, such as GTAV, Red Dead Redemption 2)

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IMHO Nvidia is better for games and GPGPU. For RT Nvidia is much better. AFAIK RT has poor support with Mesa 3D + AMD.
But Nvidia often delays support for new Linux kernels.
It is possible to find Intel iGPU + Intel dGPU, but it is more rare thing, and costs more. Cannot find AMD iGPU + Intel dGPU :wink:
Dual boot can solve some issues: TW + Leap or TW + Win.

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Maybe this is a solution worth considering (Intel CPU + NVIDIA dGPU).

I don’t require new devices to have good ray tracing performance or extreme performance. I just hope that new devices can stably run popular games on steam at 1080P@60Hz.

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@white-poplar like I indicate, my HP Laptop from 2018 works fine never had an issue. Perhaps folks that run linux and dual AMD gpu’s don’t have issues, so why would the need to post asking for help? :wink:

If go the nvidia route then look at just using Prime Render Offload (no suse-prime used) which is all I use here on my setups (Desktops though intel/nvidia and nvidia/nvidia).

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