Hi, I was just wanting to ask about things involving new hardware (such as new CPU & GPU releases) on Linux as a platform.
I started using Linux last year (one year anniversary this month actually), but I've only been using it exclusively since last October. One thing I haven't experienced was using newly released hardware on Linux.
My current system uses a Ryzen 7 5800x CPU, and a 3080 ti GPU. In April AMD will be releasing their new 3D CPUs, with me planning on getting the 7800X3D. One thing I was wondering about that, was would that CPU actually work on my system at the time of release? I'd imagine there'd probably need to be a kernel update, but how would upgrading to a CPU or GPU that was just released work for Linux? Would I gotta wait a couple weeks or months after release for support to finally be implemented, or what?
I would like to go AMD with my graphics card one of these days, just not with this current generation of them. My 3080 ti is good enough to last me for a good while now.
Honestly I get more excited for new CPU releases than GPU releases. Even though I could just continue on with my 5800X, I really want to upgrade to the new AMD CPUs when they're released.
So for CPU support, how would that one work? Would it be possible for me to upgrade in the first month of it's release, or is that something that takes a considerable amount of time to be implemented?
AMD have been putting effort into providing launch-day support for Linux.
Even if new hardware doesn't have support built into the kernel on day one, that doesn't mean you can't use it. If there are patches or out of kernel drivers available you can often get new stuff at least working until kernel support lands.
I would be pretty surprised, if you run into any issue with that CPU on launch day. Zen 4 is working good (got one here) and the "3D" basically only means a lot more cache and this also is a technique used in an earlier generation.
Maybe you won't get all the possible performance from day one (or with an older kernel). But you should not face issues.
RDNA 3 is something completely different and needs a new driver (also on windows). That's not the case with the CPUs.
I just recently put together a system with an i9 13900K and an AMD 7900XT. The CPU has had no problems whatsoever; it just works. The GPU has been more problematic; I've had to learn a lot about Mesa and llvm and alternate package repos and stuff. So it took a lot of tinkering, but it's working well. I still feel like my systems on the fragile side though; I'm nervous about updating in case stuff breaks.
