crossposted from: https://tilvids.com/videos/watch/69008160-d7a9-4bf2-af92-ebcfc256b20f
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Timecodes: 00:00 Intro Sponsor: Start securing your CentOS 7 fleet now 02:06 Slimbook Hero 03:32 Design & Build Quality 04:45 Specs and options 07:02 Performance & Gaming 09:25 Display 10:06 Keyboard & Mouse 11:20 Software Experience 12:36 Linux gaming laptop? 14:10 Support the channel
#Laptop #Gaming #Linux
It's a 15 inch device, with a 1440p display that refreshes at 165 hertz, with an aluminium chassis, a 13th gen Intel i7 CPU, an RTX 4060 GPU, as much RAM as you could cram into a laptop, and very solid I/O.
So, this thing is chunky: it's not meant to be an ultrabook, it weighs 2.1 kilos, or 4.6 pounds, and it's pretty damn sturdy. Not much give or flex to this chassis, thanks to the aluminium.
The hinge is really solid as well, with minimal wobble when typing. It's a 16:9 form factor. Of course you can open the laptop, and access the 2 M.2 slots for SSDs, the 2 DDR5 RAM slots, and the battery, which is 62 Wh. You can also buy spare parts from Slimbook, including the bezel cover, touchpad, lid, battery, keyboard palm rest, display, and more.
Now, in terms of specs, this laptop is well equipped, with a core i7 13620H, and an Nvidia RTX 4060, with 8 gigs of VRAM.
You can spec the rest up to your liking, with up to 64 gigs of DDR 5 RAM, at 5200 Mhz, and up to 4TB of PCIE4 storage.
You can also choose to dispose with the gamer branding and use a more unified black keyboard instead of having the white accents on the WASD keys, and you can pick any keyboard language you want.
As per I/O, on the left, you get a kensington lock, a USB 2.0 port, probably for a mouse, a mic jack, and a headphone jack. On the back, you have a mindisplay port, USB C 3.2 gen 2 with dusplayport support, HDMI 2.1, a gigabit ethernet port and the barrel charger, since charging this thing over USB would be a challenge. And on the right, there's an SD card reader, and 2 type A USB 3.2 ports.
On top of all that, you get Bluetooth 5.2, Wifi 6, a basic webcam and onboard mic that won't blow your socks off, dual speakers that are pretty decent, and a backlit keyboard with RGB, because, gamer.
In terms of benchmarks, the CPU get a score of 2733 in single core and 11625 in multi core on Geekbench 6.
https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/3787232
Battery life is decent, with about 7h of generic office work with wifi on, 50% brightness, and using the silent mode.
In Horizon Zero Dawn, at the native 1440p resolution, without any upscaling, and at the ultra preset, the Slimbook Hero managed a super smooth 60 FPS.
For Shadow of the Tomb Raider, also at 1440p without upscaling, and the ultra preset, I got 99 FPS on average, sometimes going down to about 80, or up to 120.
The display is really solid, it covers 100% of SRGB, it has a refresh rate up to 165hz, and it's 1440p.
The keyboard is solid enough. The keys are very stable, and they have good travel. They're quite clicky, and the sound is pleasant, and they bounce back super fast, it's very nice to type on.
The touchpad is ok. It's smooth enough, and precise, although it's very off center, which I find annoying in day to day use.
The whole setup makes no sense with Linux in mind and screams of a rebadged Windows notebook. Just go with an AMD-exclusive system, perhaps with an Intel WiFi module.
Yeah but consider the following: CUDA. I don't even game that much (and I was okay with older games that can be played on a Ryzen APU) but I had to get a laptop with a 3050 for GPGPU shenanigans. It is definitely a downgrade in terms of Linux compatibility compared to my older laptop (the machine doesn't go to sleep properly unless you are running Ubuntu 20.04, which I discovered accidentally)
As far as I can tell, there isn't a single Linux laptop with an AMD GPU. Admittedly, even in the Windows world AMD laptops are a lot rarer than Nvidia ones, but there are still a few. None of them come with Linux out-of-the-box, though.
Framework laptops don't come with Linux out of the box, but Linux is very nicely supported and tested on them.
Well, then those Linux notebook makers do a crappy job. Radeon is the best supported gaming GPU on Linux as of now. That's just fact. Any notebook manufacturer would look which vendors Valve uses for Steam Deck and pick whatever is the latest component from that vendor because all the driver improvements made by Valve also benefit the newer, more powerful GPU.
Taking an obvious Windows notebook and just rebadging it isn't a real Linux notebook anyway. If I were to buy a new notebook, it would be the Framework 16. Sure, there is no option for it to ship with Linux but the DIY edition ships without Windows.