I’ve seen these MeLe sticks before that are intriguing: https://www.amazon.com.au/MeLE-Upgraged-PCG02-Computer-Industrial/dp/B0DK4Z9YSH

Seems like the user is setting up a local VPN. Kinda weird that term now seems to mean a corporate VPN run with someone else’s servers.

Everyone who ever leaves their house with a device would show up as a false positive.

Yes, that happens all the time with these streaming services that are cracking down.

It’s sad that you’re dunking on your partner like this. Sounds like she has ADHD or similar tendencies and needs something in the background to help her concentrate on tasks. Shows that don’t need your full attention work best for this. I know because I’m the same.

This is just my opinion but nope, not at all. There’s plenty of proprietary self-host software. Plex is self-host software and it gets talked about here despite being proprietary.

Holy Poe’s Law…

I’m assuming it’s using the dockur/windows image* the same as WinApps, which seems to be pre-registered ime.

You can boost the 395 up to 120W, which might be where Framework is pushing it too, but those benchmarks are labelled 55W and that’s what AMD says is the default clock without adjustment. I’d love to see how the benchmarks compare at that higher boost but I’d imagine it’s diminishing returns similar to most GPUs. I think the benefit to using it in a lounge gaming PC would be the super low power draw, but you would need to figure out a display MUX switch and I don’t think that’s simple with desktop cards. Maybe something with a 5090 mobile would be the go at that point, but I have no idea how that compares to the 395 and whether it’s worth it.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but is the 395 not leagues ahead of something like a 4090 when it comes to performance per watt? Here’s a comparison graph of a 4090 against the Radeon 8060S, which is the 395’s iGPU:

Source.

Now that’s apparently running at the 395’s default TDP of 55W so that includes the CPU power. It’s also clear that a 4090 can trounce it on sheer performance when needed. But if we take a look at this next graph:

Source.

This shows that a 4090 has a third of the performance while still running at 130W, more than twice the TDP of the entire 395 APU.

Edit: This was buried in the comments under that second graph but here’s the points scored per Watt on that benchmark: 130W = 66 / 180W = 85 / 220W = 92 / 270W = 84 / 330W = 74 / 420W = 59 / 460W = 55 and this clearly shows the sweet spot for a 4090 is 220W.

That’s all valid for your usecase, but you were saying that you didn’t think many people would use it that way at all and that’s what I was saying I didn’t agree with. As well, a HTPC is kind of a different use case altogether to a lounge room gaming computer. There’s some overlap for sure, but if you want zero compromise gaming then you’re going to want all that CPU.

I don’t know that that is necessarily true. Having a gaming machine that can play any game and dynamically switches between a high-power draw dGPU and a genuinely capable low-power draw iGPU actually sounds amazing. That’s always been possible with every laptop that has a dGPU but their associated iGPU has often been bottom of the barrel bc “why would you use it” for intensive tasks. But a “desktop” build as a lounge room gaming PC, where you can throw whatever at it and it’ll run as quietly as it can, while being able to play AAAs at 4K60, sounds amazing.

I think the mainboard from the Framework Desktop meets your requirements: https://frame.work/au/en/products/framework-desktop-mainboard-amd-ryzen-ai-max-300-series?v=FRAFMK0002

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/tv-thats-not-necs-pi-powered-55-display

A lot of people see the Celeron name and recoil, but the modern ones are quite competent.

The 8840U is equivalent to the Z1E that’s in the Lenovo Legion Go and ROG Ally X, so it’s a super competent chip! If gaming is your main use case, you might wanna check out Bazzite :)

I would assume it’s a hash but yes, it needs an audit.

Yeah, alright mate 🙋‍♀️

LMAO I love when people crawl out of the woodwork when a new user is having these sorts of difficulties to suggest one of the top 3 most difficult distros. I love your work, 7/5 with rice, no notes.

Bazzite is, for all intents and purposes, what SteamOS on desktop will be. It was designed as a souped-up SteamOS for the deck, and then added support for other handhelds and desktops as well.

Edit: I should say as well, if you have an NVIDIA card then you should definitely look at Bazzite, as it’s likely that early releases of SteamOS desktop are going to be AMD-only as the Steam Deck and Legion Go S are, and I doubt Valve will ship support for NVIDIA until the open drivers are as solid as AMD.

Emulation is a hell of a drug…