TUXEDO Computers continue to push out new and more powerful hardware, with their focus on the Linux market. Today, they announced two laptops with a choice of CPU vendor. Yes, that's right. Two new models and both let you pick between Intel and AMD for the CPU. Giving you more choice is always good! However, it's only NVIDIA for the GPU.
Available to order now, with stock expected later next month they've launched TUXEDO Polaris 15 and TUXEDO 17, with the main obvious difference being the screen sizes. Other than that, the rest of the specifications are mostly the same. The Polaris 15 starts with a 60hz screen but the Polaris 17 can only come with 144Hz - both screens are 1080p mat (so less glare) and IPS.
Here's some of the specs, split between the two where needed.
| Screen |
Polaris 15 IPS mat 15,6" 1920 x 1080 60Hz, up to 144Hz Polaris 17 IPS mat 17,3" 1920 x 1080 144Hz |
| Processor + GPU |
AMD Ryzen 5 4600H | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti AMD Ryzen 5 4600H | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (Polaris 15 only) AMD Ryzen 7 4800H | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti AMD Ryzen 7 4800H | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 Intel Core i7-10750H | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 1650Ti (Polaris 17 only) Intel Core i7-10750H | NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 |
| RAM (both) |
8 GB (1x 8GB) 2666MHz Samsung Up to 64 GB (2x 32GB) 3200MHz CL22 Samsung |
| Storage (both) |
250 GB Samsung 860 EVO (M.2 SATAIII) Up to 2000 GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus (NVMe PCIe) + Space and options for a second drive |
| Ports (both) | 1x USB 3.2 Gen1 Typ-C (DisplayPort: no; Power Delivery: no) 2x USB 3.2 Gen1 Typ-A 1x USB 2.0 Typ-A 2x Mini DisplayPort 1.4 (G-SYNC), 1x HDMI 2.0 (HDCP 2.2) 1x Gigabit LAN/network RJ45 1x Headphone-out 1x Mic-in 1x Card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC) |
I think they're doing a lot of things right, but it seems too many hardware vendors are stuck into having 8GB RAM as the standard and TUXEDO have done it again here. Games are sucking up more and more RAM, and for the types of games you're going to want the CPU/GPU combo power offered here, going for less than 16GB RAM is a bit crazy. So keep that in mind. Definitely go for higher RAM. Other than that, they seem like ideal Linux machines for gaming on the go be it a train, coach or in bed.
As standard, they come with TUXEDO_OS 20.04 LTS 64Bit. This is their tweaked Linux distribution based on Ubuntu with the Budgie desktop environment.
The Polaris 15 starts at €1,124.45 and the Polaris 17 starts at €1,174.45.
Find out more in their press release.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
19 comments
With two browsers (Falkon and Firefox) open, while on other tags I have Konsole, Emacs, Okular, Kontact, Cantata, Steam, and Discord running I'm using 5661M RAM. While of course 16GB is always nice to have, it's not too much of a problem to make 8 work.
0 Likes
AMD CPU but no option without Nvidia... Makes me sad :(
Last edited by setzer22 on 2 September 2020 at 5:13 pm UTC
Last edited by setzer22 on 2 September 2020 at 5:13 pm UTC
6 Likes, Who?
I see that unfortunately it comes with an nvidia GPU. I understand this works for some, but it is a no-go for me. Is there any good quality offering of a pure AMD gaming laptop?
2 Likes, Who?
JSVRamirez Sep 2, 2020
I see that unfortunately it comes with an nvidia GPU. I understand this works for some, but it is a no-go for me. Is there any good quality offering of a pure AMD gaming laptop?
AMD CPU but no option without Nvidia... Makes me sad :(I've been out of the GPU-loop for about five years now, but are Linux AMD drivers good enough for gaming now? This was always a problem before?
That said, I am very excited about this company.
0 Likes
Yeah, things have changed on the driver front in the last 5 years. Basically, the AMD open source driver is the driver everyone uses for AMD, AMD have been fairly co-operative about making that workable, and it has thus improved a lot in that time. It's developed pretty actively, keeps up with new developments. AMD drivers are currently considered pretty solid.I see that unfortunately it comes with an nvidia GPU. I understand this works for some, but it is a no-go for me. Is there any good quality offering of a pure AMD gaming laptop?AMD CPU but no option without Nvidia... Makes me sad :(I've been out of the GPU-loop for about five years now, but are Linux AMD drivers good enough for gaming now? This was always a problem before?
That said, I am very excited about this company.
NVIDIA continue to basically block full effectiveness of open source drivers, so everyone uses their closed drivers. These are, to be fair, mostly decent by most accounts, but they have their glitches, which we can't do anything about because closed, and NVIDIA continues to be unco-operative with Wayland stuff.
Between those two sides of things, and a tendency to feel that AMD have regained momentum lately, Linux gamers have increasingly shifted to AMD graphics cards.
7 Likes, Who?
With two browsers (Falkon and Firefox) open, while on other tags I have Konsole, Emacs, Okular, Kontact, Cantata, Steam, and Discord running I'm using 5661M RAM. While of course 16GB is always nice to have, it's not too much of a problem to make 8 work.As long as you don't want to play games as well, sure.
But in your scenario, a hell of a lot of games, especially those requiring lots of heavy assets, wouldn't even run unless you close half your programs so that they get at least 4 GB.
1 Likes, Who?
[quote=JSVRamirez]
My RX 5700 took its fair share of time to play nice with two displays (required kernel 5.7.x OR 5.3.x), but as far as gaming goes it has been quite smooth from the get go.
I've been out of the GPU-loop for about five years now, but are Linux AMD drivers good enough for gaming now? This was always a problem before?
My RX 5700 took its fair share of time to play nice with two displays (required kernel 5.7.x OR 5.3.x), but as far as gaming goes it has been quite smooth from the get go.
0 Likes
1 Likes, Who?
No they aren’t.
Care to elaborate?
I don't need to: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/forum/topic/4128
Since I am the expert on the topic - the problem is (and for some it still seems to prevail) - the dual screen support. It was also about the lack of OpenCL. Things which might be moot for gamers anyway. I also said:
On the bright side: Doing some Vulkan benchmarks yielded spectacular frame rates when compared to my previous GTX1060:
- War Thunder saw a 70% increase (this game works now more stable with Vulkan than OpenGL, albeit far from flawless)
- Shadow of Mordor went from 90 FPS to 146
- Talos Principle exploded from 60 FPS to 280
I do have an RX5700 and a 5500X (paired with AMD CPUs) and since kernel 5.7.x I don't experience any notable issues anymore. (I do have a Windows partition for testing purposes and the AMD driver for Windows has some showstoppers up its sleeve.)
Today I consider the AMD drivers for Navi GPUs suitable for Linux gamers - if they are using a recent kernel.
2 Likes, Who?
Quite, roughly one year after the cards came out.
I recently bought a Ryzen 3xxx laptop. A CPU from one year ago. It was unstable in Mint 20, I had to go hunting for newer kernels.
Ryzen 4xxx just came out. You need to go hunting for newest kernels to make it work.
Whenever AMD comes out with something more radically new months of hurt await again.
I recently bought a Ryzen 3xxx laptop. A CPU from one year ago. It was unstable in Mint 20, I had to go hunting for newer kernels.
Ryzen 4xxx just came out. You need to go hunting for newest kernels to make it work.
Whenever AMD comes out with something more radically new months of hurt await again.
1 Likes, Who?
Oh, and a Southern Islands GPU from 2013 I own gets constant hard lockups until this day. I don't believe it'll ever be usable with Linux.
1 Likes, Who?
Quite, roughly one year after the cards came out.I bought a X13 laptop with a 4750U Pro a few weeks ago. Naturally I need a kernel that already knows about this hardware to allow accelerated graphics. So yes, I have to "hunt" for a recent kernel (i.e. download it from the mainline repos). Bottom line: everything including all peripherals works flawlessly. I don't know, but will Tiger Lake work on kernels from a year ago?
I recently bought a Ryzen 3xxx laptop. A CPU from one year ago. It was unstable in Mint 20, I had to go hunting for newer kernels.
Ryzen 4xxx just came out. You need to go hunting for newest kernels to make it work.
Whenever AMD comes out with something more radically new months of hurt await again.
1 Likes, Who?
Quite, roughly one year after the cards came out.
I recently bought a Ryzen 3xxx laptop. A CPU from one year ago. It was unstable in Mint 20, I had to go hunting for newer kernels.
Ryzen 4xxx just came out. You need to go hunting for newest kernels to make it work.
Whenever AMD comes out with something more radically new months of hurt await again.
At least you can solve your issue by putting in some time "hunting for newer kernels" and doing some research. I usually blame *buntus and their lack of updates more than anything else for this issues. Other distros update the kernels regularly (see Manjaro for an easy-to-use up-to-date distro)
With NVidia in Linux, there are many issues still unsolvable to this day, no matter what you do, with no commitment from NVidia to ever fix them. The two that most prominently affect me are horrible screen tearing and having to choose between battery life or my HDMI port (can't have both, that's NVidia for you
)Last edited by setzer22 on 4 September 2020 at 6:43 am UTC
0 Likes
Sometimes you can’t because new hardware from AMD comes out and support is nowhere to be seen in the kernel and/or mesa and you get it in bits and pieces months later. Both Intel and Nvidia manage to sort out their shit way in advance (Intel) or by launch date (Nvidia) and AMD can’t. That’s the real issue here.
0 Likes
Sometimes you can’t because new hardware from AMD comes out and support is nowhere to be seen in the kernel and/or mesa and you get it in bits and pieces months later. Both Intel and Nvidia manage to sort out their shit way in advance (Intel) or by launch date (Nvidia) and AMD can’t. That’s the real issue here.I think software has always been AMD's (and ATI's before that) weak point. That said, my experience with the 5700 XT and the RX 580 before that has been excellent, and I can't see myself going back to Nvidia any time soon. I mean I rarely had problems with their blob either. Just the occasional problem when testing a new kernel or trying to get some video to play without tearing etc. So I'm happier with AMD, but I don't blame anyone for being happy with their Nvidia GPU either. Both are a valid choice for Linux gaming these days.
0 Likes
Sometimes you can’t because new hardware from AMD comes out and support is nowhere to be seen in the kernel and/or mesa and you get it in bits and pieces months later. Both Intel and Nvidia manage to sort out their shit way in advance (Intel) or by launch date (Nvidia) and AMD can’t. That’s the real issue here.
Fair. I can't get the latest bleeding edge card because support takes a few months. At least I know I can get a 1-2 year old AMD card and it'll work flawlessly. To me that's better, but I understand other people may have other priorities.
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me