[HN Gopher] System76 Thelio Major Powered by AMD Ryzen Threadrip...
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System76 Thelio Major Powered by AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7000 Series
Performance
Author : scns
Score : 67 points
Date : 2024-01-19 16:02 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| juggertao wrote:
| The system is $10k, the CPU costs $5K, the rest of components at
| most $3K, so I guess that means $2K profit on each system?
| crowcroft wrote:
| Even if that math is correct, it's a bit naive to consider that
| $2k 'profit', contribution margin might be a better definition.
| phkahler wrote:
| And why be upset that 20 percent of the price isn't "cost"?
| Think they're going to put things together and deal with a
| customer for free?
| crowcroft wrote:
| The 'I have the ability to perform this job and therefore I
| shouldn't have to pay for it' logic.
| marcus0x62 wrote:
| As it turns out, the cost of designing, testing, and selling a
| product include more than component costs.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| System 76 laptops are usually _very_ pricey, but this is
| actually a reasonable margin for a good desktop system
| assembler.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| AFAIK they are just rebranded "Clevo Computer" systems. On
| the downside if you order from Clevo you will be asked for
| upfront payment and then you have to go to court to get your
| money back :D ... so ordering from system76 gives you at
| least some assurance that you won't get stiffed.
| bluGill wrote:
| They are a large enough customer of Clevo that they get
| consulted on product design and changes. When Clevo ships
| something to system76, system76 already knows what hardware
| is there and that they have drivers for it. If you buy
| elsewhere it might look the same and seem to have the same
| specs, but Clevo might have put in some chip without linux
| drivers.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| do they ship ISO keyboards meanwhile? I'd rather buy
| system76 but US ASCII keyboard is a deal-breaker.
|
| which are the design differences in hardware? I do not
| see any real differences other than branding which isn't
| also offered by a bunch of other clevo resellers. having
| secureboot and system76 firmware would be a huge benefit
| and in my view the only value-add but that I you can do
| yourself because it's FOSS and there is no difference in
| HW
| trelane wrote:
| There's a lot.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17039414
|
| You may find reading like that informative.
|
| It's perhaps not surprising that the laptops that Clevo
| ships vs those they make for System76 are different. The
| fact that system76 ships coreboot and an open EC firmware
| should be a first clue.
|
| Also, for the keyboard: Many or most of their keyboards
| are configurable these days. See https://github.com/pop-
| os/keyboard-configurator
|
| The term for "the company that actually manufactures the
| computers for another company that sells them" is
| Original Design Manufacturer, ODM. All companies have
| them. https://www.unleashedsoftware.com/blog/oem-vs-odm-
| explained-...
|
| Dell's supplier list is at Public Supplier List - Dell
| https://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/corporate/corp-
| comm/en/D...
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| I know they have a keyboard configurator but that isn't a
| replacement for an ISO layout though.
|
| Also I came across the thread in the past which you
| linked, where System76 debunks these assumptions. And I
| totally agree that a lot of work goes into this. But
| until now I have not actually seen any difference in
| chipsets? Custom firmware and branded Bios yes, and a lot
| of hours goes into verifying these things which I'm happy
| to pay for. But there is afaik no difference in the
| chips. You can also re-use the firmware / coreboot (e.g.
| from s76-DARP9 on a clevo-NS50AU) without issues.
|
| This is an annoying amount of effort though and I would
| rather get this from system76 if they sold it with ISO
| keyboard than having to do it myself.
| trelane wrote:
| > But until now I have not actually seen any difference
| in chipsets?
|
| System76 is not Apple. I don't know why you'd expect them
| to have a wholly new chip set.
|
| Maybe you can flash a given Clevo with the "equivalent"
| system76 firmware. Maybe you can't. I don't think you're
| going to get support from either if you do that, though.
|
| You can ask them about it; they're pretty great about
| responding honestly.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| > System76 is not Apple. I don't know why you'd expect
| them to have a wholly new chip set.
|
| I absolutely don't :)
|
| I'm replying to this statement which I think isn't
| correct:
|
| > it might look the same and seem to have the same specs,
| but Clevo might have put in some chip without linux
| drivers.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Thing is, there are plenty of affordable Clevo reseller,
| but I'm not sure System76 laptops are 'just' rebranded
| Clevos?
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| they are not if you consider the effort that goes into
| Pop_OS, firmware, coreboot, custom-BIOS and all the
| testing that is required for it. It's in many ways a
| phenomenal deal if this is all you need. And considering
| that you can re-use these things on a Clevo I'd rather
| support System76 in what they do.
|
| However if you don't care about Pop_OS and really insist
| on an ISO keyboard then Clevo (or something like Tuxedo
| Computers) are better options.
|
| When it comes to hardware a Clevo is a Texedo is a
| System76 is a Sager (and a bunch of others)
| trelane wrote:
| > When it comes to hardware a Clevo is a Texedo is a
| System76 is a Sager (and a bunch of others)
|
| 1. That's not necessarily a fact; I don't know that it's
| been established one way or the other. There may well be
| small variances in design at the hardware level
|
| 2. In a modern PC, firmware is a _gigantic_ factor in how
| well an OS works on the hardware. See all the troubles
| with ACPI for a starting point. Even non-obvious things
| like fans depend greatly on firmware.[1]
|
| In short, if you want to run Linux, _buy a Linux
| computer_ , with support for as long as you plan on using
| it, from a company that supports Linux on the hardware.
|
| If you don't, be prepared for random glitches due to the
| mismatch between OS and firmware.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/jeremy_soller/status/132295463044
| 8427011
| taf2 wrote:
| It comes assembled? Presumably that means also it was tested
| and has some assurance that it works... I imagine they have
| some labor cost in there too
| Throw84949 wrote:
| > This System76 Thelio Major review sample was configured with
| the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 7980X 64-core processor, 4 x 32GB
| DDR5 Micron MTC20F1045S1RC48BA2 DIMMs, 1TB Crucial T700
| CT1000T700SSD5 NVMe SSD, and AMD Radeon PRO W7900 graphics.
|
| Graphic card is like $4000. Board for threadripper could easily
| be $1000.
| juggertao wrote:
| The $10K system cost I mentioned is not for the review unit,
| but for a cheaper configuration with a Radeon RX 7600 GPU
| ($250). See last page.
| CivBase wrote:
| A 25% markup on component cost is shockingly low to me
| considering the work that must have gone into developing and
| assembling this. Not to mention the development that goes into
| the OS. If I had a good use case for this product, I don't
| think I'd be unhappy with the sticker price.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| It's kinda silly though.
|
| Linux is not a good OS if you aren't into tinkering.
| Installing your own OS shouldn't be hard for any Linux user.
|
| Now I guess if your expenses it anyway it doesn't matter.
| bluGill wrote:
| I can write drivers, but it would take me a long time (I've
| never written driver so factor in a learning curve). Or I
| can select parts that linux has drivers for - but again it
| would take me time. I can assemble a computer, but it will
| take me time. My time is not free.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| It takes at most 4 hours to put a computer together even
| if you're new.
|
| If your time is worth more than 500$ an hour congrats.
| Then you can have a shop put it together for 150$ to
| 200$.
|
| What are you going to do when it's time to upgrade? Spend
| a few thousand on a new CPU and keep going or throw it
| out and buy a new pre built?
| Finnucane wrote:
| The System76 machine bested Phoronix's DIY setup. So
| clearly they aren't equivalent.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I don't see how this is possible assuming all the parts
| are identical.
|
| If I'm too afraid to build my own computer I'll buy a Mac
| dvdkon wrote:
| As with a lot of things, you can outsource that tinkering
| to someone else. Seems like a sane business model to me.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| I am not paying for the install but for their work.
|
| Try installing Windows 7 on a new laptop or Windows 11 on a
| Chromebook some time. Lots of stuff will not quite work
| right.
| stagger87 wrote:
| You don't know how much they are paying for components. (Hint:
| It's not retail)
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Dealing with customers is a PITA and dealing with suppliers is
| a PITA, at a 20% markup they're doing you a favor. The one of
| the reasons bulk discounts exist is that each interaction with
| a customer is expensive as is the process of finding them.
|
| I mainly sell software but I offer customers hardware to go
| with it as a favor to them at ~30% markup and it is usually
| much cheaper than what they can get elsewhere - keeping things
| under one roof on on one contract makes things easier and we
| make enough money on the software side we can safely eat
| potential extra warranty costs on hardware. You'd be surprised
| but if you let them customers will try to run server software
| on a 10+ year old laptop and then complain to you when it
| crashes.
| ericfrazier wrote:
| They specially tune their own drivers, firmware, etc.
| chrisa wrote:
| I bought a System76 desktop a couple of years ago with an rtx
| 3090 for some AI work and have been super happy with it.
|
| It was a bit expensive, but everything "just works", it's super
| well built, and I've had no issues for 2 years. They definitely
| know what they're doing
|
| (not affiliated, I just like it)
| hogu wrote:
| Their support is really good to. I've never had customer
| support help me sort out linux kernel issues before.
|
| We get all developers at our company System 76 linux laptops as
| their primary dev machine (Lemur Pros with 40 GB of ram)
| simfree wrote:
| That is good to hear! Framework has not been helpful on
| either minor or major issues when I've tried working with
| them, even the forums comingle AMD and Intel laptops without
| clear distinction muddying the waters as to what issues are
| relevant to a given user.
| lytedev wrote:
| I've had the opposite experience, personally. There's a ton
| of helpful information on their forum both from community
| members and employees. Getting NixOS on my AMD Framework 13
| took some doing and the forum was super helpful when it
| came to various issues.
|
| That said, I _do_ agree that the information isn't as well
| organized as a result of the nature of its creation.
| kwerk wrote:
| I use Pop OS on a custom build and have a similar "just works".
| Looking at S76 hardware for my next upgrade now.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I'm sorry but nVidia proprietary driver and "just works"
| doesn't belong in the same sentence. Every Kernel version
| update is a crapshoot. Will need to wait for the new nVidia
| opensource support that's supposedly around the corner, any day
| now.
| gpm wrote:
| My experience has absolutely been that nvidia proprietary
| drivers "just work" including during kernel updates on arch
| linux. Maybe there's some sort of QA going on by the distro
| to only ship kernels that work with them? I don't know. For
| me it just works.
| gen3 wrote:
| I can mirror what gpm said, I've never had a problem with the
| proprietary nvidia driver. The only annoyance is the
| requirement to reboot after an update, but that's pretty
| standard everywhere.
| simion314 wrote:
| >I'm sorry but nVidia proprietary driver and "just works"
| doesn't belong in the same sentence.
|
| No issue for me on kubuntu LTS and I am using NVIDIA
| proprietary drivers since 7 years ago, I even experimented
| with various drivers to make wine games to work and never had
| issues. But maybe *ubuntu gets better testing and support
| from NVIDIA then other distribution,
| logicprog wrote:
| I've been using laptops with Nvidia dgpus and the proprietary
| drivers under Linux for about 3 to 4 years now, and I've
| literally never had any problem with the graphics card, the
| driver, its integration with my system, or anything else. The
| last year on a rolling release (openSUSE Tumbleweed), too.
| Maybe that's just me though, who knows.
| bpye wrote:
| I sort of agree but for different reasons.
|
| I've never managed to get my GTX 1070 working on Linux
| without any caveats, though currently I'm closer than I've
| been before. If you're happy using X11 life is relatively
| easy, though you probably end up needing a compositor to
| solve tearing - and if you have mixed refresh rates you're
| seemingly out of luck even then.
|
| Wayland is better with mixed refresh rates, and now _mostly_
| works. I say mostly as XWayland is still broken - you have to
| disable GLAMOUR and rely on software rendering for X
| applications. This is where I've currently settled as most
| software I use is native Wayland anyway.
|
| Supposedly this'll be fixed with a protocol change for
| explicit sync - https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xserver/-
| /merge_requests...
|
| Of course if you have a newer GPU that can take advantage of
| Nvidia's new open source kernel drivers with Nouveau and you
| don't need CUDA this is all irrelevant.
| __loam wrote:
| Just chiming in to say I've had a Linux system for years with
| Nvidia gpus and I've never had an issue with it
| NeutralForest wrote:
| I'm interested in their laptops but I'm a bit afraid support
| won't be as good since I'm in Europe.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| All developers at our company get one of these delivered as part
| of their onboarding. They're pretty amazing. My only gripe is I
| re-imaged the machine and getting all of the drivers working and
| configurable is kind of a pain in the ass (the byproduct being
| the fans are going 100% always)
|
| I treat mine like a server, sitting in a rack. I ssh into it to
| create ad-hoc test/dev environments. It's really fast and
| reliable. Love it. Having 64 cores and 512GB RAM is a treat.
| spaceywilly wrote:
| I worked for a company a few years ago that issued me a
| System76 laptop. It was ok. Weighed a lot and was made of cheap
| plastic, and it also had issues with the fan. However, for a
| Linux laptop with open source hardware and firmware I was ok
| with putting up with those niggles. Glad to see they are still
| rolling along.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I have no experience or interest in their laptops,
| personally. My laptop needs are very different from my
| compute needs.
| ShrugLife wrote:
| My work has had some pretty poor experiences with their laptops.
| 2 different models both have had thermal issues where the
| computer locks up during basic web browsing, agnostic of the
| Linux distro.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Note that System76 laptops are not built or designed by them.
| They're whitelabeled.
|
| These Thelio desktops are in-house, and they are way better
| than the laptops.
| buzzdenver wrote:
| That's great info. I have an Adder laptop and both my
| hardware and software experience are poor...
| pram wrote:
| I really like the funnel for the CPU cooler, always wondered why
| more cases don't create air barriers between components like
| that.
| vondur wrote:
| I do like the aesthetics of their cases. They look really cool.
| phyalow wrote:
| I have a top of the line System76 Laptop collecting dust.
| Completely broken multi monitor support (yes I tried the support
| route), it overheats underload, it fails to sleep properly, its
| extremely heavy and is made out of cheap plastic, and the
| keyboard well...
|
| On the otherhand my Macbook Pro is a superb dev machine.
| sybercecurity wrote:
| I had a similar problem when I got one - died 2 weeks after
| warranty/return window ran out so I was left with an expensive
| paperweight. Which is a shame because I wanted to like them.
| whateveracct wrote:
| To be fair, the System76 laptops aren't comparable to the
| desktops (Thelio line).
|
| The laptops are whitelabeled iirc. Whereas the Thelio is
| designed in-house. I love my Thelio personally - nice form
| factor + easy to open up and add drives etc.
| trelane wrote:
| They're working on an in-house laptop.
|
| https://github.com/system76/virgo
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36115413
| Sweepi wrote:
| (Prebuilt) ECC RAM Speeds are always disappointing.
| bjoli wrote:
| But: imagine having a company selling workstations and tuning
| your memory a bit too much on the fast side. Having you
| computer behave incorrectly is much worse than it just being a
| little slower that a similarly specced computer.
| cyberglitch1 wrote:
| Purchased a system 76 Galago 2 a couple years ago. The
| motherboard failed just over one year old. System 76 would not
| replace or give me a discount on a replacement board. Ended up
| throwing the thing away and will never buy fron them again.
| m463 wrote:
| it was confusing in the middle to get "DIY Build" in the middle
| of the benchmarks.
|
| does that help the review?
| 1oooqooq wrote:
| ctrl+f "ecc": no matches.
|
| meh. still a consumer laptop.
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