Amd 7850k APU, and gaming on linux

Hardware
1

Im setting up my HTPC at the moment, and ran into a driver issue, seems like there really isn’t much love for the 78XXk series of APU’s in open source.
It runs but the performance of the GPU is really bad, and windows with drivers runs litteral circles around it.
on my gaming rig, it was just more or less set it and forget it, never had any problems there after installing the newer mesa drivers, albeit it runs a vega.
Anyone got any experiences?, should i just buy a low end GPU, to avoid the grey hairs, and sleepless nights?
It’s not meant to be a 4k gaming rig, just your run of the mill watch some netflix, and play some games at ~1080ish p, using a xbox controller hense why the APU was perfect.

system specs are roughly.
7850k APU,
some SSDs for storage.
16gb ram @ 2400Mhz.
ubuntu mate 18.04.
attached to a ~50 inch tv.

2

If you are having issues with mesa, then you may want to try amdgpu if you are on GCN. Otherwise use the official cloased source AMD driver. I don’t have an APU but I am running a HD 7790 (GCN 1.1) with amdgpu and RADV with no issues. I don’t know where the 7850K falls in the VLIW -> GCN path.

3

That would be my suggestion. Get a deal on an RX570 for 120,- or less and be done with it. Polaris is dirt cheap at the moment. Navi might be announced at CES, I guess that is why.