I am current running AOS 5.1 on three machines:
Lenovo T530 laptop with an 2.8-GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-3360M (circa late 2012) with SATA SSD
HP EliteDesk 800 G4 65 watt mini desktop with an Intel i5 8500 (circa early 2018) with very fast NVMe SSDs,
A desktop Ryzen 5 5600x on MSI PROB500-VC (circa late 2020) with very fast NVMe SSD and spinning hard drive. The Ryzen 5 5600x and MSI PROB550-VC can still be purchased new as of this writing (Nov 2024).
I offer my very unscientific observations in hope that anyone considering a machine replacement for AOS may find them useful. My observations center on two areas: performance and compatibility - although my own personal priorities are compatibility and then performance.
Performance
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Graphical: I am not gaming on any machine so for me graphical performance on all three are basically the same. The machines are running both panorama (T530) and SNAP in both accelerated (Ryzen) and non-accelerated mode (EliteDesk 800), and for me there is no noticeable difference in graphical performance. This includes text mode scrolling in editors and command line prompts, as well as graphical performance in VLC while playing movies.
Boot up time: Boot time, from power on to desktop ready is. T530 - 31 seconds, EliteDesk - 31 seconds, Ryzen 5 - 72 seconds. All machines are running MBR disks and all go through Airboot - so the times include me hitting Enter as fast as possible in Airboot. All are running CSM/legacy mode. All machines have UEFI bios. The relative differences between the machines stays the same when re-booting, i.e. a warm boot. The longer boot time for the Ryzen is almost all in the "what the hell are you doing in there" bios setup time, that is the time between turning on the machine and getting the Airboot prompt. For a warm re-boot on the Ryzen there is a multi-second delay between clicking the Shut Down menu item in the Desktop pop-up menu and the display of the extended shutdown prompt. I have to point out that the Ryzen is running xWorkplace and the two Intel machines are running AOS Enhanced Desktop.
Desktop restart time: Here I am timing how long it takes for the Restart Desktop prompt to show after clicking on the Restart Desktop prompt in the Desktop popup menu. T530 and EliteDesk are essentially instantaneous, Ryzen 5 is 7 seconds. The actual desktop restart process, once you hit OK at the Restart Desktop prompt is essentially the same.
The bottom line is the T530 with a SATA SSD and slowest CPU boots as fast as the EliteDesk with the fast NVMe SSD, and twice as fast as the Ryzen with the fastest NVMe SSD I could buy plugged in to PCIe gen 4 socket. For boot times it appears Intel has a significant edge.
General Performance: It is hard to directly compare the performance of the machines because they are used for different tasks. The EliteDesk is used as a file and database server (WSeB). The Ryzen and T530 are used as general purpose machines and do a lot of compling.
Once I (finally) get the Ryzen booted it is the fastest of the three machines, which is mainly noticeable in application startup time and compile times. I suspect this is mostly due to the speed of drive access. The Ryzen is running PCIe gen 4 with a very fast NVMe SSD. The EliteDesk is running PCIe gen 3 with the fastest NVMe SSDs I could buy. The T530 is running a SATA SSD.
Compatibility
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I have significantly more money invested in software then I ever will have in hardware, so compatibility is very important to me. I run, on a regular basis, both OS2 and Win-OS/2 software (both Win16 and Win32s), some of which was released in 1992. Software compatibility is generally not a problem with OS/2 software. I have a couple of applications from 1992 that run on OS/2 - they have a few issues but run. The compatibility issues mostly arise in Win-OS/2 and here things get complicated.
The T530 is more compatible with Win-OS/2 software than either the EliteDesk or the Ryzen - in most ways. It will run applications in seamless mode that will not run in seamless mode on the Ryzen or the EliteDesk;. the EliteDesk will not run Win-OS/2 or DOS in anything other than full screen mode.
On the other hand, I can install some Win-OS/2 applications on the Ryzen that won't install on the other two machines - even though the Ryzen has problems running some applications in seamless mode.
The bottom line is that for compatibility it appears there is more of a difference in how old the machine is than there is between Intel and AMD processors. With older generally being better.
Versions of AOS
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The T530 will run earlier versions of AOS than 5.1, but Win-OS/2 will not run on that machine until AOS version 5.1. You cannot install any version earlier than AOS v 5.1 on the Ryzen - the installer will not work. You can install an earlier version of AOS on a different machine and move the drive over to the Ryzen but USB, and perhaps networking, will not work.
I didn't try to install an earlier version than 5.1 on the EliteDesk but I suspect an earlier version would not install.
This is not unique to AOS. By way of comparison you cannot install Win7 on the EliteDesk without heroic efforts and strange incantations. The fact that you can install and run AOS on the latest hardware is truly an accomplishment.
Hope this is helpful to someone.
Couple of notes. The difference between speed of UEFI and MBR boot should be just about 0. The difference between how ArcaOS in UEFI mode AND MBR starts might down to less then maybe half a second difference's if not less.
Its not down to CPU support for DOS and WIN/OS2 support. What is the most likely cause is the speed of the system and possibly, memory layout.
If you have an issue with WIN/OS2 programs and it can be reproduced then open a ticket at
https://mantis.arcanoae.com.
You can also try run the system with the line psd=acpi.psd /maxcpu=1 in the config.sys. This will run with one core.
Some installers can not handle volumes for ArcaOS bigger then 2 GB and might hang.
So that are some things you can try to pinpoint issue's.
Based on how I understand the video subsystem in OS/2 works for WIN/OS2 this should just works and this mostly is routed via GRADD (VMANWIN.SYS I think the driver is called).
But in a UEFI environment there MIGHT be unknown bugs. Every bug report you could report to Arca Noae can help improve the code.
But its hard to debug VDM (DOS/WIN/OS2 code).
Roderick