AMD Radeon HD 7950: Southern Islands Isn't Yet A Penguin Holiday

[Adarion]

Aww, people please stop flaming the whole thread with mostly off topic stuff even.

The card performed fairly ok besides the watermark. That is what I found out reading the article, and yes, the free driver is still behind, oh big surprise.

[Veerappan]

The card performed fairly ok besides the watermark. That is what I found out reading the article, and yes, the free driver is still behind, oh big surprise.

Agreed. Performance is good, and hopefully the power consumption will be respectable.

I've got high hopes for the GCN cards running in Mesa due to the new SIMD (not VLIW) architecture. It should make it easier to actually create an efficient/performant shader compiler. Of course some of the delay is caused by this massive architectural overhaul, but when the new driver is ready, it should hopefully be worth it.

I can't say that this will cause me to upgrade my 6850 1GB, but next generation... who knows.

[allquixotic]

Um............................... OK....

Putting the whole Xbox / Qaricrazium bit aside, I'd like to say my HD7970 works pretty well with Catalyst 8.9{classified}

Michael, do a little search on your own forum for "lolsed" and you might be pleasantly surprised at the result (regarding getting rid of "unsupported hardware" logo)

I need to update that utility though, I found a bug.

[r1348]

The new generation of AMD cards really rocks, I'm even more convinced to buy one (7770 or 7850, depends on the cost/performance ratio) for my new machine.
Still, I'll hold the buy for when there are open drivers out, hoping AMD will notice (it won't).

[bridgman]

Still, I'll hold the buy for when there are open drivers out, hoping AMD will notice (it won't).

Notice what ? We've had multiple developers working on support since well before launch, what would we do differently ?

[Max Spain]

Notice what ? We've had multiple developers working on support since well before launch, what would we do differently ?

I think he's hoping that AMD sees a spike in sales after their open source support is released to the wild and that spike convinces them to dedicate more resources to improving the experience of their Linux customers.

[crazycheese]

This card really looks like my GTX 260 sp216 !

The performance is very very nice, I congratulate AMD.
The good thing is that driver works, as Michael reported (HUGE THANK YOU for buying hardware!), even if it is catalyst.

Im not asking about WINE. Not asking about Logo. Not asking about opensource. Means basic 3D functionality can be made to work with catalyst, ok.

It looks like it will have good application compensating amd bulldozer fail on desktop market.

Does this card OpenCL in Linux? Im looking towards more benchmarks and usage scenarios!

I don?t mind Bridgeman uses Xbox or Vista. I mind if the AMD hardware support for linux is crap, that is Bridgeman?s job, no?
Opensource for 7xxx is not ready and overall position towards opensource driver is very low - low budget segment.

They decided to go with proprietary, but they must understand that nvidia has proprietary working for years so they are not gaining anything this route; unless the support is done for [x] mark - like "we can too".

Because AMD does catalyst because of workstation customers, but they know desktop users prefer opensource. Im sure workstation customers would prefer opensource as well.

If you cannot package opensource due to IP, what is that IP specifically?

Maybe do it like Oracle with virtualbox - OSE and closed source edition(based on OSE).

If I, as linux user, is to buy this card or 580, i would probably go to 580, because hardware is good - but only if driver can use it efficiently. Once again looking for more benchies. Im very unsure if I would recommend AMD to anyone however (because (and untill) they are not interested in selling their hardware in the first place).

[crazycheese]

I can't say that this will cause me to upgrade my 6850 1GB, but next generation... who knows.

How is your current experience on Linux with 6850? You using catalyst or opensource? What is broken?

[crazycheese]

Yes, but you must make a lot of your posts look less baby-style - if we are to show this thread to AMD management for them to check if what Bridgeman does is sufficient to his position.

Don?t get me wrong, even if your accusements are correct (and accusements are critisism, and there is no correction if there is no critisism); they are formulated in a away that will make most people think your are from kindergarten. They will stop reading it just by looking at them. Don?t be from kindergarten.

Otherwise they will think linux users are kindergarten chilren.

[Panix]

This card really looks like my GTX 260 sp216 !

The performance is very very nice, I congratulate AMD.
The good thing is that driver works, as Michael reported (HUGE THANK YOU for buying hardware!), even if it is catalyst.

Im not asking about WINE. Not asking about Logo. Not asking about opensource. Means basic 3D functionality can be made to work with catalyst, ok.

It looks like it will have good application compensating amd bulldozer fail on desktop market.

Does this card OpenCL in Linux? Im looking towards more benchmarks and usage scenarios!

I don?t mind Bridgeman uses Xbox or Vista. I mind if the AMD hardware support for linux is crap, that is Bridgeman?s job, no?
Opensource for 7xxx is not ready and overall position towards opensource driver is very low - low budget segment.

They decided to go with proprietary, but they must understand that nvidia has proprietary working for years so they are not gaining anything this route; unless the support is done for [x] mark - like "we can too".

Because AMD does catalyst because of workstation customers, but they know desktop users prefer opensource. Im sure workstation customers would prefer opensource as well.

If you cannot package opensource due to IP, what is that IP specifically?

Maybe do it like Oracle with virtualbox - OSE and closed source edition(based on OSE).

If I, as linux user, is to buy this card or 580, i would probably go to 580, because hardware is good - but only if driver can use it efficiently. Once again looking for more benchies. Im very unsure if I would recommend AMD to anyone however (because (and untill) they are not interested in selling their hardware in the first place).

Why would you even have to think about recommending AMD video cards to a Linux user?

AMD doesn't support Linux at all!!!! The 7950 is already released and there's virtually no linux support. There's still a watermark?!?!!? LOL! A $500 video card and you can't even use it in your chosen OS without tinkering with the driver yourself?!? AMD has virtually no Linux support.

It's already released and there's ZERO open source support and they do nothing about the proprietary driver support. AMD continues to be an epic fail in Linux and the reason why is they don't give a crap about Linux. They care even less than Nvidia does. It's just cheaper to have an OSS driver that they can load off to Linux users.