AMD Kaveri: Gallium3D vs. Catalyst Drivers

[HokTar]

I'm not from AMD but I have an answer for one of your questions.
As for geometry shaders which is the missing part for OpenGL 3.3, Vadim had started working on them for r600g. Then Dave made a couple of new patches to it. You can find it in one of his branches. As for geometry shaders work for radeonsi AMD is working internally (Alex mentioned somewhere on phoronix). According to RadeonsiToDo, Michel D?nzer is working on it.

Hey, thanks! That is indeed very good news! Haven't heard of it earlier.

[HokTar]

Thanks a lot for your answer!

The public view of what we're doing has always been a bit "lumpy" -- nothing seems to be happening, then something surprisingly good gets released, then there's a flurry of tweaks and bug fixes for a while, then things die down and nothing seems to be happening...

It's probably safe to say that everyone is working on what you would like them to be working on, including a few things you haven't thought to ask for yet

I do understand this method of working as I have been following development ever since the "r600c can do 2D but not glxgears yet!" era.
My point was more like: there's a lot of stuff now that could be worked on in the open as it should not involve much/any IP. What I mean typically are the GL functions to support and optimisations. IMHO those should not be worked on secretly and then thrown out like how it was with UVD.

Actually there's a lot of Linux HSA work going on now, it's just being going through the "nothing seems to be happening" phase as well but that won't last much longer.

Interesting!

[Bucic]

Not at all. I have a 5800k htpc that gets within 10% the performance of Catalyst in Minecraft and HoN, and it has EXA 2d so that also runs fast.

If you want an AMD APU based machine right now under Mesa, a 5800 or 6800k is definitely a better buy. Just like how a 6970 still beats any SI card under Mesa.

Though I do know it took Mesa 10 and kernel 3.12 for the hdmi audio to work, and it still doesn't resume the hdmi output if I suspend it.

But assuming one is going to install Catalyst drivers the 7850K is still the best choice to build a low-cost gaming PC*, right? I mean, at least Catalyst is fine for Kaveri?**
* like this one https://teksyndicate.com/videos/buil...c-nov-dec-2012 or https://teksyndicate.com/videos/buil...sole-build-one
** except the need to downgrade Xorg and kernel on latest linux distributions due to AMD not keeping up

What non-AMD solution would you guys recommend for a low-cost linux gaming PC equivalent to at least AMD A10-6800K?

[djdoo]

Actually there's a lot of Linux HSA work going on now, it's just being going through the "nothing seems to be happening" phase as well but that won't last much longer.

I am very glad to hear that and expecting it to tell the truth!
Remember the old days when Linux was the only OS to support fully and natively AMD64?

I shaw this benchmark result about HSA

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/174632-amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-and-a8-7600-review-was-it-worth-the-wait-for-the-first-true-heterogeneous-chip/5

look at the chart of Libreoffice Calc! A10 7850K was 5 times faster than an intel core i5 4670 with HSA enabled!

Considering the fact that Linux community can update the compilers to build binaries with HSA enabled quite easily compared to proprietary aging compilers and as a result binaries windows have and get the image...

Now for the GPU performance of RadeonSI driver I say let's wait for proper DPM to come and then recheck but it is a loss in the article that Michael didn't mentioned the DPM lack or didn't investigate it before post the results.

[frosth]

Bucic

What non-AMD solution would you guys recommend for a low-cost linux gaming PC equivalent to at least AMD A10-6800K?

Amd FX 4 or 6 piledriver cores (or any i3 3GHz+) + Radeon HD7750 (or GTX 640) is better solution for games then Kaveri. And gfx 640 is better choice for play on linux (steam/wine) still.


Michael always used "defaults" so i guess Kaveri run at static PM.
In unigine-tests my HD7770(radeonsi) has ~70-90% performance of catalyst.

[Bucic]

Amd FX 4 or 6 piledriver cores (or any i3 3GHz+) + Radeon HD7750 (or GTX 640) is better solution for games then Kaveri. And gfx 640 is better choice for play on linux (steam/wine) still.


Michael always used "defaults" so i guess Kaveri run at static PM.
In unigine-tests my HD7770(radeonsi) has ~70-90% performance of catalyst.

I see, thanks.

Out of curiosity, how would AMD A10-7850K stack up against an AMD ATHLON II X4 750 FM2 + GF 640 performance-wise? The APU is more expensive here! I assume you meant something like EVGA GeForce GT 640 2048MB.

I guess APU-s are better bang for the buck only when you want a sub-$400 or even sub-350$ gaming system...

[zanny]

I see, thanks.

Out of curiosity, how would AMD A10-7850K stack up against an AMD ATHLON II X4 750 FM2 + GF 640 performance-wise? The APU is more expensive here! I assume you meant something like EVGA GeForce GT 640 2048MB.

I guess APU-s are better bang for the buck only when you want a sub-$400 or even sub-350$ gaming system...

You do have to consider the top of the line AMD parts are marked up at a price premium a bit. For example, the 5600k and 6600k are better bang for buck with slightly lower clock speeds.

But its hard to compete with, say, a 260x + Athlon 750. They cost about the same, but the discrete gpu will do a lot better (I think, I know the 260x is a newer chip that might not have good Mesa supportl like the 7770 or 7850 around it).

[Kivada]

I am very glad to hear that and expecting it to tell the truth!
Remember the old days when Linux was the only OS to support fully and natively AMD64?

I shaw this benchmark result about HSA

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/174632-amd-kaveri-a10-7850k-and-a8-7600-review-was-it-worth-the-wait-for-the-first-true-heterogeneous-chip/5

look at the chart of Libreoffice Calc! A10 7850K was 5 times faster than an intel core i5 4670 with HSA enabled!

Considering the fact that Linux community can update the compilers to build binaries with HSA enabled quite easily compared to proprietary aging compilers and as a result binaries windows have and get the image...

Now for the GPU performance of RadeonSI driver I say let's wait for proper DPM to come and then recheck but it is a loss in the article that Michael didn't mentioned the DPM lack or didn't investigate it before post the results.

Yeah, that just drives home why the OSS devs need to start targeting OpenCL in a big way, look how fast they jumped on 64 bit when it came out, HSA/OpenCL is the new game changer and OSS should be at the forefront of that technology.

[Kivada]

You do have to consider the top of the line AMD parts are marked up at a price premium a bit. For example, the 5600k and 6600k are better bang for buck with slightly lower clock speeds.

They also have significantly slower GPUs and lack HSA support.

Stepping down from the A10-7850K to the A10-7700 incurs a drop from 512 shaders to 384 shaders. Which, if you OC the ram for increased memory bandwidth makes a pretty large difference as in both cases the GPU is still running at 720Mhz.

[zanny]

They also have significantly slower GPUs and lack HSA support.

Stepping down from the A10-7850K to the A10-7700 incurs a drop from 512 shaders to 384 shaders. Which, if you OC the ram for increased memory bandwidth makes a pretty large difference as in both cases the GPU is still running at 720Mhz.

But if you are looking at the A10-7850k, why not just get a 7770 + Athlon 750k? They cost the same, but would perform better. Slightly more expensive would be something like FX 6300 + 7870 / 270x, but that would crush the APU by at least twice the performance for only like 50% more cost.