The Expected Linux Driver State For The Radeon VII

[phoronix]

Phoronix: The Expected Linux Driver State For The Radeon VII

With yesterday's surprise announcement of the Radeon VII "Radeon 7" as a new $699 7nm second-generation Vega consumer graphics card launching in early February, you may be wondering about the open-source Linux driver support state. While nothing official has come down the wire yet, here is what appears to be the state for this new Vega graphics card on Linux...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Radeon-VII-Linux-Driver-Expect

[tomtomme]

I thought we knew that Vega20 is not just a die shrink of Vega10, because of things like much greater double precision perf and 8bit support. As it is almost certain that Vega VII is a Vega20 part (MI50 has the exact same configuration except the 32GB HBM2) there must be driver updates. Or is it possible to just use the old driver, and thus just not enabling those new features? Or was Vega10 already shipping those features, just without a driver available?

[Michael]

I thought we knew that Vega20 is not just a die shrink of Vega10, because of things like much greater double precision perf and 8bit support. As it is almost certain that Vega VII is a Vega20 part (MI50 has the exact same configuration except the 32GB HBM2) there must be driver updates. Or is it possible to just use the old driver, and thus just not enabling those new features? Or was Vega10 already shipping those features, just without a driver available?

There were new ID added last month for both Vega 10 and Vega 20. But with regards to 'no changes', I am referring to what is already in the driver.

[Peter Fodrek]

I thought we knew that Vega20 is not just a die shrink of Vega10, because of things like much greater double precision perf and 8bit support. As it is almost certain that Vega VII is a Vega20 part (MI50 has the exact same configuration except the 32GB HBM2) there must be driver updates.?

Really?


AMD Stages A Number Of Fixes Ahead Of Linux 4.20~5.0 - Plus Vega 20 "MGPU Fan Boost"
Written by Michael Larabel in Radeon on 11 October 2018


a lot of Vega 20 enablement code including compute support, initial xGMI support, VCN dynamic power gating, DC display code enhancements, VCN JPEG engine support,

With this first batch of fixes for this next kernel, there are several display/DC fixes, endian fixes for Vega, Vega 20 PowerPlay fixes, Picasso/Raven/Raven2 PowerPlay fixes too, manual fan control mode switching fixes, and a variety of other fixes pertaining to the yet-to-be-released Vega 20, Raven 2, and Picasso hardware. It looks like by the time that hardware
link

[tomtomme]

There was Plasma on the keynote https://youtu.be/bibZyMjY2K4?t=1975 so one would expect Linux support.

That was about threadripper

[M@GOid]

There was Plasma on the keynote https://youtu.be/bibZyMjY2K4?t=1975 so one would expect Linux support.

I don't think they were using Vega VII there, it was just a VFX crew messing around for a AMD PR. Too bad the low res of the video didn't allow to pick any details.

[L_A_G]

Surprise announcement? Here I thought it was kind of obvious with the additional Vega IDs... To me at least the only real surprise was that they were just releasing a single card and not doing a full on refresh akin to when they refreshed the RX 400-series as the 500-series built on an improved process node. Then again it could be that they're approaching this the same way they did with the initial Vega launch where they first released the Vega FE as the all-round card for both gaming and workstation use before releasing variants of it as the Vega 56, 64, Radeon Pro WX 9100, WX 8100 and Pro SSG.

As for why they're just releasing a single Vega FE-esque card, my guess would be that like with the Vega FE, they're constrained on the production side (probably with the big 7nm chips).

[toguro123]

Does not matter. Nobody can afford this thing...

[cb88]

Does not matter. Nobody can afford this thing...

Except you know anyone with a decent job... or that lives with their parents and has disposable income even with a crappy job.

I have a Vega FE so will certainly skip this card, maybe skip Navi too and wait for Arcturus. Upgrading every GEN is silly.

[kbios]

I too have a vega fe with a waterblock... This card will probably not be compatible with it due to the additional hbm stacks, but let's wait and see