Open-Source Radeon Driver Performance Against NVIDIA Linux Gaming For March 2021

[iznogood]

Hello,

These results are amazing, who would have ever believed this, coming from 20+ years back ...

But I would like to ask 2 things if someone knows
1. Are the top cards similar hardware wise or the NVIDIA is maybe previous generation ? I haven't followed the hardware evolution the last years so if someone can clarify
2. After the 3-4 top cards, in the middle section, NVIDIA seems to have an advantage with more cards showing better performance. Is this because of hardware being better in NVIDIA cards or maybe some optimization needed in the AMD driver ?

Thanks in advance

[angrypie]

Hello,

These results are amazing, who would have ever believed this, coming from 20+ years back ...

But I would like to ask 2 things if someone knows
1. Are the top cards similar hardware wise or the NVIDIA is maybe previous generation ? I haven't followed the hardware evolution the last years so if someone can clarify
2. After the 3-4 top cards, in the middle section, NVIDIA seems to have an advantage with more cards showing better performance. Is this because of hardware being better in NVIDIA cards or maybe some optimization needed in the AMD driver ?

Thanks in advance

1. AMD and NVIDIA architectures aren't directly comparable as they implement the same stuff differently, but RTX 3000 is current gen (Ampère) and so is the RX 6000 (RDNA2).
2. Maybe a bit of both? GCN GPUs aren't that efficient except for computing (the RX 5700XT is RDNA1, but it was meant as a mid-range card). NVIDIA did have better gaming performance though.

[eydee]

Weird title as usual Phoronix. Comparing a graphics driver to a company. Wut?

[Etherman]

Weird title as usual Phoronix. Comparing a graphics driver to a company. Wut?

Regular Phoronix readers understand that that means: Nvidia driver vs Mesa driver.
It got nothing with companies or their evil motives to do.

[TemplarGR]

I just want an affordable RDNA2 mainstream variant. Not everyone wants 4K gaming on a desktop. Some of us are more than satisfied with 1080p.

[bridgman]

But I would like to ask 2 things if someone knows
1. Are the top cards similar hardware wise or the NVIDIA is maybe previous generation ? I haven't followed the hardware evolution the last years so if someone can clarify
2. After the 3-4 top cards, in the middle section, NVIDIA seems to have an advantage with more cards showing better performance. Is this because of hardware being better in NVIDIA cards or maybe some optimization needed in the AMD driver ?

#1 - newest in both cases - with the caveat that the highest card from each vendor (NVidia 3090, AMD 6900XT) was not sampled to Phoronix (or, in fairness, to a lot of other reviewers)

#2 - I think the main answer is that before the 6xxx generation NVidia had more high end cards than AMD - we didn't have anything in the 2080ti / RTX range in terms of either price or performance.

[Laughing1]

What is the problem in dota2?

[HenryM]

The 6800 is really something. just 60% of the average power draw as the 3080 for similar performance. under 150w!

1. Are the top cards similar hardware wise or the NVIDIA is maybe previous generation ?

one factor is AMD's on their second generation of 7nm chips, Nvidia just moved from "14nm++" to "10nm++" so AMD has a density advantage.
both lines of GPUs are the newest released and largely unobtainable.

2. After the 3-4 top cards, in the middle section, NVIDIA seems to have an advantage with more cards showing better performance. Is this because of hardware being better in NVIDIA cards or maybe some optimization needed in the AMD driver ?

quite generally, Nvidia drivers are better optimized for those specific games. on AMD some potential optimizations are not default (like mesa_glthread) so it's sometimes possible to configure an AMD system for better performance but I understand that's out of the scope of Micheal's testing

[onlyLinuxLuvUBack]

Could you add a poor peasant card like a rx570 for reference ?

[nranger]

Gotcha, understood. I figured depending on the game that the Vega 64 would slot in around the 5700 XT and the 2070 Super give or take.

That's probably about right today with current Mesa. Vega64 has 14% more CUs and 18% higher memory clock than Vega56 and in practice is about 15% faster in benchmarks. When RDNA1 was released, I recall Vega 64 was closer to the regular 5700/2060 Super while Radeon VII traded blows with 5700XT, particularly on Windows.

One thing I am surprised about is Michael's power usage for the Vega56. I can easily get mine to pull 300 watts (flashed with Vega64 vbios), but it only goes down to 160 watts on the stock "quiet" bios.