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AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz - Is It Worth It On Linux?

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  • #21
    Originally posted by javy29sp View Post
    Has support for the 7970 gotten better? Will 3.11 help when it is released? I have a 7970 and want to make the switch to linux from windows but don't want to if it's more trouble then it's worth.
    I would wait until the distro releases next spring. The SI driver is under heavy development right now, and you can get it working, but if you wait 6 months i think you'll be a lot happier.

    (The 3.11 kernel does help, a lot, but the 3.12 kernel and Mesa 9.3 already have a lot more fixes that you'll probably want too)
    Last edited by smitty3268; 31 August 2013, 07:41 PM.

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    • #22
      Integrated chipset video on Phenom boards not enough even for open games.

      Originally posted by n3wu53r View Post
      First your needs are different, most people don't play open games. Many linux users do, but even the linux users who do, most of them play commercial games as well. r600g is good enough for most commercial games that are not too new (ie, it's playable, but lower FPS then windows or linux catalyst). But still you are not using the hardware to the fullest. If you want to do professional work that is GPU demanding, any FOSS driver does not cut it. r600g is good if you already own an AMD card, it let's you pay games but it still is a PITA. You need an unreleased kernel, with non-defualt kernel parameters to get DPM! Max performance means you compile your own mesa. Also, you would have to deliberately buy hardware which is 2 generations behind.

      The only reason to build a linux rig with AMD gpu's would be if you only wanted FOSS and no proprietary stuff on your system, as well as support AMD for their FOSS efforts. In that case you aren't playing commercial games, or doing professional 3D/opencl, so even an integrated GPU fits your needs. If that's what you want, great, do it! Otherwise don't touch AMD gpus.

      Oh and even if you want FOSS only and to support AMD, don't touch radeonsi unless you enjoy pain.
      If you have an older AM2+ board with onboard HD4200 GPU, it will only pull about 8fps in Scorched3d. Might be able to play 0ad, haven't tried that. If you have a newder AM3+ board, it might not have integrated graphics at all.Thus, both my Phenom and Bulldozer setups need discrete graphics. Since my priority was on staying open source, that meant AMD. I've played with Nouveau. but it's not going to catch up until someone figures out how to make power management work.

      Speaking of integrated graphics, many AMD APU's have graphics equivalent to an HD 5770-and with Linux 3.11 (now released in Ubuntu Saucy) and boot parameter radeon.dpm=1 are no longer clock-crippled. Never tested Intel graphics on any recent hardare except for Intel Atom, which does a different job. Not buying an Intel desktop, I am happy with my AMD machines and hate Intel's business practices. For video editing outputting to libx264, AMD Bulldozer/Piledriver can match any Intel chip except the $1,000 *bridge-E varieties. For what Ivy Bridge/Haswell cost, you can have Bulldozer/Piledriver 8 core and a Radeon HD6770, which on open drivers will beat the crap out of the Intel GPU.

      Since I keep all paid everything off my systems, a GPU and driver good enough for all open games (like r600g) is good enough for me. Kdenlive renders on the CPU and plays back in xv, any GPU will do EXCEPT a small AMD using the closed driver. As for "professional work that is GPU demanding," there are few FOSS programs I know of in that category, with the notable exception of Blender, which supports only CUDA and not OpenCL.Lightworks is not open, all open video editors I know of render on the CPU. Kdenlive's devs are working on exploiting MLT's new direct shader language capability, don't know if that will be only to play effects in realtime or for rendering, though.

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      • #23
        Originally posted by n3wu53r View Post
        The only reason to build a linux rig with AMD gpu's would be if you only wanted FOSS and no proprietary stuff on your system, as well as support AMD for their FOSS efforts. In that case you aren't playing commercial games, or doing professional 3D/opencl, so even an integrated GPU fits your needs.
        How do you equate that? I count myself as "professional 3d" while also using FOSS.

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        • #24
          Originally posted by chris200x9 View Post
          60+%

          >barely a fraction

          Ok troll confirmed.
          Why people keep with such misinformation about the catalyst drivers?

          In those test the 7950 performs on average 20-30% less than the gtx680 (sometimes better than this, sometimes worse),
          Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite


          which is exactly what happens in windows too:
          Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 im Test: Ein kleiner Titan. Ganz groß. / Testergebnisse / Leistung ohne AA/AF / Leistung mit AA/AF


          I really don't see why people spread such lies about catalyst performances.
          This without even counting the inconsistent behaviour of the Nvidia drivers ("old gtx 4xx and 5xx series performs horribly in the phoronix review, yet no one complains about that)
          Last edited by sonnet; 01 September 2013, 05:56 AM.

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          • #25
            Originally posted by sonnet View Post
            Why people keep with such misinformation about the catalyst drivers?

            In those test the 7950 performs on average 20-30% less than the gtx680 (sometimes better than this, sometimes worse),
            Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite


            which is exactly what happens in windows too:
            Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 im Test: Ein kleiner Titan. Ganz groß. / Testergebnisse / Leistung ohne AA/AF / Leistung mit AA/AF


            I really don't see why people spread such lies about catalyst performances.
            This without even counting the inconsistent behaviour of the Nvidia drivers ("old gtx 4xx and 5xx series performs horribly in the phoronix review, yet no one complains about that)
            The catalyst performance in 2d tasks is horrible! kwin, compiz.., flash, vlc/mplayer, the baddest thing in the world.

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            • #26
              Originally posted by Luke View Post
              I am happy with my AMD machines and hate Intel's business practices.
              You, Sir, are my hero.

              Originally posted by pandev92
              The catalyst performance in 2d tasks is horrible! kwin, compiz.., flash, vlc/mplayer, the baddest thing in the world.
              Erm what?
              2d's been fine for... what... over 3 years? Since AMD changed the 2D acceleration http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=Nzk5MQ
              KWin is fine:
              Code:
              [Compositing]
              AnimationSpeed=3
              Backend=OpenGL
              DisableChecks=false
              Enabled=true
              GLDirect=true
              GLLegacy=false
              GLTextureFilter=2
              GLVSync=false
              HiddenPreviews=5
              OpenGLIsUnsafe=false
              UnredirectFullscreen=true
              XRenderSmoothScale=false
              Compiz dunno, not using it. Though AFAIK there are a few tweaks needed in CCSM. Like refresh rate. But again, fine.
              Flash still only supports VDPAU since the last time I pointed it that out (to you if I'm not mistaken), and considering the amount of users who end up removing vdpau to get rid of green screens anyway, as well as Flash being pretty much reaching a dead-end, who gives a feces pile?
              VLC/Mplayer? VA-API wrapper? GL output?

              "Something's wrong with my computer... MUST BE FGRLX!! RAAAAAAAGE!!" Shut it already...

              BTW the original post is over a year old...

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              • #27
                Things are simple:

                GTX680: 3.2Tflops@Fmac64bit or 6.4Tflops@Fmac32bit or 9.6Tflops@32bitTrioperant.
                G80: 500Gflops@32bitTrioperant (Madd+Mul, Mul is an Fmac function, all that is measured as 3Flops).

                Radeon7K: 3.8Tflops@Fmac64bit or 5.7Tflops@32bitTrioperant.
                Radeon6K: 2.7Tflops@32bitDualoperant (equals 1.8Tflops@32bitTrioperant).

                Intel4K(20pu): 220Gflops@Fmac64bit or 440Gflops@Fmac32bit or 660Gflops@32bitTrioperant.

                PS3: 2Tflops@32bitTrioperant. RSX=200Gflops + Cell=6spes*1024bit@Fmac.

                AMD cuts accuracy for FPS in order to be on par with GTX680. Nvidia did that in the past with GTX7800 vs X1970. Benchmarks speak to the driver and not directly to hardware, so accuracy is not possible. The difference of Catalyst (Linux vs Windowz) is that the Linux one has hard cheating enabled only for Unigine and soft for the rest. R600g doesn't cheat but it is better than Catalyst for HD4k- (not in FPS), because it has some OGL4 futures enabled wile Catalyst is on GL3.3. So from this - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/gra...k_5.html#sect3 - now they are on par.

                On the other side, Radeons5k+ have compute functions that give acceleration to some Benchmarks like Coin Mining by 2-5 times.

                Wine is a different thing: ToGLSL works better with Nvidia (many GL extensions), wile WineD3D works only with Nvidia (because targets GL_Nv_Assembly and not GLSL bytecode). ToGLSL is a CPU bottleneck that halves you FPS regardless of the GPU. Now there is a new D3D9_state-tracker for Gallium and a Wine patch, so the tables are turned.

                Nvidia doesn't care for Open Source, so no D3D9_st support. Intel hates Gallium-LLVM system in favor to their own compiler and "Static x86 Linking" - (x86 monopoly), so no D3D9_st support. AMD is not a major contributor to MESA, but they have quality Open Source Gallium-LLVM drivers, So if you have a GPU like HD2k to HD6k (vliw5) then you are a Winner on Linux.

                I change my mind in favor of AMD. Just buy an HD6870(vliw5) and compile MESA and Wine from repos - https://github.com/chrisbmr/Mesa-3D/tree/gallium-nine - https://github.com/chrisbmr/wine/tree/d3dadapter9-wip - add also other patches like awesomium and you are king. If you can't then just wait for a little and someone will have a repository ready. PlayOnLinux may give a solution, like now does with extra pached Wine-awesomium. You can also have e-Coin experiments.
                Last edited by artivision; 01 September 2013, 10:29 AM.

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                • #28
                  Originally posted by PsynoKhi0 View Post
                  You, Sir, are my hero.


                  Erm what?
                  2d's been fine for... what... over 3 years? Since AMD changed the 2D acceleration http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...item&px=Nzk5MQ
                  KWin is fine:
                  Code:
                  [Compositing]
                  AnimationSpeed=3
                  Backend=OpenGL
                  DisableChecks=false
                  Enabled=true
                  GLDirect=true
                  GLLegacy=false
                  GLTextureFilter=2
                  GLVSync=false
                  HiddenPreviews=5
                  OpenGLIsUnsafe=false
                  UnredirectFullscreen=true
                  XRenderSmoothScale=false
                  Compiz dunno, not using it. Though AFAIK there are a few tweaks needed in CCSM. Like refresh rate. But again, fine.
                  Flash still only supports VDPAU since the last time I pointed it that out (to you if I'm not mistaken), and considering the amount of users who end up removing vdpau to get rid of green screens anyway, as well as Flash being pretty much reaching a dead-end, who gives a feces pile?
                  VLC/Mplayer? VA-API wrapper? GL output?

                  "Something's wrong with my computer... MUST BE FGRLX!! RAAAAAAAGE!!" Shut it already...

                  BTW the original post is over a year old...


                  2d fine? Justo now I'm running apu a8 5600k, and 2d performance is very buggy, the xv output cause slow framerates on vlc or mplayer, if I use opengl output and after I try to change the volume etc, all go crazy!! artefacts with kwin and compiz. This with opensource drivers doesn't happen.
                  The performance with gnome shell continue bad! the performance of catalyst on linux makes windows look like a great system xD...

                  ahh and flash run so slow compared to windows or mac osx with catalyst drivers, with radeon opensource drivers, run so smooth.

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                  • #29
                    Originally posted by chris200x9 View Post
                    Nice trolling. So you're saying that you've been using ATI (Now AMD) cards for a long time but now are about to dump them because of crappy linux support? Really? You made it through their REALLY crappy days and just as they're starting to get better your like "AMD is too crappy I'm switching!"? LOL
                    On the REALLY crappy days I didn't even imagine using linux for anything remotely gaming related. But lately I've been using linux much more and after setting up a friends computer that had a nvidia card in it I saw how much better it can be.

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