Place Your Bets Now About The Power Efficiency Of The Radeon RX 480 On Linux

[JonathanM]

Isn't AMDGPU-PRO the closed one, and AMDGPU the open one?

Yes I know that in the PRO there is also shared code with AMDGPU because reasons.

amdgpu-pro is amdgpu + closed source gl, opencl, etc...
amdgpu all open is amdgpu + mesa.

edit: can we just call them amdgpu-pro and amdgpu-open? And if we're talking about the kernel driver: amdgpu?

[dungeon]

Isn't AMDGPU-PRO the closed one, and AMDGPU the open one?

Yup. But you can also say that both are just amdgpu, where PRO variant is sort of optional closed addware to it.

Third option is to look at these all separate if you like

No, all this is AMD's fault as giving the same name to two things leads to confusion.

I don't have confusion, it might only depend on different people POV... someone is even free to imagine 10 drivers there out on 1 if he like

But only two amdgpu variants/paths/drivers are official, one is open(source) driver which is distributed by freedesktop.org, etc.. and second is closed(source) driver, distributed by amd.com...

Do you want to use one or another variant is your choice, both variants are supported by AMD In the end, it is one driver and two variants if you like.

[dungeon]

edit: can we just call them amdgpu-pro and amdgpu-open? And if we're talking about the kernel driver: amdgpu?

Political correctness is problematic to impossible thing, as pro is partialy open too so whatever name you choose someone will complain or disagree. I even came to idea to use "more open" and "more closed" description, just to avoid people talking about closed firmwares on open and to make it sound more neutral for people who think opposite

Basically i like to say AMD on Linux has one amdgpu driver and two variants, where first is more open then second and second which is more closed then first

[eigenlambda]

Stress level at all time high? Yep, check.

you seem to have space and iron pipes around, so make yourself a pullup bar, this is probably the easiest solution to unwanted weight gain.

[juno]

I would not place a bet but looking at some of the open code contributions, polaris might have the potential to improve efficiency on Linux a lot. Of course I don't know how mature the driver code is, but when I read things like "per CU power gating", it could save a lot of power in those exact situations where it is underperforming and not fully occupied. "Just" completely power-gate those CUs that are not working, while keeping the clocks up and not throttle other parts of the chip down -> rather big efficiency boost!(?) we'll see...

[bridgman]

Just a caution - IIRC the per-CU power gating is for Polaris 11 only and the initial test results will be for Polaris 10.

[drSeehas]

... IIRC the per-CU power gating is for Polaris 11 only and the initial test results will be for Polaris 10.

So tomorrow we won't see test results for RX 460 (Polaris 11)? Only RX 480? :-(

[juno]

Just a caution - IIRC the per-CU power gating is for Polaris 11 only and the initial test results will be for Polaris 10.

Oh really? It is not supported by hardware?
That's sad, even CZ was capable a year ago (while I don't know if supported by any production driver)...

https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/...t-4.8-wip#n410
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/...-4.8-wip#n5368
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/~agd5f/...t-4.8-wip#n162

Seems you're right, however

Polaris11 only for now

Does raise hopes... Still a pity it couldn't make it into the release drivers, however I'm not sure about the actual effect, of course...
Still a bit confusing, was P11 planned to be released before P10 initially?

One more day to go, anyone knows the actual time of NDA expiration?

BTW: What are "golden settings"? I wonder all the time...

[bridgman]

Not sure about intended launch sequence; we always talked about them internally as a pair so I imagine the plan was to launch at more or less the same time. My impression was that per-CU PG was for the smaller chip only since that was the one that would see heavy use in laptops.

Golden settings are the accumulation of all the "set register ABC to XYZ" directions we get from the hardware team, turned into a sequenced data table (sequence can be really important) and set up at the start of HW initialization (or presumably on restore).

[artivision]

Not sure about intended launch sequence; we always talked about them internally as a pair so I imagine the plan was to launch at more or less the same time. My impression was that per-CU PG was for the smaller chip only since that was the one that would see heavy use in laptops.

Golden settings are the accumulation of all the "set register ABC to XYZ" directions we get from the hardware team, turned into a sequenced data table (sequence can be really important) and set up at the start of HW initialization (or presumably on restore).

I am afraid from the bad naming(M480 for an equivalent of the RX460), that the M480 price will be to high. I am also afraid that consoles will get again a stronger APU(4.5-6Tflops) versus laptops(2-2.5). I also don't understand why laptops don't get the lowest LP lithography (3-3.3ghz max for the cpu, 0.9-1ghz max for the gpu).