AMDGPU In Linux 4.17 Exposes WattMan Features, GPU Voltage/Power Via Hwmon

[phoronix]

Phoronix: AMDGPU In Linux 4.17 Exposes WattMan Features, GPU Voltage/Power Via Hwmon

AMD's Alex Deucher today sent in the first pull request to DRM-Next of AMDGPU (and Radeon) DRM driver feature material that will in turn be merged with the Linux 4.17 kernel down the road. There's some fun features for AMDGPU users coming with this next kernel!..

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=AMDGPU-Linux-4.17-Round-1

[lucrus]

While these are Good Things (TM), I'm afraid these features will make AMD GPUs even more interesting for miners than for gamers, and mining craze will keep prices high.

Maybe it's time to change my point of view: instead of waiting for the mining craze to be over, I better become a miner miself, so that I find it reasonable to pay that amount of money for the GPU I want...

[NateHubbard]

While these are Good Things (TM), I'm afraid these features will make AMD GPUs even more interesting for miners than for gamers, and mining craze will keep prices high.

Maybe it's time to change my point of view: instead of waiting for the mining craze to be over, I better become a miner miself, so that I find it reasonable to pay that amount of money for the GPU I want...

Yeah the mining thing is annoying. Combined with the ridiculous memory prices and I've decided not to upgrade anything this year. I think I'll just wait another year or so and buy an APU and whatever memory I can afford.

[ElectricPrism]

Maybe set aside a specific amount of cash and wait for a GPU with X performance to hit that mark and just pull the trigger -- idk but the mining thing could be a while.

IMO or you can hop in your car and do a bigass drive to Micro Center, call them on the phone and see what they stock.

[linner]

Maybe it's time to change my point of view: instead of waiting for the mining craze to be over, I better become a miner miself, so that I find it reasonable to pay that amount of money for the GPU I want...

Worked for me back in 2013 or so. Prices especially for AMD cards was insane. I now have stacks of crappy AMD cards from that era. I wish they were nVidia but back then nVidia wasn't a player in the mining game at all. I now use those card for regular desktop stuff and gaming even though the drivers continue to suck.

They paid for themselves (and the electricity) within a month. That was a rare time though, I haven't seen that kind of easy profitability again so don't count on it. Generally it's a break-even or even losing proposition these days unless you gamble on future BTC value (that is, mine now at a loss and hope it's worth more later).

[pal666]

(that is, mine now at a loss and hope it's worth more later).

this is really stupid. if you hope it will be worth more later, no need to mine it, buy it and wait.

[linner]

this is really stupid. if you hope it will be worth more later, no need to mine it, buy it and wait.

Yes indeed. That's why I don't mine any more. I stopped mining in 2014 and have only been trading since.

[AndyChow]

I remember when I used to mine 2 bitcoins a week, and stopped when the price went from $10 to $2, because it was no longer worth the electricity. And then sold most of them when the price jumped to $5, because boy, I wasn't going to be a sucker

But seriously, I bought 32 GB of ram in 2011 for $110. And the RX 480 for $230 the month it came out. Prices right now are insane, and there most definitely is an oligopoly type scheme going on with RAM manufacturers. I hope the Chinese start manufacturing RAM en masse and crush those scam artists.

Mining is (probably) here to stay, but that's an easy excuse. RAM fabs are bottlenecking the industry on purpose, and laughing at us.

But about this article, it's cool that AMD is actually bringing to amdgpu. Espescially the dgpu power cap. On windows, made a huge difference with the min frame rate. I'm impressed by all the progress made. Now if only they could make the OpenGL and GLES API work with KVM, that would be great.

[Adarion]

Yeah, memory prices are nasty. I wanted to upgrade my box (DDR2 800) and needed chips that were fairly compatible with the CL4 ones I already used ... ouch. I ended up with a more modern board with DDR3 (2x16) instead. It wasn't really cheap either but I got much more memory than the other solution.

Mining is a pain. It wastes electricity for what? Some imaginary thing that is now an object of speculation at the stock markets. If they would at least fold molecules or so something of similar usefulness. Rich people got richer, cheating people got rich (using computing center's electric power and cards for their mining, didn't even pay a cent); same old story again. I never checked Vega cause it was out of my range anyway, but the RX 4xx / RX 5xx hurts. I am happy that I some day caught a day where my RX 560 was nearing the original recommended price again, today it's back over the top (even the 560!).
This is nasty because I'd rather have AMD chips out there in the everyday and gaming market than in cryptocurrency farms somewhere in the Chinese desert with cheapo but dirty Chinese coal-powered electricity under unsafe conditions or sucking up Iceland's power (miners use more than the Iceland's inhabitants together!).

And later the market will be flooded with used cards, cards with questionable past-life.

Anyway, good to see that HWMON features are being polished and that we get some of the bells and whistles now that are available on the Windows side.

[lucrus]

Mining is (probably) here to stay

I agree. That's a compelling reason to enter the game for me, the sooner the better, regardless of the current costs balance: I spend a lot at training myself on new technologies, and I can't miss the practice on this one. So, while I want a gaming GPU for my (scarce) spare time, I can consider this as an investment for my job.

On the other hand, now it's not a good time to buy a gaming GPU, and my training can probably wait a few months.

Now if only they could make the OpenGL and GLES API work with KVM, that would be great.

I'm not skilled enough to fully understand the use case here, but I guess it's about running 3D apps/games in KVM guests. If that's the case, I'd prefer assigning the GPU to the (mining) KVM guest via PCI passthrough, and play games on bare metal (after having shutdown the mining guest of course). I feel that's less trouble and less overhead for both activities. Moreover, I'd prefer mining in a guest for security reasons.