The Latest Linux 5.2 + Mesa 19.2 Radeon Performance Against NVIDIA With Mid-Range GPUs

[Shevchen]

My theory is that if an RX card isn't pushing 2K+ graphics, they just don't need the high stock voltages they come with. Since I'm only targeting 1080p60 on a GPU designed for 2K freesync, there was quite a bit of voltage headroom I just didn't need.

The stock voltages on the RX480/580 are way over the green spot in the factory settings. I was able to set my 580 to 1050mV and was still able to put a hundred MHz on the core clock on top of it. OFC it depends on the silicon quality of your card, but the XFX Black Editions are properly binned "good chips" that show a lot of headroom for tweaking, while only costing ~10 bucks more than the competition.

While I like the benchmarks shown here (and I guess its impossible to tweak every card on its own) it would be nice to see some OC/UV results in reviews for certain cards. To remain neutral, we have to test the cards at stock settings, but in general, the AMD cards show a lot of headroom for tweaking.

As for scripting those values into systemd, I still prefer a VBIOS Flash with the new values - whatever you do or happens with your system, its in hardware. I stress-test and fine tune the values under Windows (because its sadly still the go-to place as it has so many tools for OC/UV/stresstests) and then launch the finished card under Linux.

[skeevy420]

The stock voltages on the RX480/580 are way over the green spot in the factory settings. I was able to set my 580 to 1050mV and was still able to put a hundred MHz on the core clock on top of it. OFC it depends on the silicon quality of your card, but the XFX Black Editions are properly binned "good chips" that show a lot of headroom for tweaking, while only costing ~10 bucks more than the competition.

While I like the benchmarks shown here (and I guess its impossible to tweak every card on its own) it would be nice to see some OC/UV results in reviews for certain cards. To remain neutral, we have to test the cards at stock settings, but in general, the AMD cards show a lot of headroom for tweaking.

As for scripting those values into systemd, I still prefer a VBIOS Flash with the new values - whatever you do or happens with your system, its in hardware. I stress-test and fine tune the values under Windows (because its sadly still the go-to place as it has so many tools for OC/UV/stresstests) and then launch the finished card under Linux.

I have a cheap-ass MSI Armor RX 580 4GB. If any RX is a bottom-bin card it's mine.

My theory is that the RX 470/570 and higher cards are designed around gaming at 2K FreeSync and have stock voltages to cover that. If all one is doing is 1080p60 then there is just a ton of energy being used to cover that 2K scenario that likely won't happen. That's also why I prefer doing voltages in software -- I don't want to bios flash my card with voltages that may only work with 1080p and less and forget I did that in a year or two whenever I upgrade my monitor.