More RadeonSI Navi Improvements Are Pending

[skeevy420]

No, but I think we can agree that the problem is the presentation on the box which is 50% marketing non-sense. Would be nice if that wasn't the case.

I'd agree if I wasn't basing all of this off of their presentation from the driver download page.

I completely understand hyping up a product on the box. No one would buy a Vega64 if the box said "mediocre performance compared to a 1080" or a 550 if the box was honest and said "close to the worst GPU we offer" or a 560 if it said "gaming GPU for poor people" on the box.

[Brisse]

I'd agree if I wasn't basing all of this off of their presentation from the driver download page.

I completely understand hyping up a product on the box. No one would buy a Vega64 if the box said "mediocre performance compared to a 1080" or a 550 if the box was honest and said "close to the worst GPU we offer" or a 560 if it said "gaming GPU for poor people" on the box.

Right. Looks like bridgman is looking to get it fixed so that's good. I'm all for consumer rights and stuff like that, but I also think we have to pick our fights rationally. Turns out you actually did since you were talking about the driver download page specifically which didn't occur to me at first

[skeevy420]

Right. Looks like bridgman is looking to get it fixed so that's good. I'm all for consumer rights and stuff like that, but I also think we have to pick our fights rationally. Turns out you actually did since you were talking about the driver download page specifically which didn't occur to me at first

I'm glad. Depending on how AMD does their layout, it could make it more apparent that they take Linux under consideration just as much as they do Windows.

Funny enough, none of it effects me that much because I've been an AMD user long enough to know better, but a new user or a company considering switching from Nvidia to AMD or Windows to Linux might see all of that lumped in together and feel a bit misled after the switch.

Nvidia isn't any better in this regard either. Being straight up with what they support on a per-OS basis will allow AMD to one-up Nvidia in the honesty department. The honesty department, e.g. AMDGPU, was my deciding factor for switching to AMD 8 years ago and I'd like the website to reflect that so other people might make the same decision for the same reasons as myself.

[commiethebeastie]

I just checked the pages again (in case I had missed something) and still don't see that. Can you point me to the page ?

EDIT - never mind, I found it. Someone on the web team copied the HW spec page for the selected GPU down below the driver links without taking OS into account. I'll see if I can get that cleaned up.

Is Polaris 3rd or 4th GCN?

[bridgman]

Polaris is 3rd or 4th GCN?

3-1/2th maybe ?

It programs like a 3rd generation part other than a single register bit, but a number of the HW blocks changed to improve performance and save power. From a marketing POV it is reasonable to call it a 4th generation part while from a driver perspective it's still GFX8.

[skeevy420]

Polaris is 3rd or 4th GCN?

3rd under the old/original naming scheme and 4th under the new/revised naming scheme.

GCN Versions
old   new
1.0   1  (SI enabled for AMDGPU else radeon)
1.1   2  (CIK enabled for AMDGPU else radeon; Bonaire/Hawaii)
2     3  (this and below are all AMDGPU only; Tonga/Fiji)
3     4  (revised naming scheme; Polaris/VegaM)
      5  (last GCN version; Vega)

RDNA
1  (Navi)

[skeevy420]

3-1/2th maybe ?

It programs like a 3rd generation part other than a single register bit, but a number of the HW blocks changed to improve performance and save power. From a marketing POV it is reasonable to call it a 4th generation part while from a driver perspective it's still GFX8.

Marketing calls it a 4.

Really annoying, yet understandable, that they revised the numbering scheme. I had a 1.1 and it suddenly became 2 making info a bit difficult to search for.

[bridgman]

Really annoying, yet understandable, that they revised the numbering scheme. I had a 1.1 and it suddenly became 2 making info a bit difficult to search for.

Yep, agreed... we briefly tried going along with the naming conventions the tech media were using (1,2,3 / 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 etc...) but found it just as confusing.

Internally we talk about GFX6 (SI), GFX7 (CI), GFX8 (VI incl. Polaris), GFX9 (Vega), GFX10 (Navi) etc... but in all cases that is only talking about the graphics core, not any of the other HW blocks on the chip.

[societaleclipse]

Yep, agreed... we briefly tried going along with the naming conventions the tech media were using (1,2,3 / 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 etc...) but found it just as confusing.

Internally we talk about GFX6 (SI), GFX7 (CI), GFX8 (VI incl. Polaris), GFX9 (Vega), GFX10 (Navi) etc... but in all cases that is only talking about the graphics core, not any of the other HW blocks on the chip.

I'm still a bit confused as I don't understand why Fiji/Tonga is separated from Polaris in the new naming scheme if AMD considers them the same generation.

[entropy]

Can somebody please explain in simple words what those Primitive Shader / NGG actually are for?

From what I read (might got that completely wrong) it is meant to be an early shader
stage that allows culling and discarding stuff early and much more efficiently. (?)

What's the other part of the story?

Is this a feature that will be a base part of Vulkan and D3D12 and, thus,
something all vendors will implement or is this some AMD speciality (for now)?

So AMD promised that feature for VEGA but could not deliver and now people are speculating
what the reason is? Hardware bugs, software issues, whatever..?

Will NAVI feature NGG?

Thanks!