AMD Linux Catalyst: Hardware Owners Screwed?

[diriel]

Good Point

It will be a couple months before I make any hardware purchases. So, I have time to wait and watch. The more I think about it, who knows, maybe a brand new Radeon would be gtg afterall. Will see!

[Blacksmith]

It would possibly be a good idea to not burn to many bridges behind one in regard to the choice to use AMD or Nvidia as both hardware and software are currently changing fairly quickly, so you may just be "abandon a sinking ship" just before it turns into a "Schnellboot" (Note 1).

Note 1: Schnellboot, literal translation "fast boat", its a german world war 2 torpedo boat widely regarded amongst people that know as one of the best high speed patrol boats ever made.

[diriel]

Packrat

I always keep my old hardware, Just In Case Right now I am running Fedora 17. I can certainly dump it for Ubuntu, but then I would be stuck running Ubuntu again. I am also sure if that if i want to mess with things enough I could probably make the catalyst work again. I have been running Fedora since Version 13.

Have a good one,
Gary
P.S. The open souce drivers have recently seen a nice update, but the cards in question were the newer ones. It would seem Kernel 3.5 has some nice stuff in store. I am currently running the open drivers, but they do not do very good for Blender 3D, nor do they do all they great for the few FPS / 3D games I still occasionally play. Tired of fighting it

[diriel]

AMD Vs. Nvidia

I have just decided, after much thought, to buy an Nvidia card to replace my aging ATI 3870. It took me quite a while to decide this. I want to believe in, and use, Open Source graphics but they left me behind. Screw that! Nvidia may be Blob only but they never left me hanging! I truly hate to say what I just said. But, my mind is now made up. I am not even sure what I will do for Mid-Year 2013 system upgrade. I may just skip it entirely, after all my Q6600 is still chugging along pretty good. Once I get a graphics card that will have current drivers, I will be pretty much covered. Damn I hate saying this...

[TobiSGD]

Thats what i said, but did not especially mention the fx series because many do not think that they are really faster than the phenom ii cpus before. amd combined 2 integer units together with 1 fpu into a functional part. then they used 4 of em for the so called 8 core chips. But you only get 4 fpus, when you compare that to the older phenom x6, there you got 6 fpus. So if you would use the same frequency and expect the same effiency then you have got a 33% increase in integer performance and a decrease of 33% of fpu speed. Depends on your workload if the fx cpus are better or not. But certainly what is lacking is the onchip gpu, they need more space, that means shrink the chip. Most likely amd could easyly add the gpu if they would not use a 32nm process but a 22nm one like Intel does. Maybe amd should ask intel to build the cpus for em, they do not need their old amd factory anyway because they paided em to have got the free choice where they produce now...

You are right, I own a Phenom II X6 and I wouldn't even consider to buy that Bulldozer crap, at least unless they increase the number of modules to 6 or 8. Nonetheless, AMD decided to end the life of the Phenom II, so that the AMD FX is now the best CPU they have, even if we know that their so called "first 8-core desktop CPU" is just a marketing lie.

[Kano]

Thats what i said, but did not especially mention the fx series because many do not think that they are really faster than the phenom ii cpus before. amd combined 2 integer units together with 1 fpu into a functional part. then they used 4 of em for the so called 8 core chips. But you only get 4 fpus, when you compare that to the older phenom x6, there you got 6 fpus. So if you would use the same frequency and expect the same effiency then you have got a 33% increase in integer performance and a decrease of 33% of fpu speed. Depends on your workload if the fx cpus are better or not. But certainly what is lacking is the onchip gpu, they need more space, that means shrink the chip. Most likely amd could easyly add the gpu if they would not use a 32nm process but a 22nm one like Intel does. Maybe amd should ask intel to build the cpus for em, they do not need their old amd factory anyway because they paided em to have got the free choice where they produce now...

[TobiSGD]

It is not the point if the chips have L3 or not. The point is that AMD is dropping support for the only integrated video solution they have for their top of the line CPU, which is uarguably the AMD FX, noting that they dropped support for legacy hardware, despite the fact that it is still sold and that they have not delivered even one successor to this "legacy" hardware and, even worse, they recommend to use the open driver, which is not able to use all the units (UVD), lacks essential functions (proper power management) and has not the same performance as the proprietary drivers.

[Dandel]

All AMD fusion chips lack L3 cache. With a few execeptions all AM3(+) Phenoms all have got L3 on the chip and are therefore faster. Basically the A-cpus are only Athlons (brand name without L3 for AM3) with GPU combined, thats bad for speed records. If you want speed fusion chips are too slow, even if you are an AMD fan. But if mainly need CPU speed and not GPU you usually get something like 780G or 880G based boards - there are no newer chipsets with gfx. And there is no replacement currenty, so they should not stop supporting those boards or there have to be cpus with L3 cache combined with a GPU. I definitely do NOT think that everybody who wants to buy an AMD cpu (for whatever reasons) will go for the slower fusion FM1 cpus...

I do agree that currently the Fusion chips lack L3 cache. However, that does not necessarely mean that the processor is a complete loss. For specific tasks, like Compiling software, The L3 Cache is a must. However, for most end users, there is no need to have l3 cache, and you will not notice much difference in those cases. There are more desktop processors lines from amd that have L3 cache that are currently in production that have L3 cache.

AMD FX series- All Models crurently have L3 Cache. Currently No exceptions are made.
AMD Phenom series - All models have L3 cache. The only exception are models released with a "Propus" Codename and "Regor" Codename. ( as you mentioned )
Phenom II mobile - All models currently do not have l3 cache.

[Kano]

No, but i have got i7-3770S, i prefer that one

[curaga]

Kano, we only have mobile Trinity benchmarks AFAIK. Do you have a desktop Trinity around, being able to say for sure it is slower?