Anyone with HD5870 or HD5850 using recent opensource driver and kernel?

[0xBADCODE]

So, the conclusion so far:
- VLIW5 is less efficient and more complex than VLIW4.

...unless it comes to computations. You see, with proprietary catalyst driver VLIW5 beats VLIW4 on massively parallel computations. In fact it's quite hard to buy HD5xxx cards these days, even used ones. Most of medium and top range cards were bought by those who are doing high-performance computing for fun and profit.

So as for me it looks like compiler issue rather than anything else. In fact, VLIW4 seems to be lite version of VLIW5. AMD just saved some bucks on making smaller cheaper ICs and selling them as "new", "improved" thingies. Sure, they improved TDP. At cost of computations speed . Yet selling cards of same class under same price. Epic marketing win (for AMD).

[crazycheese]

And historical note (1). Forum prevents me to edit post above.

[crazycheese]

So, the conclusion so far:

- VLIW5 is less efficient and more complex than VLIW4. Pre 6xxx are better recycled.
- The key why all Radeons (pre-Northern Island GPUs) are so slow with opensource driver - is absence of efficient compiler or whitepaper how to write it; which AMD is not releasing.

Thats definately not a way to attract customers.

[necro-lover]

They've been shipping for a while. Look at the HP p7-1240 for example...

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03353576&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&contentType=SupportFAQ&prodSeriesId=5187022&prodTypeId=12454

I don't know if individual components are being sold yet but there are a number of desktop systems.

I build my systems by my own hands with retail hardware and there is no FM2 mainboard and no FM2 CPU in the retail market.

ALL people I know who buy OEM systems are stupid than hell because they just don't care.

Also your link and OEM are criminals because: "Operating System :Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); Service Pack 1"

This show your real face Bridgman if you talk about hardware you only talk about windows hardware.

A Linux user must be stupid like hell buying this product with "windows" to support the enemy.

But yes this kind of brain-death logic "Corporatism" is your "world".

[bridgman]

the FM2 desktop Trinity's are not ready

They've been shipping for a while. Look at the HP p7-1240 for example...

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c03353576&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&contentType=SupportFAQ&prodSeriesId=5187022&prodTypeId=12454

I don't know if individual components are being sold yet but there are a number of desktop systems.

[crazycheese]

I think bridgman was referring to the technique here, meaning that APU (trinity, not previous ones) benchmarkings of opensource vs closed source will deliver same difference levels as if when using 6950/70 for this.
Trinity is not yet available for desktop platform.

[necro-lover]

The Trinity GPUs are also VLIW4, btw.

the FM2 desktop Trinity's are not ready and the notebooks are broken by design because of the power-management.

Because of this broken "power-managment" I ordered a Intel notebook for a friend with intel-hd4000 graphic for 450? today.

I'm so sorry AMD but only stupid people buy AMD-Notebook hardware for Linux.

[bridgman]

The Trinity GPUs are also VLIW4, btw.

[crazycheese]

Yep, I agree that a VLIW4 GPU is a bit more future-proof than a VLIW5.

FWIW, I didn't get the impression that crazycheese was planning to buy an HD58xx, just wondering what performance was like these days.

Correct, I was just planning to do it in near future(1-2 months from now). But only if the results are acceptable. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any benchmarks of this GPU especially with open driver up at openbenchmarking. The VLIW GPU is also very solid-looking for non-graphical stuff. Besides, there are Marek&co who actively were seeking the ways to improve the driver.

Now, I forgot that pre-SI GPUs have 5 units/block, yet they are in 1/4 config. So, its either 6950/70 or 7xxx area for me left. 7xxx area is unstable and inefficient, so it seems I have plenty of time.

Have been reading on Itanium VLIW implementation today, and besides mentioning (absent in opensource) VLIW compiler as being the most important and required for VLIW hardware to work efficiently, there was an indication of "special hardware feature" allowing to profile the current execution within VLIW for the goal of improving the compiler itself. What makes me wonder is if AMD is willing to provide the documentation for that mode (in case it was implemented, and not hardware simulations were methods to optimize the execution)?.. Would be real help for pre-NI driver.

my argument was also a "Future" argument *in the Future the 4D VLIW is much better than the old 5D VLIW cards*
I just don't want him to buy a hd5000 card because its technically bullshit in a modern world of more and more complex shaders.
If he buy a hd7970 he buy 4 shaders and use 3-3.5 then he lost only 1-0,5 instead of you buy 5 shaders and only use 2-3 and lost 2-3

I've got and understood your warning in your first post, n-l! Thanks for it!

[necro-lover]

No - the average number of ALUs used per instruction is a bit lower for VLIW4 than for VLIW5, since there are a number of cases where the shader compiler could pack a single component operation into the same instruction as a 4-vector operation. [...]

In general VLIW5 was better for pure graphics workloads, but as compute became a larger part of GPU workload (there's a lot of compute hidden in modern graphical apps as well) then VLIW4 became a better fit.

what kind of graphics workload? raster or ray-tracing ? because ray-tracing graphic load is pure compute workload....

and right: "(there's a lot of compute hidden in modern graphical apps as well) then VLIW4 became a better fit."

why he should buy hardware for obsolete stuff? the 4D VLIW architecture is better for modern games.

The point was that the utilization as a percentage was slightly better with VLIW4.

that was my argument but in the past i read something about a average usage of 3,5