Open-Source AMD HSA Should Come To Fruition This Year

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Open-Source AMD HSA Should Come To Fruition This Year

Back in July AMD published an open-source HSA kernel driver for Linux and since then they've put out more HSA Linux code so open-source Linux users can finally realize the benefits of AMD's Heterogeneous System Architecture on Kaveri APUs. By the end of 2014 it looks like it will finally be ready for Linux end-users...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTc3MTk

[Nille_kungen]

Will Kaveri really have real HSA support?
I think i read somewhere that it wouldn't.

[Kivada]

I knew I should have just PM'd Bridgman about it. Why asking that question never occurred to Larabel is, well you already know what I'm going to say about him.

[Kivada]

Will Kaveri really have real HSA support?
I think i read somewhere that it wouldn't.

You are thinking of Kabini. Kabini is the current low end line consisting of the socket AM1 Semperon and Athlon as well as the soldered on BGA769 (FT3) E1, E2, A4 and A6 APUs that replaces the older Stars cores of the Jaguar and Bobcat lines.

Kaveri is higher performance and geared more toward the mainstream market and consists of the A series chips for socket FM2+ as well as the A and FX series for laptops soldered on BGA (FP3).

Yeah, the names are a bit to similar, which has lead to some confusion.

[GraysonPeddie]

So perhaps Blender could work with Kaveri APU that supports HSA by end of 2014, right?

I will be waiting for either Kaveri refresh or Carrizo APUs next year. I'm either investing in Fractal Design Node 804 (or something better with one 3.5" HDD and one SSD but still small and only supports up to M-ATX motherboards) and a 280mm AIO watercooler system.

[Sdar]

APUs don't seems like the right solution for 3d design software right now... but it'll probably work if HSA compiler is well written.

Anyway Brecht is no longer working on cycles so the development will probably slow down a bit and the devs are not going to be in a hurry to implement something that will only benefit a small subset of users.

Anyway as far as I know this should convert Opencl to HSAIL so if someone with an apu want to give it a try...

https://github.com/HSAFoundation/CLOC

[Khudsa]

A little questions, has AMD abandoned the high end CPU market? No future high end, high performace CPU for the enthusiast market? Or the future for AMD is an high end - high performance APU paired with a high end GPU for the enthusiast - gamer market? Will be an APU with HSA direct rival for Intel core i7 for example?

[xeekei]

A little questions, has AMD abandoned the high end CPU market? No future high end, high performace CPU for the enthusiast market? Or the future for AMD is an high end - high performance APU paired with a high end GPU for the enthusiast - gamer market? Will be an APU with HSA direct rival for Intel core i7 for example?

Current rumours say they have something in store for 2016. If that'll be enough is way up in the air.

[Luke_Wolf]

A little questions, has AMD abandoned the high end CPU market? No future high end, high performace CPU for the enthusiast market? Or the future for AMD is an high end - high performance APU paired with a high end GPU for the enthusiast - gamer market? Will be an APU with HSA direct rival for Intel core i7 for example?

FX series is supposed to see an update sometime between now and mid-2016

[bridgman]

A little questions, has AMD abandoned the high end CPU market?

Nope:

http://techreport.com/review/26418/amd-reveals-k12-new-arm-and-x86-cores-are-coming

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7991/amd-is-also-working-on-a-new-64bit-x86-core

Or the future for AMD is an high end - high performance APU paired with a high end GPU for the enthusiast - gamer market? Will be an APU with HSA direct rival for Intel core i7 for example?

That too.